If you are managing multiple social media platforms, having a single social media marketing dashboard from which to manage and analyze your campaigns and posts across several different social channels is critical for success. The name for this tool is a social media dashboard, and social dashboards are often considered a vital introduction for improved social performance.
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We already know that most brands leverage 2 or more social media platforms, the latest stat indicating way back in 2015 that this was the case for 91% of brands. One can only imagine that 91% is probably the number today for managing 3 or more social media profiles, from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and more brands, and with higher numbers of brands investing in TikTok and Pinterest, as well.
As you can imagine, the more channels you manage, the more complex managing them becomes, including the valuable insights needed to evaluate your social posts and their level of success. That’s where using a robust social media dashboard can help businesses and brands reach their social media goals.
What is a Social Media Dashboard
While a dashboard is normally thought of as a control center to measure and monitor your most important social media marketing KPIs, most social media dashboards actually include social media management features to provide a truly one-stop solution for your social media strategies.
I have done my best to place each social media dashboard into one of several categories that separate them. Some dashboards have more features or network integrations than others, so pick what you need. For instance, if you are already happy with your social media management tools, perhaps you only need to invest in a social media dashboard that has a strong social media analytics feature. Different social media marketers require different key features, so make sure you use the tools that fit your needs.
Keep reading to discover what social media tools are waiting for you!
Enterprise Social Media Dashboards
An enterprise-grade social media dashboard is typically designed with the large business or MNC in mind. They come with support for several different social media accounts across multiple brands or divisions within a company. For example, a lot of fashion and consumer goods companies have multiple lines with different brand names. As a result, enterprise dashboards often have more features than smaller brands need or want. With that said, they do make the life of a large company marketer easier, with the ability to schedule posts and glean actionable insights.
1. Sprinklr
Sprinklr is a full-service platform that allows you to manage, create content for, and develop teams for social media channels as a whole within a single dashboard. The benefit of Sprinklr is its reach; although all enterprise-grade social channel management platforms provide plenty of features and offer the ability to manage a marketing strategy, marketing team, and social management in a single platform, the ability to not only manage all social platforms, but also to manage teams, conduct research, and develop and manage customer service initiatives within a single platform. The platform offers a 90-day free trial.
2. Brandwatch
Brandwatch is a platform that allows users to manage all social networks from a single place, including social listening, developing and managing influencer relationships and marketing campaigns, and engaging directly with new and potential customers. Operating all of your social channels from a single platform is useful for enterprise level clients, as social media posts alone are not enough to create a winning social media strategy; engagement, post development, and social listening are all invaluable ways to make sure your key metrics are where they need to be. Brandwatch does not list prices directly on the website, instead encouraging interested parties to reach out for a quote.
3. Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a social media dashboard with some serious features. Think collaboration tools, post creation, listening, analytics, and more. In addition, the dashboard covers all of the major networks, except for TikTok. Finally, if you’re an eCommerce brand or have a heavy local presence, this dashboard has special integrations just for you.
4. Hootsuite
Hootsuite has all the basics and more. This includes a complete content creation functionality, social listening/community management, customer service, and analytics and performance metrics. Beyond these basics, Hootsuite has excellent collaboration functionalities and integrations with your other applications. Using Hootsuite, you can save time and minimize repetitive tasks across your social profiles. Don’t need all that? There’s a limited-use version for free.
Social Media Dashboards for Agencies & SMBs
If you run a marketing agency, it’s safe to assume you are managing a large number of social accounts. After all, most of these agencies handle the bulk of a client’s social media activity as part of their service to improve social media performance. To that end, a social media dashboard for an agency needs to be able to handle numerous accounts.
On the other hand, small businesses need to manage their social media accounts, but usually only have one account per network. What SMBs and agencies share is that their social media dashboard needs to think small: most agencies work with small and mid-sized businesses since the big ones have their own department. To that end, these dashboard selections can think large and small at the same time to offer a competitive analysis and features in a smaller market.
5. AgoraPulse
AgoraPulse has all of your basic features, such as scheduling, engagement, and listening tools; however, its strength is in how easy the tool is to use. They have responsive customer service, which is especially beneficial for SMBs because, let’s face it, SMB owners don’t have a lot of time to waste on the phone. In addition, the tool is intuitive and easy to learn. Finally, one of the advantages for agencies is that you can pay per user and account, as necessary. This makes scaling easy and affordable.
6. Sendible
Sendible is similar to AgoraPulse in that they have live, responsive customer service. However, one thing that sets them apart is a mobile app that integrates with all your social media accounts. This way, you can respond to people on social media while away from your computer and improve your social media performance. In addition, they are advertising partners for Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Finally, you can compose posts within the desktop version of the application, with or without Canva support.
Social Media Dashboards for Small Business
If you own a small business, it’s often tough to have extra time to spend on your social profiles, even though it is an important task. With a social media dashboard designed for small businesses, you can get these essential tasks done faster and more easily than you would be able to do otherwise. Small business-focused tools are intended to be affordable and easy to use, offering only the essential metrics.
7. SocialPilot
For small businesses, SocialPilot has a specially chosen set of features. They have all the basics you’d expect, plus a mobile app and browser extension. In addition, you do have some tech support options. Finally, SocialPilot has good content curation tools, which are especially valuable for solopreneurs and freelancers. Finally, you still get a social media inbox that helps you manage customer inquiries.
8. Iconosquare
Iconosquare offers management for your social channels that helps you achieve your ideal social media metrics. Unlike enterprise-level social media management tools, Iconosquare focuses most of its power on Google analytics-style reports and how those can inform your social media campaigns, scheduling, and content options. Part social listening tool, and part scheduler, Iconosquare is a great option for smaller teams of social media managers, and provides custom reports to aid small businesses in maximizing their time on social channels.
9. Buffer
Buffer has two standout company features. In particular, they are specifically designed and priced for small businesses. Second, they are socially responsible by benefiting charity. Other than that, Buffer is a great social media platform for SMBs that want the basics. You’ll get scheduling, post development, and analytics. If you need collaboration tools, you can get them for an upcharge. In addition, you only pay for what you need, and it’s free if your business is small enough. Overall, a great way to get started.
10. Zoho Social
Zoho Social helps social media teams keep a close eye on the analytics they are most interested in, and allows scheduling and monitoring in real time to make sure your target audience has an ideal engagement rate. The custom reports on Zoho Social may also help increase conversion rates and drive greater reach, as they allow users to focus directly on the metrics they see the most benefit from. More social media analytics dashboard than simple scheduler, Zoho is primarily designed for smaller businesses.
11. MavSocial
Other than basic content creation, posting, and analytics, MavSocial has a few other attractions. First, it offers content curation tools. For an SMB tool, this is somewhat unusual. And as I’ve said before, content curation is a great way to demonstrate that you are up to date with recent trends. Second, they have a digital assets management feature, which helps protect your brand online. Third, MavSocial works with TikTok and WeChat.
12. Napoleon Cat
This app has the essentials and is easy to use. Most notable, though, is its emphasis on social media-based customer service. All your social media response activity loads into a unified inbox. Then, you can take appropriate action directly from that inbox. In addition, they have a mobile app. This app lets you do the customer service parts of social media management from your phone, in any location. If you’re an SMB owner, this is a valuable feature. This social media dashboard is suitable for teams, too.
Visual Social Media Dashboards
If you’re an artist or primarily post on visual platforms like Pinterest or Instagram, this kind of social media dashboard may be for you. The nice thing about these is that they specialize in a particular kind of post and do it really well. In addition, you don’t spend so much money on things you’ll rarely (if ever) need. In terms of ROI, that’s always a plus.
13. Later
Later was originally developed for Instagram. It has all the basic features you’d expect from a social media scheduler. They’ll help you with post development, primarily as photo and video formats. You’ll also get analytics. However, the two big features to mention are that they work only with visual platforms. This includes TikTok, Pinterest, and Instagram. They also have significant support for user-generated content. Finally, this social media dashboard is easy to use.
14. Tailwind
Tailwind does two things very well: Instagram and Pinterest. And that’s all they do. Specifically, Tailwind will let you create posts, then schedule them. After publication, you’ll get analytics information to help plan the future. They have recently begun adding more support for Facebook as well as well as their new Tailwind Ghostwriter AI product.
Collaborative Social Media Dashboard for Teams
If you’re an agency or business with lots of people on your team, collaboration may be important. After all, collaboration keeps people from needing to duplicate efforts. In addition, a social media dashboard with collaboration tools helps you get more stuff done faster.
15. Loomly
Loomly is designed specifically for teams that work with the same brand. Although agencies can use it, the system of approvals is built for internal workgroups. With that said, it’s also ready for remote work, given its integrations with Slack and Microsoft Teams. Use Loomly with most of the major social networks, including TikTok and Snapchat.
Social Media Analytics Dashboards
Although analytics is critical for the success of every team, some campaigns or strategies are more analytics-driven than others. This is especially true with brands in highly competitive niches, and with agencies. To that end, some social media dashboard options are geared specifically towards the analytics-heavy brand.
16. Cyfe
Cyfe does a lot more than just social media analytics. Like the last dashboard, it tracks your performance on paid social and other internet advertising. However, what really makes Cyfe unique is the fact that they also integrate with your sales staff. The tool is so comprehensive that they call it a “business dashboard.”
17. DashThis
Similar to Cyfe, DashThis is a multifaceted analytics tool. They give reports on all of your digital marketing efforts, including PPC and SEO. They even watch your email marketing performance. What makes this one special is that they also integrate different pieces of information that you have, and which are proprietary. This lets you see everything you need in one place.
Smart Social Media Publishing Dashboards
Sometimes a traditional social media dashboard misses a few things. Plus, they often run on somewhat older technology. On the other hand, a smart dashboard leverages artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies. Depending on your needs and industry, this can dole out serious benefits for your brand.
18. SocialBee
Like the others, SocialBee integrates both curated and proprietary content. They also help you change the posts as necessary. This both keeps them green and, especially with Twitter, compliant with terms of service. Posts are categorized, and you tell the app when to schedule which category. Then, the app takes care of the rest. You only need to intervene when adding new content or making changes, such as pausing a category. Finally, SocialBee offers concierge services such as content creation for a fee.
19. MeetEdgar
If you’re an SMB, solopreneur, or entrepreneur, check out MeetEdgar. What you do with this platform is add a bunch of content to your library. You can make it within the application. The app also curates evergreen content from many other sources, according to your guidelines. Then, MeetEdgar decides what to post from that library, and where to post it. This adds an intuitive feel to your social media marketing.
Whether you’re a freelancer or the marketing head of a large corporation, chances are that you do a lot of marketing on social media. Unfortunately, this can take a lot of time away from your business or cause you to add an extra FTE. Luckily, with the right social media dashboard you can accomplish most tasks quickly and easily. Check out a few of these today, and you’ll probably find the perfect one.
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Social Media Dashboards FAQs
A social media dashboard acts as a control center that aims to monitor and measure the most crucial social media marketing KPIs. In a social media dashboard, you would want it to have:
1. Keyword insights
2. Hashtag
3. Content Creation
4. Social Listening
5. Analytics
Setting up your dashboard depends on your specific needs, but there are some key steps that should always be taken. Start by setting goals for what content you should monitor as well as what data points you care about. Then choose which networks you wish to track and third-party tools that gather analytics from those networks for your dashboard. Last, customize your dashboard with colors, themes, layouts, and widgets to best display your metrics in a meaningful way.
Social media dashboards are valuable tools for businesses to track their digital presence and measure their campaigns’ effectiveness. Popular examples include Hootsuite, Sprout Social and Buffer, and AgoraPulse which offer comprehensive dashboard capabilities ranging from post-scheduling to analytics reporting. Dashboards are highly customizable allowing users to make decisions based on their organization’s specific needs.
A Facebook dashboard is a tool that makes it easy to keep track of your performance on the platform. It displays key metrics such as engagement, impressions, reach, and demographic data. This data can provide useful insights into any changes you might need to make your strategies and content more effective. With these graphical representations of how well your page is doing, you can easily analyze the success of your Facebook marketing strategy.
To get started in creating social media dashboard in Excel, assemble all of your data points into one worksheet, such as total interactions per post, cost per interaction, time spent interacting with each post, etc. Then use pivot tables and charts to generate insights and help motivate the team to drive greater results. Excel provides an effective platform for intuitive analysis so you can stay on top of any changes in the landscape and make sure your campaigns are always performing at peak levels.
