Essential Tools That Social Media Management Agencies Need
The all-rounder: Flick š
Now, we know we might seem biased (and we are), but our platform is informed and built by people who have worked as Social Media Managers, so we knew exactly what was needed to improve our day to day lives (In fact, I manage multiple Instagram brand accounts myself).
Why is Flick an essential Social Media tool?
Flick is an all-in-one platform that allows you to manage, draft and schedule your content, analyze your performance, and engage in a community of other Social Media Managers in order to share strategy, advice and ask questions.
Flickās scheduler allows you to upload content that you want to post, add your captions and schedule it across Facebook and Instagram (more platforms coming soon). You can either auto-publish posts (including carousels!) or have Flick send you a notification when youāre ready to go live ā itās up to you. Weāll also provide the best-performing times, so you can maximize your engagement from every possible angle. Finally, youāre able to import hashtags that youāve saved on our Hashtag tool, directly to your caption or first comment. Included in any plan, youāll also get access to our hashtag tool (not to brag, but this is what made us big). When you link your account, we are able to assess your engagement and following to make sure we suggest the most effective and engagement-driving hashtags. Just pop in a keyword, edit any search parameters you need, and weāll suggest top-performing hashtags that are low, medium and high competition. You can save these hashtags to collections, and either add them in when you schedule content or copy and paste them directly to your posts. More on how to develop a hashtag strategy here! Donāt say we donāt spoil you, because you ALSO get access to in-depth analytics, including your best-performing hashtags, which tags consistently perform well, the best posting times for your account, engagement, Impressions and more. You can also export your reports when needed.
Finally, and you can do this even if you donāt have a Flick account ā we have a community of social marketers in our closed Facebook group. This allows you to share results, ask questions, join in on conversations, watch live sessions with the team and more, in order to continue to up your game and meet other people within your industry. Thereās also a plethora of free resources on our website, including our Flick Academy of courses, blogs and newsletter. To join, just click the banner below!
Price: Prices start at £7 a month for a Solo account, with our largest plan (including the ability to link up to 12 accounts) costing £40 a month.
When you need to track and manage DMs and comments on a large scale, having a tool to consolidate this is invaluable. Sprinklr is best if you want to add multiple accounts, as it allows you to create boards to manage comments and responses for different accounts, across different platforms.
When youāre on your board for a specific brand or client, you can view all of your DMs and comments sent to that platform. You can also filter by type of response, sentiment, and whether or not the comment has been replied to. Once youāve replied (which you can also do within Sprinklr), you can mark the case as āresolvedā, which means if one of your colleagues logs in to use the same board, they wonāt repeat any of your actions.
Price: On the lower end, this can cost around $100K a year, but their plans are tailored toward each client.
The design guru: Canva š
Canva is every social media marketerās most reliable co-worker. Whether youāre a design pro or donāt know the difference between a JPG or a PNG, Canva is hands down the best tool when it comes to creating branded assets that look professional, but also connect and engage with your audience. You can opt for a free or paid version (weād always suggest the paid version, itās worth it), and the key difference is the imagery and templates you get access to, as well as increased editing tools and the ability to create a ābrand packā with your font, colours etc on the paid option.
You can collaborate with team members, as nominated co-workers can access and edit your shared designs if they need to, which helps teams to be reactive in a digital-social climate. There are also templates for all social media platforms, whether you want to create a quick asset for Stories, your feed, a LinkedIn bannerā¦you name it. For design efficiency, especially when you manage multiple clients, Canva IS the moment.
Price: Free for the basic plan, £10.99/month for Pro and £24/month for Enterprise.
The Analytics lover: Open benchmarks š
Open Benchmarks is a free, open Instagram analytics tool, which allows you to compare your results and performance against other accounts within your niche, of the same account size as you.
You are able to select a follower range that is similar to yours and view metrics up to a year ago. From here you can view average engagement rates for accounts in the same range, click-through rate, growth rate, completion rates, and more. You will also see how many hashtags similar accounts are using, how often they rank on those hashtags, and how unique those hashtags are across their posts.
Price: Free
For creating customized benchmarks and groups: Emplifi ā
If you want to dig even deeper, you can also use a tool like Emplifi, which allows you to create comparison groups including your direct competitors. This is great for comparing yourself within your industry, and understanding whether or not your performance is on track or up to par. They also provide content feeds, which show the top-performing content from the accounts you select to compare against, so you can understand what formats are best resonating with your consumers. Additionally, you can toggle between your client accounts in order to see your own metrics, as well as the share of engagement or following you have as a portion of your industry.
At the moment, the tool has not yet integrated Instagram Reels, so you will only be able to compare feed posts and Stories.
Price: Essential plan from $200/month.
The Creator Studio is a good option for those who are looking for less pricey alternatives when it comes to managing Facebook and Instagram posts. Whilst limited in terms of what you can integrate and link, you are still able to schedule from the Creator Studio, add captions and upload content. One of the most useful tools on the Creator Studio is their extensive music library of sound effects and tracks that are all rights-free.
Often, if you are working with creators or brands to create and publish content, if a product is featured, you will need to use rights-free music, which can be difficult to source. Facebook has searchable tracks that you can quickly download and apply to your videos, which are also available in the Reels library on Instagram.
You can also view monetization options when you are running paid media across your accounts, as well as view insights and manage files.
BONUS suggestion: We also love the InShot app, when it comes to editing content and finding rights-free music that isnāt on Facebookās library.
Price: Free, as long as you have a Facebook business page.
Now that weāve walked you through the essential tools for Social Media Management Agencies, you should be armed and ready to conquer the marketing strategies of all your clients. To learn more about how to up your analytics game, and optimize your performance, just click the banner below!