A closer look at social media tools that allow racing and performance industry members to boost engagement.

Numerous social media tools are available to help manage and schedule posts to multiple platforms, creating greater efficiency and organization for social media marketers. These tools can streamline the workflow, help save time, pull analytics reports, and more.

Many of these tools offer free plans with the option to upgrade to a paid plan for more features. Some of these programs include Sprout Social, Agorapulse, Brandwatch, Later, and many more. Deciding which tool is right for your company depends on your key needs. “Each experience I’ve had, from the native platforms to third party apps and what I use now, I’ve learned they each have unique strengths and can be equally beneficial depending on the goals of the individual or business utilizing them to manage their social presence across platforms,” noted Sal Nicosia, social media manager at Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA), Diamond Bar, California.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the options.

Edelbrock Group in Olive Branch, Mississippi, currently uses Agorapulse mainly for its user-friendly elements. “It feels a lot like what most people are used to when using direct social media apps,” explained Roddy Merritt. “While there are some limitations within the platform, the ability to schedule across multiple platforms, including TikTok and YouTube, are very helpful.”

Agorapulse has some unique features, like competitor analysis and social listening. Additionally, “Agorapulse has great chat and customer service features, and this would be one of the main reasons for choosing the platform,” Merritt said.

Nicosia at SEMA has used various third-party management tools including Sprout Social and currently Brandwatch. “Brandwatch is a more advanced tool that allows large businesses or organizations to manage social and utilize the standard features of a social management tool with the added layer of brand management,” he explained. “It allows users to create data dashboards that show social stats, top performing posts, sentiment of accounts based on keywords, and more. The tool is designed to allow for campaigns to be scheduled, and posts can be incorporated across the time span of the campaign.

“My favorite feature in Brandwatch is the ‘Iris Assistant,’” Nicosia continued. “This AI-powered, in-app feature helps improve captions by making text longer, shorter, suggesting synonyms and even emojis that can be used to help create more eye-catching social copy. Brandwatch also has integrations to other outside applications such as AirTable, where forms can be created for stakeholders to request social media posts and even provide assets and copy to the social media or marketing manager/team.”

Turn 14 Distribution in Horsham, Pennsylvania, utilizes Facebook/Instagram’s native tool, Meta Business Suite. It “has a robust offering that covers our Facebook and Instagram accounts semi-seamlessly and for free. It’s nice that it has the built-in functionality to repost, tag pages, and schedule while offering metrics across both platforms,” noted Kyle Crawford, digital media manager. “We also use Later for enhanced analytics, additional channel scheduling, and our trusty Linkin.bio referral.”

John Comeskey, digital marketing manager at Forgeline Motorsports in Dayton, Ohio, has developed his own social media scheduling system. He uses a cloud app called Evernote in combination with Google Drive cloud storage. “Within Evernote, I create a Note for each possible post. These posts are lumped together within Notebooks (aka folders) specific to working ideas versus actual scheduled posts. Once I decide to insert that post idea into the actual schedule plan, then I simply move it into the ‘Current Planned Posts’ Notebook and amend the title of the Note with the date. Then all of my scheduled posts become listed within the ‘Current Planned Posts’ Notebook in order by date,” Comeskey explained. “Each Note contains the post title with date, the full written post description, a link to the Google Drive folder that contains the images, and a checklist for each social channel to where it should be posted.”

These are just a few of the options that exist, but several others include Buffer, HubSpot, Reputation, Khoros, Zoho Social, SocialBee, Crowdfire, Social Pilot, MavSocial, Sendible, Tailwind, Sprinklr, and more.

Decide the key social media needs of your organization and which features would be most beneficial, as well as your budget. Then choose the most efficient social media scheduling and management tool for your team…or develop your own!