I’ve talked before about Everypost, and labeled it “THE personal social media management tool.” I described it as a personal tool because, at the time, it only supported personal accounts on Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn (plus Twitter, of course). Now, Everypost supports business pages on Facebook, LinkedIn and even Google+. Is this a game changer?
Setting Up Everypost
If you’ve never tried Everypost, you can head over to iTunes or Google Play and download the app. If you’ve used it before, make sure that you grab the latest update to get Business Page support.
Once you open the app, tap on the Settings and make sure that all your channels are logged in.
To connect a Facebook Page, tap the Facebook settings once you’ve logged into your Facebook account, scroll down, and tap on Select a Page. You will have to grant Everypost permission to access your Facebook Pages, and then you will be presented with a list of your Pages to choose from. Select one or more and tap Back.
To connect a Google+ Page, tap the Google+ settings once you’ve logged into your Google+ account, scroll down, and tap on Select a Page. Select one or more Pages from the available list and tap Back.
To connect a LinkedIn Company Page, tap the LinkedIn settings once you’ve logged into your LinkedIn account, scroll down, and tap on Select a Company. Select one or more Pages from the available list and tap Back.
While you’re setting up your Pages, also note the privacy settings for any of your connected networks. If you want your posts to be Public on Facebook or Google+ or LinkedIn, you may ned to adjust the setting for that network.
Using Everypost
The Everypost compose system is a nice one. You can begin composing a general message, and then swipe to the right to view network-specific versions of the post that you can tweak as needed. This ensures that your messages can be optimized for specific networks, even while obeying network-specific restrictions like Twitter’s character limit.
You can tap network icons at the top of the compose screen to pick and choose which networks to post to. Scroll to the left to reveal more icons if you have more networks connected. The app will also remember your choices and keep them selected or deselected by default for your next post.
In addition to the above networks and pages, you can connect Pinterest, Tumblr, Dropbox and even email. And you can send images and video and even audio tracks from Grooveshark.
When you swipe to customize specific network shares, you can tap one of the icons above the keyboard and choose from other Pages or accounts you have access to on the fly.
Should Businesses Use Everypost Instead of HootSuite?
Many of my long-time readers know that I’m a Certified HootSuite Professional and a huge advocate for that social media management tool. I literally use it every day, both for myself and for my social media consulting clients, so I’m sure you’re wondering, do I think Everypost is better?
First, let me start by reiterating my underlying philosophy when it comes to social media tools, networks, blogging and online marketing in general: Businesses must do what’s best for their business. Just as I don’t tell business owners they have to love the same social networks that I do, they similarly don’t have to use HootSuite if there’s a platform that is a better fit for them, for whatever reason.
That said, I believe that Everypost is clearly lacking in some areas which are absolutely essential for businesses.
One drawback for businesses is that Everypost only supports a single Twitter account. While it will recognize every Twitter account you’ve set up on your phone, only one can be active at a time, and you cannot switch more than once every 24 hours. For owners like myself, who have both personal and branded accounts, this is a severe limitation.
Another issue is that the app does not yet support scheduling of posts. While you can customize and tweak your posts per network, once you tap on Post, they’re shared to all selected networks immediately. (Note that according to Everypost, support for scheduling is due to be added Dec. 2013.)
And that brings up another point, in that Everypost only exists as a stand-alone app. There is no web interface, team structure, centralized account, or other organizational features which most businesses would require of their social media command center. Any team members within your business who needed to be able to manage your social networks would have to set up their Everypost apps individually.
And finally, the app’s only purpose is to post to social networks. It does not support monitoring and provides no metrics at all. Businesses who wanted to take advantage of social media for customer service, prospecting, and measure their ROI, would be forced to look to other systems and solutions.
So, while I may like Everypost a lot, it is by no means a replacement for HootSuite for businesses. If you’re looking for a social media management tool for your business or organization, HootSuite is still my recommendation, and you may want to dive into my HootSuite Series so see all of the reasons why.
Use Cases for Everypost
But as I mentioned, I really do like Everypost. The fact that it can post to both Google+ and Google+ Pages makes it a very compelling social media management tool to consider. And this highlights a glaring limitation in HootSuite’s mobile solution – no support for Google+ at all.
#1 – Use Everypost to share to Google+ Business Pages
Since HootSuite’s app doesn’t yet support Google+, and since Google+ for iOS doesn’t yet support easy switching between personal and business Pages (you have to log out, log back in, then select your Page to share updates), this new feature from Everypost is a huge benefit. I can now share to one or more Google+ profiles without having to do any app login gymnastics.
#2 – Use Everypost to update Pinterest at the same time as other profiles.
Pinterest has a great mobile app, but if you’re sharing an update to Facebook or Twitter or Google+ that includes an image, why not update your Pinterest followers at the same time?
#3 – Customize your Social Media Shares
The other huge feature that Everypost brings to the table is that ability to tweak each of the posts per network. With HootSuite, that’s not an option, so you’d have to create separate compositions to have different or just longer status updates for select networks. If you want to say something right now on Twitter, Facebook and Google+, and you want to be able to say more than 140 characters on those other networks, using the Everypost app makes a great deal of sense.
#4 – Use Everypost for Personal Shares
And as I mentioned some time ago, Everypost is a fantastic app for personal social media users. You can update all of your personal profiles at the same time, and if you want to include your business profiles on that personal message, you can easily do so. And that’s not a bad idea from time to time. I often encourage my business clients to get a little personal on their business pages, and using an app like this might be a great benefit, particular for busy owners. A business owner might share a nice thought or comment to all of their personal and business profiles at once, and continue to leave the day-to-day social media management to their consultant and HootSuite.
So this latest update from Everypost is exciting and provides a great deal of added functionality and flexibility to the app. I would definitely encourage you to try it out, and watch for more news and updates about Everypost in the future!