eClincher: The Best Social Media Management tool for Small Agencies
Updated April 23, 2019
eClincher: The Best Social Media Management tool for Small Agencies
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with eClincher
My agency uses eClincher to manage the Social profiles and Google My Business pages for all our clients, as well as ourselves. Since we have multiple clients with different social needs, numbers of profiles, and posting frequency, we needed a solution that offered us lots of flexibility without increasing costs. One of our biggest hurdles when choosing a Social Media Management platform was finding one that supported a wide range of platforms (Instagram, Google My Business, Pinterest) but also allowed us to create posting groups for our different clients. eClincher was one of the few (if not the only) platform that offered everything we needed.
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.
Cons
- Appearance: I don't mind the bare-bones look of eClincher (I like the functionality, and would rather have more functions than form). But, I think eClincher will continue to be a successful competitor to some of the bigger Social Media Managment SaaS with more attractive front-ends.
- Bugs: There are a lot of little bugs that pop up that make for less than seamless experience. Occasional lock-ups or form breaks that need a full refresh to reset are particularly noticeable, though not unexpected.
- The App is still new, so much of the usability and functionality is missing. Some additional development and UX/UI testing should improve the App functions.
- When you post a message across multiple platforms, sometimes the post or image isn't in the correct format (e.g. too many characters for Twitter, too long of a video of Instagram). It would be convenient to have a quick solution to post a variant for that channel. As in, if I craft a post for 5 different networks, but it is too long for Twitter, give an option to edit the Twitter version of the post without changing the other platforms. [Right now, my solution is to copy the information, remove the channel in question, schedule the post as is, then create a new post specifically for the offending channel. Not an elegant solution, but still easier than posting directly to the channel.)
2 - One of the people in our organization that uses eClincher is a digital marketing strategist that focuses on SEO, social marketing, and other forms of digital marketing. He handles most of the clients and posts, as well as responding to messages, comments, reviews, and more. The other person is in a more leadership position, but handles the social media for a few of the clients due to industry knowledge and familiarity with the product.
- I estimate that I save around 5-10 work hours each month. It may be more, but I want to put a conservative estimate here. eClincher reduces the amount of time needed to post to each channel, collates all the notifications into one stream, and offers time-saving tools that streamline social media management for multiple clients. This saves me time that I can spend on other projects or client acquisition. Which in turn, could reduce costs for clients or my agency as a whole.
- Scheduled posting allows me to "bank" time (use excess hours or downtime to store posts for later time periods where I may be busier), but it also frees up my weekends and evenings with scheduled posts. Though some platforms offer post scheduling natively (Facebook), many others do not (LinkedIn, Instagram). This offers better time management (especially on fixed-hour contracts) and a healthier work-life balance.
- Hootsuite Free, Hootsuite Pro, Buffer, Sendible, Everypost, CoSchedule, MavSocial, Tailwind, MeetEdgar, Sprout Social and AgoraPulse
In my quest to find the best Social Media Management software, I tried just about every service out there (scrolling through Capterra, TrustRadius, and G2 Crowd to find new programs). I was able to go for about 4 months on free trials alone and kept a log of the pros and cons, and weighed those against time saved and cost. Though there were many "prettier" options out there, eClincher had the most options at the best price point. It also had the best growth options for growing agencies.
eClincher Feature Ratings
Using eClincher
2 - eClincher is pretty simple to use and doesn't require a lot technical know-how to operate. Anyone who has a decent amount of computer knowledge and set-up the account, connect the services, and create the posting groups. If you have a social media manager or digital marketing expert in your business, they could probably have this up and running within an hour or two.
On going maintenance is mostly just reconnecting the API keys (usually a 1 click process) or connecting new accounts. If you've ever used your Facebook account to log into something, then you should have no problem setting up and maintaining eClincher.
On going maintenance is mostly just reconnecting the API keys (usually a 1 click process) or connecting new accounts. If you've ever used your Facebook account to log into something, then you should have no problem setting up and maintaining eClincher.
- Multiple Client Social Media Management: We have multiple clients, all with varying needs, eClincher gives us a single platform to monitor all our clients and all of their respective social channels. We especially like being able to post to all social channels from one single location. eClincher gives warnings to let you know if the a post is not in the correct format for a channel.
- Trend and Topic Monitoring: Some of clients' social strategy depends on being timely and responsive to current market trends and news. By setting up listening streams, our team can monitor certain keywords, hashtags, or mentions that can let us know what is going on in a niche at any time. There is also a "suggested content" tool that helps gather sources for additional outside content.
- Workflow Management: Our agency has multiple people handling the social accounts. Not only does eClincher make it easy to assign tasks and notifications to certain employees, but it also makes it easy to see what other people have contributed recently. If an employee needs to take off for a few days for vacation or sickness, other employees can see what has already been scheduled and then fill in the gaps. This cuts down on confusion and the number of emails/phone calls while also preventing double posts or missed posts.
- I've noticed I check eClincher far more than actual social media apps or websites. During the day I'd often peruse Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter looking for in-industry posts to share or comment on. That would soak up a lot of my time. But eClincher keeps the feeds in one place, where I can jump in and out without as much scrolling and a more focused view. Its helped open up a few lost moments throughout the day.
- Billing: At the end of the month when I'm doing the invoicing, I like to have an exact number of social posts and interactions for each channel and client. I can go back and see all the posts at the end of the month in one place and tally them up pretty easily. This saves time for me as well as showing the client a quantitative number of the work we're doing.
- As our small agency grows and we have more users and clients to worry about, we'll need to grow our eClincher account size. With the additional size there are new opportunities, such as the Brand accounts that allow you to have an additional silo for each brand.
- Right now, there are a very limited amount of users on our eClincher account, so there's isn't much need for the Assign feature, where you can assign a task or post to a user. As we have more people involved in our account, we will be utilizing this function more often.
- There's also a helpful "Tag" feature in the notification feed that allows you to flag certain items with "Follow Up", "Important", "Lead", and "Influencer". We don't utilize this tool to its fullest potential, but as we grow and get more familiar with the feature, I see us using it much more more.
Evaluating eClincher and Competitors
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Third-party Reviews
Essentially, eClincher had the most Social Profile connections for the price point. I needed a program that allowed me to connect all the social profiles for all of my clients at the best price point.
I think I would keep a more detailed log, where I explain all my experiences in set-up, posting, etc. My log focused on features I needed/wanted, number of profile connections, cost, and any glaring downsides. I would have liked to keep more detail just so I could put it in a good ebook.
eClincher Implementation
- Implemented in-house
Yes - Setting up eClincher is quite simple. I broke it up into chunks throughout a couple days, but a dedicated person could easily get everything done in a one day.
First, created the account and connected all the associated social media accounts. This is a quick process that is a few clicks for each social channel.
Next, I set up the Posting Groups. These are sets of accounts that are posted together, such a brand's Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts.
Then, I connected other associated integrations such as Google Anayltics, Bit.ly, Google Drive and Feedly.
I then set up the Listening feeds and and Notification feed to show the most relevant information for my needs.
Finally, I invited the other users to the program and assigned the accounts to them.
All in, the process probably took a 6-8 hours
First, created the account and connected all the associated social media accounts. This is a quick process that is a few clicks for each social channel.
Next, I set up the Posting Groups. These are sets of accounts that are posted together, such a brand's Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts.
Then, I connected other associated integrations such as Google Anayltics, Bit.ly, Google Drive and Feedly.
I then set up the Listening feeds and and Notification feed to show the most relevant information for my needs.
Finally, I invited the other users to the program and assigned the accounts to them.
All in, the process probably took a 6-8 hours
Change management was minimal - If your team is used to posting directly to social channels, you'll need to make sure they understand that posting through eClincher is the new norm. Though we didn't have any implementation issues, some users just preferred to do the posts on the social channel rather than through eClincher.
If you're coming from another Social Media Manager program, then you'll want to give the team time to poke around and learn the ropes.
If you're coming from another Social Media Manager program, then you'll want to give the team time to poke around and learn the ropes.
- Software is a little buggy. There were times I would have to refresh or close/reopen the page to see if changes had been made.
- Some accounts were a little harder to connect than others. Pinterest seemed to have some issues, as well as Google My Business. Some of this is due to multiple user accounts and the browser cookies, but it still took additional time.
Using eClincher
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- Social Posting across multiple channels, the main function of this program, is a cinch.
- Monitoring keywords and hashtags, as well as finding shareable content, is very easy. The feed function can keep you focused while finding all the relevant posts and articles you need.
- The only difficulties arise from small, annoying bugs in the system that crop up eventually. (As most any system will have.)
Yes, but I don't use it
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