G2 Crowd publishes Spring 2015 rankings of the best social media management tools, based on user reviews
Three platforms earn Leader status while Sprout Social tops overall satisfaction rankings in crowdsourced report
CHICAGO, March 18, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- The updated GridSM report for social media management tools, published today by business software review site G2 Crowd, ranks 14 products to help purchasers in their selections.
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150317/182479-INFO
The Spring 2015 report is based on more than 600 reviews written by business professionals.
The GridSM, which is created from G2 Crowd's software review platform, factors in customer satisfaction reported by users and vendor market presence determined from social and public data to rank products.
Social media management refers to software designed for marketing departments and organizations to publish to social media platforms. Users can post to many social media platforms at once, respond to customer inquiries quickly, and work in teams without creating any duplication of efforts.
Social media management platforms have grown in recent years from purely offering publishing features to including social media monitoring and analytics integrations bundled into their products, though there are many standalone social media monitoring products on the market.
To qualify as a Leader, a product must receive a high customer satisfaction score and have substantial market presence. Sprout Social, Hootsuite and TweetDeck were named Leaders. High Performers have high customer satisfaction scores with a smaller market presence than Leaders. AgoraPulse, Sendible, Viralheat, Buffer and GroSocial were named High Performers. Sprout Social earned the highest overall customer satisfaction score.
Across all social media management platforms, reviewers reported the product they use meets their requirements at an average rate of 83%, and on average reviewers said they were 85% likely to recommend the product they use. Products appearing on the GridSM for Social Media Management for the first time are Viralheat, Shoutlet and Sprinklr. In addition, Buddy Media and Google Wildfire both discontinued their services since the Spring 2014 GridSM report and have thus been removed from the GridSM.
Some highlights from the social media management reviews on G2 Crowd:
"I love [Sprout Social's] reporting, the PDF exports, the research capabilities, and the [feeds]. Above all, I can get things done in so many fewer clicks than on other platforms. This makes it a pleasure to use, saves me and my clients' time, and means that I am in a great state of mind when crafting my social messaging."
- Roxanne Darling, Owner at Socialize Your Event
"I manage multiple social accounts and Hootsuite has made the process so much easier. Rather than logging in and out of my 10+ social accounts, I can manage them from one easy platform. The scheduling feature is incredibly helpful to manage a consistent flow of content. I have used HootSuite everyday for the past [two] years and can't imagine doing my job without it!"
- Melissa Mandel, Marketing Associate at CPXi
"We use [TweetDeck] often especially when our TV spots are running within big programs... Now that we have a major celeb sponsoring our brand, its nice to see [tweets] about the spot and the correlation with our brand, and especially when the spot goes live, we see the [tweets] go up meaning our advertising is working!"
- Justin Simon, Media Planning Supervisor at Hudson Rouge
"AgoraPulse makes running contests simple...With this platform, various types of Facebook contests can be run from within Facebook, easily, and in keeping with Facebook's terms of service. It's perfect."
- Daniel Mark Wheaton, Social Media Marketing Coordinator at Master Promotions Ltd.
"The Sendible social media dashboard is truly sensational. In one place you can access and schedule all of your posts, track and respond to interactions and even manage Twitter applications."
- Kelly Kline Burnett, Marketing Manager at KSI International, Inc.
"Viralheat has simplified the management of our entire social media program on a day-to-day basis, and has enabled us to increase the impact of our content through analytics tools."
- Emily Wiechers, PR Coordinator at Udemy
"The Buffer app runs in any browser and makes posting to multiple accounts very easy. Building a post schedule as well as schedule individual posts takes only a few steps. Finally, once [Buffer] is associated with a browser, the Buffer button will appear in every image, making the sharing of external content a [one-]step process."
- Stephen Haberman, Social Media Marketing Consultant at Alchemic Dream
"GroSocial has an easy interface to set up our Facebook [sweepstakes]. The Facebook tab was easy to create, [and] we were able to see who signed up.... It was all fairly simple. [Its] staff [was] helpful and friendly which made it easier to get our sweepstakes implemented."
- Patty Altaffer, Marketing E-Channel Manager at Travis Credit Union
Of the more than 85 software vendors listed in G2 Crowd's Social Media Management category, the 14 ranked products each received 10 or more reviews to qualify for inclusion on the GridSM.
Satisfaction rankings are generated from the user reviews, and market presence is calculated from vendor size, market share, and social impact. Based on a combination of these scores, each software solution is categorized as a Leader, High Performer, Contender, or Niche.
Premium research access can be purchased on the site for $599. These offer the original data for filtering and weighting, as well as individual profiles of each platform with the most helpful positive and negative social media management platform reviews, detailed company information, user satisfaction ratings, feature scores and customer metrics. Future GridSM refreshes will provide updated rankings based on the latest reviews and social data.
Be sure to check out the new GridSM for the best social media management tools and subscribe to the premium research.
About G2 Crowd, Inc.
G2 Crowd, the world's leading business software review platform, leverages its more than 26,000 user reviews to drive better purchasing decisions. Technology buyers, investors, and analysts use the site to compare and select the best software based on peer reviews and synthesized social data. Co-founded by the founder and former executives from SaaS leader BigMachines and backed by more than $4.5 million in capital, G2 Crowd aims to bring authenticity and transparency to business technology research. For more information, go to G2Crowd.com.
SOURCE G2 Crowd
Share this article