As freelancers, some days it seems like we are always racing against the clock and finding ways to stretch it. How many more words can I type before my next client call? While this file is uploading, I’ll start working on my next design project. How is it already 3:30 p.m.? Where has the time gone?
If you could, would you wave a magic wand and add a few more hours to your day? We’re going out on a whim here and saying that you probably would. Who could blame you?
However, freelancing comes with specific tasks that require daily or weekly attention. Think: answering emails, nurturing new business leads, and the like. Therefore, it only makes sense that we try to find ways to cut down on time spent doing those repetitive tasks.
Social media management is one such task that, although necessary to any business, takes up a significant amount of time.
A study from the Pew Research Centre and Hootsuite Social Media Barometer Report 2018, the average American spends roughly two hours per day on social media. What’s more, nearly 90% of brands say they use social media to increase awareness and engage with their customers. Also, a study published by the Social Media Examiner found that 63% of marketers spend an average of six hours on social media and 39% spend 11 hours or more each week.
The bottom line: to create, implement, and analyze your social media efforts to ensure they are effective, it requires, well, a large chunk of your time.
Do I really need to invest in another tool?
The writing is on the wall—social media management tools (and the right one at that) can save your hours each week or month, which can help you get back to other pressing tasks.
Whether you’re managing social media for a client or need a better way to manage your channels, using a reliable social media management tool could save you tons of time.
With features like post scheduling, social listening, content composers, and more, these tools are crucial for anyone managing social media accounts.
Set it and forget it check back later
Setting aside time each week or month to tend to your social channels will ensure it gets done and that you see a return. Social media management tools have excellent features that not only help you work smarter but can help you determine if your efforts are working or if you need to head back to the drawing board.
Plus, if there’s a way to save you hours each week, it’s worth a try.
Here are a few things you can do with a social media management tool:
- Create, edit, and preview posts before publishing
- Monitor post performance and understand content trends
- Post updates on the fly thanks to management platform mobile apps
- Schedule posts weeks out at a time
- Manage multiple accounts from one dashboard
- Engage with others on all your accounts from one dashboard
A reliable management tool can act as your social media assistant if you will. If you block out a chunk of time each week or month to create and schedule your content, you’ll not only save yourself tons of time, but you can invest your time in what is most impactful for your goals.
Social media management tools for freelancers
Hopefully, now it’s clear why using a social media management platform can be so helpful, but like most software out there today, how do you know what tool is going to work best for you?
Let’s take a look at a few of our top social media management tools.
Buffer
Buffer brings new meaning to sleek, simplified social media management. With Buffer Publish, you can sync multiple social accounts and easily see what channels have posts scheduled and when.
Buffer Publish makes it easy to edit the content and scheduled time of a post thanks to its intuitive and straightforward interface. Planning social content is quick and easy.
Also, Buffer Reply makes engaging with followers a breeze. Buffer users get the same simplified experience seen in Buffer Publish, which makes keeping track of conversations and interacting with followers easy.
Lastly, Buffer Analyze gives you insight into how your content is faring on each channel. Monitor trends, identify popular content and get the full picture of your social media ROI.
Managing your social channels and learning how you can best improve your content to fit each channel is a no-brainer with Buffer’s suite of products.
Who should use Buffer?
Freelancers who prefer a simplified social media management tool.
Pricing
- Basic — Free
- Pro — $15/month
- Premium — $65/month
For a detailed look at Buffer’s pricing and features, check out their website.
Edgar
Edgar sees your social media management needs and raises you a color-coded organization feature and a convenient browser extension.
With Edgar, you can schedule posts, shorten links, upload and edit posts in bulk, and so much more. Edgar works with all major social media channels including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest.
But what makes Edgar genuinely unique is its content library feature, which changes the way freelancers leverage their evergreen content.
With the unlimited content library, you can upload all the content you wish, label it, and assign a time slot to each category. From there, Edgar will publish content you appointed to that category and time slot every week at that time.
This not only saves you time on scheduling and uploading new content, but it will ensure you actually use your evergreen content.
Who should use Edgar?
Freelancers who have a lot of content but can never make time to push it on their social media channels.
Pricing
- All inclusive — $49/month
For a detailed breakdown of Edgar’s pricing, check out their website.
Zoho Social
Get a pulse on your social media performance with Zoho Social. Zoho Social comes with the features you’d expect from a reliable social media management tool such as post scheduling, keyword monitoring, multi-channel management, post creator, and analytics, but it does much more than that.
Zoho Social goes beyond the basic features. With this tool, you can manage multiple channels, collaborate with other team members, and monitor brand mentions all within one dashboard. Staying up to speed on conversations surrounding your clients or the industry you’re in can be done through one centralized place.
This tool is great for freelancers who manage social media for a client or who rely heavily on social media for their business.
With Zoho Social, you can also stay on top of direct messages and engage directly with followers. Lastly, Zoho Social’s CRM feature lets you see what channels are bringing in the most revenue so you can better allocate your time based on what you know is working the best.
Who should use Zoho Social?
Freelancers who need an integrated management platform for their social channels or their client’s social channels.
Pricing
- Standard — $8.33/month
- Professional — $41.66/month
To get the full breakdown of Zoho Social’s pricing, check out their website.
Wrap up
Time is money as a freelancer, so using the right tools to help free up more if it can make a big difference in your quality of work—and your quality of life.
Social media requires tons of planning, creating, and admin work. Using a tool that can help you make the most of your time and help you improve your content will continually prove its ROI.
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