Zoho Social
Any business hankering after the best social media management tools and needing a more efficient social media management platform should investigate Zoho Social. It offers the ability to co-ordinate all of your social campaigns from one single interface, allowing any type of business to schedule posts, keep track of the results and also compile comprehensive reports.
The other benefit with Zoho Social is that it can work alongside other products in the portfolio. That means you should be able to exploit its power even more efficiently by integrating it with the likes of Zoho Workspace, Zoho Campaigns, and Zoho CRM. Being able to work in a one-stop environment will be ideally suite to many companies, especially those who are looking to make workflow activities more efficient.
Plans and Pricing
Zoho always tends to offer an easy way into using its software and that is no less evident than this social media management package. There’s a free 15-day trial for starters, which lets you explore the features and functions without committing to a contract. There’s the option to pay either monthly or yearly too, so it’s fully flexible.
The other great thing is you can switch plans at anytime, meaning it’s quick and easy to effectively upgrade if your business has outgrown its existing package.
If you’re suitably impressed by what Zoho Social can do you can choose from three different plans, with each one having appeal for businesses of different sizes. The Standard edition is cheapest, staring out at $10 per month if billed annually.
Next up, the Professional plan comes in at $30 a month when billed annually, while the trio of packages is rounded out by the new Premium edition, which costs $40 per month when billed annually.
These latter two packages have add-ons too, which means individual brands can be added on at $14.50 per month and team members added at $10 per month on the Professional plan. Premium offers the same thing, but brands costs $19.50 per month, per brand with additional team members costing the same $10 per month.
Zoho Social also comes packaged for agencies too, with the Agency edition costing $230 per month when billed annually, which starts off with an allowance of 10 brands/90 channels, 5 team members and 24/5 email support. The Agency Plus edition costs $330 a month, billed annually, and offers up 20 brands/180 channels, 5 team members and 24/5 email support, making it a real heavyweight option.
Basic features
Even in its most basic incarnation Zoho Social comes packed with a practical array of features and functions. It’s work for 1 brand/7 channels and allows 1 team member and includes compatibility with Facebook Pages, Facebook Groups, Twitter Profiles, Instagram Business Profiles, LinkedIn Profiles, LinkedIn Company Pages, & Google My Business listings.
There’s a neat dashboard interface that lets you monitor posts, carry out multi-channel publishing, schedule your content and compile a publishing calendar. Power tools include a link shortener, activity logging, user tagging and the production of summary reports. An image editor also proves mighty handy if you’re working under pressure.
Professional features
The Professional edition ramps things up a bit, offering 1 brand/8 channel functionality and a 1 team member allowance. You get all of the Standard features plus a ream of others, including livestreaming, notifications, repeat posting, a media library, rescheduling of posts, RSS feeds, messages, the ability to pause and resume content and also the muting and blocking of accounts where needed.
Premium features
Zoho has now added a Premium edition to its portfolio, which is even better suited to larger businesses. You get all of the regular Professional features along with a pile of additional extras. These include the ability to export posts, collaborate between 3 team members and a dedicated reporting dashboard.
In fact, the reporting capabilities of this package is pretty formidable, while there’s the added advantage of being able to use it in tandem with the likes of the Zoho CRM and Zoho Desk products. It can also handle lead generation, so there is plenty of opportunity to get a decent return on your investment.
Interface and in Use
Zoho Social has been designed to offer your business a full suite of tools aimed at improving your social media management fortunes. It certainly a comprehensive solution, no matter which of the three packages you decide to go for. The core structure of Zoho Social is focused around the structuring of campaigns, the subsequent monitoring of your social activity.
Collaboration is a priority too, allowing team members to work together on social activity. Finally, Zoho Social can help with analytics and the production of those all-important reports.
Setting up and scheduling posts is quick and easy and there’s the ability to collaborate using a publishing calendar, create content queues and also curate content as and when it is needed. Zoho Social has been nicely designed, meaning that it’s simple to monitor all of your social media activity, with a listening dashboard, live stream and the ability to send direct messages.
The collaborational aspect of Zoho Social is particularly impressive, with the ability to define workflows, have team discussions and assign roles and permissions proving to be the most practical aspects on offer here. The same goes for the useability of the analytical tools found inside Zoho Social. Lookout for comprehensive stats, the ability to produce custom reports with ease and also the option for receiving scheduled reports for your regular meetings.
Support
All Zoho Social packages come with the same 24/5 email support, which should prove substantial enough for most needs. The Zoho website also comes with a very decent level of help files, tutorials and supporting information designed to answer many common queries.
The Competition
The social media management marketplace is a hive of activity, with plenty of options aimed at helping businesses get more from their campaigns. Alongside Zoho Social you can take your pick from key players that include SocialPilot, Buffer, eClincher, Sendible, Statusbrew, Loomly and Hootsuite, all of which are very decent competitors worthy of consideration.
Final Verdict
Zoho Social has managed to pack in a great deal of features and functions into each one of these three social media management packages. That will make it instantly attractive to businesses of all shapes and sizes, although you’ll really want to head in the direction of the premium editions to get the best from its potency.
That’s especially so if you’re looking for detailed analytics and the ability to produce power-packed reports. Indeed, the Agency editions take that a step further and, while there is added cost involved, there’s no doubting the additional muscle these premium-priced products come with.
- You can signup to Zoho Social here.
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