Week 14 Part A - Social Media Management Tools

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Welcome back readers, thanks again and always for visiting my blog! Today I'm reviewing Social Media Management Tools to see which ones could help me handle the social media for my fake business, Revolution.

sproutsocial clearly defines their product costs, rather than making potential customers sign up first. Nice! Their standard management package allows for 5 social profiles (seemingly unrestricted), scheduled posting, tasking/CRM tools, and limited reporting. Their options improve with more expensive packages. I am certain that I would prefer not to do this work myself. Depending on my budget, and what the other sites have to offer, $89 a month may be worth it.

By contrast, Hootsuite doesn't lay out its prices for ready view, which in my experience, means they're expensive, and they'll have to convince consumers to buy. It also indicates to me that they have nothing unique as compared to other options, and are probably banking on brand loyalty. There's nothing about their page that makes me want to start getting emails from them (e.g., register to learn more.) Zoho Social, Meet Edgar, Loomly, sendible, Buffer and SocialPilot all do the same with their websites, and have missed their chance with me (and others like me, who want facts, and not to be convinced.) I have a thing for transparency.

Every one of these social media management programs self-proclaims themselves as the best, but unless I saw prices, I didn't and wouldn't even bother finding out more. If a company is proud of their product, and if it is indeed the best, that will be evident. If it is a superior product, the price will be worth it. I wish all of these had posted prices because I could have made a chart (of course) and done a line-by-line comparison of benefits and costs. Then I would actually know.

After walking through the other programs and given my preferences, I would choose sproutsocial. As far as budget, I would be happy to dish out $89/mo. of company profits, or even from my salary, to save me from the work that I don't like to do. I'm not sure if sproutsocial quite does enough - but it would be acceptable. And they would have my affinity to their brand for the simple fact that they were open about their prices.

Well readers, I hope this quick read was also a good read. I look forward to seeing you again soon!