If you have taken your social media marketing seriously, chances are you are running multiple social media accounts connected to your life as a writer and getting your books out there. These will probably include Facebook, Twitter, a Wordpress blog and increasingly, Instagram – and, depending on the needs of your platform, may extend to Linkedin, Google+, Foursquare, Vimeo, Tumblr, Evernote, Flickr, Mailchimp and more. Scheduling posts, responding to followers and monitoring mentions across all your networks may feel like a job in itself. At this point, you may well want to a one-stop shop to manage your social media network.
The best-known and most used social media management tool is Hootsuite. It allows you to manage all aspects of your social media activity through a single dashboard, letting you publish and schedule content, respond to followers, monitor streams, and use analytics to monitor your progress. A very basic version of Hootsuite is free (https://hootsuite.com/plans/ free) and is ideal for individuals – it supports three social media profiles, allows content scheduling and offers basic analytics. If as a single user you want to upgrade to the Professional payment plan (ten social profiles and increased features), you’re looking at £16 a month, although a thirty-day free trial is available if you want to test it out. From there, Hootsuite’s plans are aimed at business users, and the rates reflect this.