Social media is the most powerful marketing channel most businesses have, and running it well is a tooling problem before it is a creative one. This article compares the features that matter in a social media management tool, and then puts our own favourite, eClincher, against Hootsuite and Zoho Social on price, trials and integrations. Every figure below is as published in July 2021 and should be checked against each vendor before you buy.
What social media management tools are
A social media management tool is software that lets a team schedule and share content across networks from one dashboard, and answer the engagement that comes back in the same place. They are designed for entrepreneurs and freelancers as much as for agencies, and the reason they exist is that companies spend heavily on content and then discover that monitoring it, and making decisions from it quickly, is a separate job with no home. Doing both from one screen is what these products sell.
The ten features to check before you choose one
A tool that is missing several of these will push the work back into the individual channels, which is the problem you were solving. The ten:
- Monitoring and listening — people engage with your business across different platforms, and a tool should surface the queries, mentions, keywords and other data those platforms generate.
- Scheduling — a social media calendar lets you see and plan content ahead of time, adjust it, and leave it to publish automatically. Studies suggest there are better moments to publish, based on traffic variation that may not fit your working hours.
- Engagement — posting is not enough on its own. You have to answer your audience, and approved suggested replies save time on the questions that repeat.
- Analytics — without data on each channel and each post you cannot measure success. Set the goals you want performance measured against before you start.
- Security — where several people work across the same channels, permissions matter, and you want a notification if suspicious activity is detected.
- Team collaboration — live activity updates stop two people answering the same message, which is the most common way a small team wastes its time.
- Keywords — tracking your brand’s keywords keeps you relevant, and it is a good way to find followers likely to be interested in what you do.
- Social media ads — advertising is how the message reaches beyond your followers, and targeted advertising puts it in front of people whose interests match the product.
- Content library — approved images and graphic elements in one place keep the brand identity consistent across channels, which is how customers come to recognise you.
- Support — social platforms change constantly, so check the vendor is in a position to help when something breaks.
- Monitoring and listening surface mentions, queries and channel activity
- Scheduling places planned content on a shared publishing calendar
- Engagement brings audience replies into one working queue
- Analytics connects channel activity to the goals chosen by the team
- Security and permissions control who can act through each account
- Team collaboration makes live work visible and reduces duplicate replies
- Keyword tracking follows the subjects and brand terms that matter
- Social advertising extends selected messages beyond existing followers
- A content library keeps approved visual material available to the team
- Vendor support provides a route when platforms or integrations change
eClincher against Hootsuite on price
eClincher and Hootsuite are both well known and widely recommended, so the comparison has to be plan against plan. As of July 2021, the eClincher Premier plan cost $119 a month and covered 3 users and 20 profiles, with 5 more profiles available for $30. It included an all-in-one social inbox, a visual content calendar, scheduled posts, multi-channel posts, and auto-posting queues with RSS.
Eclincher provides Auto Post with smart Queues and Auto Post with RSS Feeds for the sake of time-saving. The first is used for scheduling and deleting posts once published; the second connects any RSS or Atom feed so new content publishes automatically to any of your profiles.
Hootsuite’s Team plan cost $99 a month for the same characteristics except auto-posting queues and RSS, which was not available on that plan. It offered 20 social profiles, unlimited scheduling and 3 users, with an Enterprise plan for custom requirements above that.
eClincher against Hootsuite on trials and integrations
The trials differ in what happens if you do nothing. eClincher gave 14 days of access to all plans without payment information; add a card during the trial to continue, or the account expires. Hootsuite offered a 30-day trial that you had to cancel or be charged for, with no automatic cancellation.
Eclincher offers integration with leading 3rd party applications such as Google Analytics, Canva, Bitly, Zendesk CRM, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and LinkedIn. Hootsuite offered almost the same set, without Google Analytics and LinkedIn, and added Mailchimp, Slack, WordPress and Zappier. On the price-performance ratio, eClincher came out ahead in this comparison without giving anything up in quality.
eClincher against Zoho Social
Zoho Social has been on the market longer than eClincher, and the two are further apart than eClincher and Hootsuite. eClincher offered three plans between $59 and $219 a month; Zoho Social offered five, between $15 and $400. Comparing the Agency tiers as they stood in July 2021: the eClincher Agency plan cost $219 for six users and 40 social profiles with unlimited brands, and unlimited Auto Post with Smart Queue plus 10 Auto Post RSS feeds per brand. Zoho Social’s equivalent cost $275 for five users, 8 social profiles and 10 brands, with publishing queue slots for a posting timetable and 20 RSS feeds.
The trials also differ in what you are left with. eClincher’s 14-day trial expires if no payment information is added. Zoho Social starts you on a 14-day Professional trial and then moves the account to a free plan with lifetime validity but limited features — one team member, one brand, and publishing to 7 channels.
On integrations the gap is the widest: 26 for eClincher against 8 for Zoho Social. Zoho Social listed Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Worktato, Google My Business, Zoho CRM and Zoho Desk, and the last two were charged on top of any plan. eClincher listed Dropbox, Google Drive, Feedly, Zendesk and Yelp among others.
Why our own social team uses it
Delfina, Head of Social Media at Global Wizards, says eClincher improved her work in three specific ways: it enlarged the number of accounts she could handle, it made publishing and scheduling posts easier, and it sped up delivery to clients.
“You can plan, create and schedule content in a visual calendar with tag suggestions according to the topics related. When you want your client to see what you’ve done, there is an ‘Approval’ section where the customer logs in and has the opportunity to edit, modify or leave some comments and approve, or not, your work”
— Delfina, Head of Social Media at Global Wizards
The client-approval step is the part that changes an agency’s week rather than an individual’s day. Alongside it sit the more ordinary strengths — suggested content, free media libraries, a scheduler and visual calendar, a mobile app and a Chrome extension — and customer service with 24/7 live chat support, which is why users rate it against tools with far larger followings.
Choosing the tool is the easy half; deciding what to publish through it is the part most teams get stuck on, and it is closely tied to how you use social media to attract customers and to how important your digital presence is in the first place. If you would rather hand the whole thing over, talk to us about running it for you.
Frequently asked questions
What are social media management tools?
Social media management tools are software that lets a team schedule and share content across social networks from one dashboard and respond to engagement from customers and prospects in one place. They are built for entrepreneurs and freelancers as much as for agencies, and their value is that monitoring and publishing stop being separate jobs.
Which features should a social media management tool have?
This article names ten: monitoring and listening, scheduling, engagement, analytics, security and permissions, team collaboration, keyword tracking, social media advertising, a content library, and vendor support. The list is the checklist to take into a trial — a tool missing several of them will push the work back into the channels themselves.
How much did eClincher and Hootsuite cost when this article was published?
At publication in July 2021, the eClincher Premier plan was 119 US dollars a month for 3 users and 20 profiles, and the Hootsuite Team plan was 99 US dollars a month for 3 users and 20 social profiles. These are the prices as they stood then, not current ones — check each vendor for what its plans cost today.
What is the difference between the eClincher and Hootsuite free trials?
eClincher gave 14 days of access to all plans without payment information, so an account that was not converted simply expired. Hootsuite offered a 30-day trial that had to be cancelled to avoid being charged, with no automatic cancellation. Both descriptions are as of this article in July 2021.
How do eClincher and Zoho Social compare on integrations?
eClincher offered 26 integrations against 8 from Zoho Social. Zoho Social listed Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Worktato, Google My Business, Zoho CRM and Zoho Desk, with the last two charged on top of any plan; eClincher listed Dropbox, Google Drive, Feedly, Zendesk and Yelp among others.
Why does Global Wizards use eClincher?
Delfina, Head of Social Media at Global Wizards, says it improved her work in three ways: it enlarged the number of accounts she could handle, it made publishing and scheduling easier, and it sped up delivery to clients. She singles out the Approval section, where a client logs in to edit, comment on or approve work before it goes out.
