Likelihood to Recommend Best suited for a marketer that cares about reports, needs a social media management platform and doesn't want to pay more for a more aesthetically pleasing version of a platform with the same or less functionality, such as Hootsuite or
Sprout Social . For a social media marketer that wants to automate some of their postings, the queues feature is great for this functionality. Not best suited for beginners to social media, as their platform is best utilized with someone familiar with the industry that knows what they are doing. Their chat support team is very good though, but this type of individual might find themselves spending a lot of time on the platform.
Read full review Determine what your research question or customer relations needs are to pick a tool that is a good match.
Read full review Pros eClincher supports nearly every social network and connects to a large number of sources (blogs, bit.ly, Google Analytics, Google My Business). This makes workflow tremendously easy. Posting Groups. At higher levels of service, eClincher allows you to set-up individual brand accounts. My agency isn't at that level, so we utilize eClincher's posting groups to make 1-click groups that post to all of the profiles for each client. This allows us to quickly post a cohesive message across all channels. Workflow management: eClincher adds plenty of additional tools to make your workflow fast. Connections to free stock photo services make it easy to add generic pictures to your content. Google Analytics and bit.ly can keep track of statistics and measure success. The Inbox allows you to handle all your clients' accounts from one screen (including comments, messages, reviews, and more). The Feeds and Influencers tabs allow you to understand your market and what's being said. Altogether, eClincher makes a 1-app solution for Social Media Management. Read full review Using volume and association metrics to assess and predict trends and emerging topics Use the articles metric to drill down into specific posts, such as tweets, Facebook, blog comments, news articles General Sentiment has the ability to access password protected sites to access information that may not normally show up in standard internet searches Read full review Cons It's not very visually appealing, but this is not a dealbreaker. The reporting features could definitely use some work. I still get more value from the native SNS pages, but this is quickly changing. They removed the "export to CSV" functionality, but they plan to reintroduce it soon. As mentioned previously, they really respond to criticism well and update the tool constantly. The inbox could use some work. I don't like being directed offsite to view certain comments deemed "requests for further info" when they could just easily display them there. Read full review The application does take time to start gathering data on a specific topic. As such, its important to include as many keyword search topics as possible, and also be sure to refine them as you gather data. The user interface isn't particularly intuitive, there is some work that could be done to streamline its use. Read full review Likelihood to Renew Unless the price of eClincher moves to a point where it is too much to justify, I don't see any reason why we wouldn't continue to use eClincher for our agency. The value at this price-point is unbelievable and we'd be foolish to move to a pricier program purely for the sake of slicker graphics or UI. eClinchers pricing is fantastic, and is only matched by its functionality—it matches or beats any of the major Social Media Manager SaaS programs out there for a fraction of the cost. This tool is great for growing agencies, but would also be useful for any marketing department or large agency that wants to streamline their social media workflow.
Read full review Social media tools are constantly evolving. I would want to be sure that my research question was complimented by the metrics and options presented by the social media tool. General Sentiment is very useful and innovative and their customer service was excellent. Their sales and customer service team was very helpful in onboarding our staff and being flexible with our needs.
Read full review Usability Its usability was good until they changed their plans and stopped their LTD program for its early adopters who helped raise the tool by giving it positive reviews. I don't think eClincher is ethical in any sense based on the recent actions.
Read full review Support Rating [In my experience,] due to the fact that they did a bait and switch on their plans and blamed AppSumo for the lifetime program ending is simply wrong. [I believe that] it's unethical to get support and reviews from their early adopters then take the plan away later.
Read full review Implementation Rating Be patient. eClincher isn't perfect and has some software issues. These issues will be exacerbated if you get frustrated or have a slow connection. If something "breaks" or locks up, just refresh the page and re-do that step. It may take your team a couple weeks to get use to using the new system. Once they've gotten the hang of it, I'm sure they'll love the amount of time they save. I'd recommend taking your time with the set-up. Though there aren't a lot of steps to get everything squared away, you can break the process into small chunks to make sure you're managing your time. To just hook-up all the social accounts, it may only take an hour or so. But, if you want to set-up all the extra tools (such as user accounts, listening feeds, posting groups, schedules, etc.) it'll take longer. I think it took around a day to set-up completely, but your mileage my vary.
Read full review Alternatives Considered There are loads of social scheduling tools out there. I was using Buffer but then found it was limited in terms of listening and reporting so I started to look at a more professional software. I tried
Hootsuite but hated the interface, way too busy with the primary focus being on feeds rather than scheduling.
Sprout Social I found clunky and hard to use. eClincher was recommended to me by a friend. I think the interface (desktop and mobile) is easy to use but what sets it apart is its support - the live chat is brilliant.
Read full review Return on Investment Makes it much easier to manage our social publishing Makes it much easier to manage our social engagement Makes it much easier to manage our social reporting Read full review Social media analytics can accelerate the speed with which researchers can investigate a topic of interest, at a lower cost. Due to the low barrier to entry (e.g., most social media sites and blogs are free), data collection burden, as traditionally defined, is significantly reduced or eliminated. The absence of direct interactions between researchers and the study population may do more to mitigate sources of bias compared to other more intrusive forms of data collection (i.e., interviews, focus groups). Used to to gather unstructured data and feedback from Medicare beneficiaries, caregivers, advocates, and other stakeholders to identify systemic issues that beneficiaries encounter. Read full review ScreenShots