One of the things I insist on in a social media tool is beauty. Beauty manifests in the aesthetic quality of the user interface and how easy it is to use the tool without reading the tutorial.
A year ago, I chose Buffer over Hootsuite for scheduling. Hootsuite had multiple uses and Buffer was a one-trick-pony but gosh, was it beautiful. I had to get Hootsuite Certified to understand the full gamut of the platform’s functionality and back then, the user interface was intimidating. Now the interface has been overhauled, thankfully. But, it still requires significant computing power & Internet speed to run smoothly.
As social media platforms begin to roll out native enterprise level tools (e.g Facebook Business Manager), 3rd party management apps will need to up their game. They need to convince social media managers to pay for something they can essentially get for free.
Dear social media manager, if a tool does not save you time & money and is aesthetically ugly, don’t use it. If the tool requires huge Internet speed or significant memory space to run smoothly, don’t use it. If a tool isn’t instinctive such that, you understand how to use it in minutes and if the instructions are not clear enough, don’t use it.