When I first started blogging in October 2013, I knew that social media was important. I would manually type in my tweets and my Facebook posts each time a new blog post would come out. I know, it was like I was living in the early 1800’s. Manually typing my tweets and posts?? That’s crazy, you must be saying to yourself right now. But, wait just a minute before you pass judgement on me…
Soon after my blog launched, I found out that there was a way to schedule your tweets and posts through a wonderful product called Hootsuite. This social media management software would schedule my tweets and posts and allow me to see mentions and lots of other neat information about my different social media platform. I was pleased with it at the time.
But as the weeks went on, I found myself wondering if there was a way to know how many people were clicking on the links to my blog from my tweets and posts. Sure, I could look and see an aggregate number through Google Analytics of the traffic sources and how many came from Twitter and Facebook and so on… But, I wanted to know which tweet was getting the most clicks and which Facebook post was getting the most clicks. And here’s why:
If I know which are getting the most clicks, then it will help me better craft my tweets and posts. I guess it’s similar to A/B testing in a way. If I have one tweet to a specific blog post that gets no clicks and then I have another tweet to that same blog post that has 5 clicks, then there must be something about the way I wrote the one that had 5 clicks and I want to try and replicate that. Make sense?
Hootsuite did not give me that as an option. There are many great things that Hootsuite will do, but this is not one of them.
I found, however, that Buffer will do this.
Not only will Buffer let me see how many people are clicking on each post/tweet, but I’ve also found the interface easier to interact with and the blog posts that they write have helped me tremendously. Now, please don’t get me wrong, I think Hootsuite is doing a lot of things right. And, there are things that Hootsuite can do that I wish Buffer could. But the value of this simple piece of analytical information was enough for me to make the switch. And, I’m glad I did!
But, don’t take my word for it – try it for yourself and see what you think…
Do you already use either of these social media management softwares? If so, which is your favorite and why? Post below and let me know…