I’ve yet to really see a blogger or social SME cover the topic of SMMS tools, from a usage and best practices standpoint; so I figured, I would in this blog.

For those unfamiliar with the term, SMMS = Social Media Management System. For a brand’s social program to be effective and mature as needed to support business needs, tools are needed to help free of the tactical execution to be able to focus on strategy (especially if it’s a one-person show).

There are so many SMMS tools out there today, that it’s hard to keep track yourself. I’ve always relied on local social media get-togethers, as well as Internet social media groups to get the low-down on the standout SMMS tools. In addition, I rely on research conducted by Altimeter Groups and Forrester Research. Both groups offer a both paid and unpaid research on a vary of topics, including SMMS tools.

Before we dive into this topic, let’s cover the functionality most SMMS tools should cover:

• Content publishing
• Community management/CRM
• Contents/campaigns
• Social advertising
• Employee advocacy
• Social listening
• Social analytics

Most SMMS tools today offer all of the above, with the exception of comprehensive social listening and social advertising and employee advocacy (very few offer it today as a business would need it to be executed).

The tops in terms of SMMS tools are as follows:

• Adobe Social – This is a great tool with awesome analytics and ROI tracking; however, you have to be a social superstar to use it. I would not currently recommend this product for large-scale roll-out for a global or regional company, because the user experience is just too difficult or can seem as such for social beginners or intermediates.
• Sprinklr – Again, I love the analytics, ROI and brand influencer/CRM tracking of this tool; but it was built by IT guys, not marketing or UX folks. The overall user experience is not meant to serve audiences, from A-Z. It’s meant for social expert level.
• Shoutlet – This is my go-to tool for most social programs. It has a user experience that can serve anyone with any level of social expertise, and it has fantastic social ads, advocacy, CRM and analytics functionality.
• Spredfast – This is a good tool, and definitely improvements have been made to made it more user friendly. It’s definitely worth giving a second look, if you haven’t given it a first look already.
• Salesforce Marketing Cloud (recently renamed Social Suite) – Fantastic concept, but execution is poor and user experience is not realistic. This is a visionary tool, but fails to really deliver on basic functionality. This is not a tool that keeps it easy in terms of assisting with the execution of a social program.

In terms of social listening, Crimson Hexagon, Sysomos and Radian6 are really the heavy-weights right now in this area, but there are other tools that are coming up on their heels like Brandwatch, Datasift, etc. Currently, your brand will likely need support from a SMMS tool and a listening tool, because the listening functionality of the SMMS tools is not ad advanced and many do not cover monitoring of external brand mentions on, for instance, Twitter or on blogs.

Many smaller and mid-sized SMMS tools are being eaten up by the bigger ones. I suspect large-scale mergers between the bigger SMMS tools in the coming years (2-5 year time frame) as well. We are already seeing some of this – due to the needs, algorithms and APIs of the social networks constantly changing and improving.

Of course, selecting a SMMS tools or social listening one should be based on first an internal audit of what you need to support your brand’s social program (every brand has different needs). After this, come up with a checklist you can provide to sales folks at these SMMS and social listening tools – and then get started with the demo process.

This blog is my opinion; but, it’s based on my experience with these tools, demo’s of the products, feedback from colleagues and research from Altimeter and Forrester.