Having a social media strategy is crucial for charity fundraising, building support, boosting volunteering and connecting to a wider audience. Charities can now connect with their communities through stories, posts, videos, forums using powerful platforms like Instagram or Facebook.

However as any charity or SME marketer knows, managing all these accounts can be challenging and at times overwhelming. One of the ways to overcome this is to use social media management tools.

In fact Social media guru Zoe Amar, one of the charity sector’s leading experts in digital communications and marketing advises that social media can be managed in under 30 minutes a day.

A recent survey by Social Misfit Media found that despite frequently posting on social media, charities were slow to integrate social media into their overall digital strategies.

Given their limited resources and digital skills, many charities and SMEs find managing multiple platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook etc. can be overwhelming despite the willingness to engage.

However, help is at hand as there are now a range of social media management tools to help charities craft social media posts, schedule, monitor and analyse post performance. Below are five top tools to suit every size of charity and budget.

 

Lightful helps deal with posts, scheduling, access rights, and tone across an entire organisation. Lightful works with charities to drive maximum impact from their social media, and is already being used by the likes of The Big Give, London’s Air Ambulance, Guy’s St Thomas, and many others. Pricing: Free 30 day trial. For grassroots movements, use is free of charge. Otherwise, packages range from £35 to £100 for the management of between 10 to 50 social media accounts.

 

 

SocialPilot helps streamline social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, GoogleBusiness, Pinterest and Instagram. Through its analytics, SocialPilot can extract data from specific social media pages, identify ‘influencers’ and advise on audience statistics. The platform can also track audience growth over time. Pricing: Depends on the number of accounts managed, with packages available from around $25 per month. There’s a 30% discount for charities.

 

 

Buffer helps organisations save time and resources by aggregating social media platforms together into one view. Buffer has an easy to use dashboard that enables users to extract data analytics. Buffer also offers free expertise to help users maximise their audience reach. Pricing: Packages vary across the number of social media accounts, users, posts, and reporting. The flexibility in pricing means that charities can select the metrics that matter most. Monthly rates range from $15 to $220 or so per month, depending on the chosen functionality.

 

 

Part of the Twitter family, TweetDeck is a social media dashboard enabling users to manage multiple accounts. The platform is easily accessible via an internet browser or a client desktop application. Tweet Deck also allows users to collect statistics on their Tweets. Pricing: Free of charge.

 

 

Targeted at larger, more sophisticated charities, Hootsuite offers comprehensive social media management services across 35 social media platforms. Hootsuite enables users to schedule content, post across multiple accounts, derive analytics, monitor performance, and control individual user access rights. Sophisticated users to build customisable reports based on over 200 social media metrics, allowing them to do their own data crunching and interpretation. Pricing: For individuals/small charities managing a few accounts the platform is free to use. For larger charities there’s a 30-day trial with pricing plans starting at £25 per month.

Read full article here at: https://www.charitydigitalnews.co.uk/2019/06/19/the-best-social-media-management-platforms-for-charities/

Let’s grow your charity! ELC Associates can help you build a more successful charity, increase your donations and boost your supporters and volunteers through strategic marketing and PR. Here’s how it works.