I am excited to announce that I am joining Agorapulse as their Brand Evangelist!
For those who may be unfamiliar, or who would like to learn more about what Agorapulse is, who they are as a company, and what my role will be, I’ve created this brief.
Agorapulse: A Social Media Management Tool
If you aren’t yet using a tool to help manage your social media, the concept may be foreign, so let’s start there.
As an individual who is using Facebook or Snapchat or Instagram for personal use, you simply log in on your computer or open the app on your phone and use the network when you feel like it, in whatever way you like. Some of you post multiple times a day, while others may go weeks without actively posting or commenting (you lurkers know who you are).
As such, you likely have no need for additional apps or tools to “help” you with social media. You’ve got it handled.
Businesses, however, are totally different. Whether you’re a blogger or solopreneur, or a full-scale corporation, social networks like Facebook, Twitter and others all offer opportunities and challenges.
Social media sites can be used for a variety of business purposes, including:
- Marketing
- Advertising
- Professional Networking
- Customer Service
- Sales
- Hiring
- Research
…and likely a number of other more nuanced uses.
If we look at Marketing as one example, there are four tenets for success:
- Businesses can (and should) create brand accounts or profiles on most of the major social networks.
- Businesses must be active on their most important profiles (“channels”) which means posting regularly.
- Businesses must be responsive to their customers on these channels.
- Businesses can (and should) note which tactics perform best and build on those, eliminating poor or inefficient strategies.
Which means a typical business will have a Facebook Page and a Twitter profile, and likely additional profiles on Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google+… and perhaps even more networks like Snapchat, WhatsApp, Tumblr, and others.
There are actually hundreds of networks, each with different benefits and audiences, and each more or less relevant to your business.
So let’s assume that the best networks for your business are Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And that you want to be able to post 2 – 3 times per day to those networks, and be alerted to new comments or questions from customers or prospects. You can do that using the native apps on your phone, but that means stopping what you’re doing in the middle of the day to post to social media.
Or, you can use a third party app to schedule activity, as well as monitor the networks for key mentions.
That’s where Agorapulse comes in.
Agorapulse:
- Supports Facebook Pages, Twitter profiles, Google+ Pages, LinkedIn profiles and pages, Instagram profiles and YouTube channels.
- Offers a robust and flexible scheduling system that allows you to schedule posts at specific times/dates, repeat any number of times, set up multiple queues with preset schedules and add posts to queues, and of course share posts to multiple networks at the same time.
- Features a Social Media Inbox that filters all of your comments, mentions and messages from a channel into one easy-to-use and scan stream. It even filters out spam!
- Includes comprehensive reporting that can help businesses evaluate the performance of each channel and specific posts, aiding decisions on future activity.
In other words, with a tool like Agorapulse, businesses can make sure that their social media profiles are active when they need to be active, are monitored, and measured, without having to spend time on social media during their peak business hours.
For those reasons alone, Agorapulse would be an excellent tool for businesses to use. And indeed, it’s one that I’ve been using since 2015.
At this point, those of you know me might be wondering why I’m using Agorapulse instead of Hootsuite? Didn’t I write the book on Hootsuite?
Yes I did, and I was thrilled to learn about and switch to Agorapulse years ago. It’s simply a superior tool to Hootsuite. The scheduling is more powerful, the interface is easier to use, and the reports are more extensive and more intuitive (and fully included in the price).
If the guy who wrote, “The Unofficial Book On Hootsuite: the #1 Tool for Social Media Management” now believes that there’s a far better tool available for bloggers and businesses, that’s saying something. In fact, I will be amending my articles and book to provide better context for those recommendations (there are certainly some instances where tools like Hootsuite or Buffer are a better fit).
But the truth is, Agorapulse really is better. Just take a look at the results of head-to-head reviews which placed Agorapulse at or near the top of every important category.
And Agorapulse continues to improve each and every quarter, from adding new networks like YouTube, to adopting improved functionality with Instagram direct publishing.
Interested in giving Agorapulse a test drive for yourself?
To learn more about what Agorapulse can do, read my full review.
Agorapulse: A French Firm With Fabulous Team
Based out of Paris, France, Agorapulse is led by CEO Emeric Ernoult. It was Emeric who first personally demo’d Agorapulse from his phone for me at Social Media Marketing World in 2015, and I’ve been a user ever since.
While the relationship between co-founders Emeric and Ben Hediard goes back two decades, it was the launch of Facebook in 2008 that got them thinking about the need for a social media tool. By 2011, Agorapulse was launched to help businesses leverage Facebook and manage customer relationships (CRM).
By 2014, networks Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram were integrated.
Since then they’ve added real-time collaboration, YouTube, and more.
More importantly, Agorapulse remains a completely independent, self-funded, profitable company. Their values and discipline are extraordinary. From the moment I first started conversations with Emeric and the rest of the team about joining Agorapulse, I could tell they were special.
From their patient and deliberate onboarding, to annual company retreats in France, their determination to build a strong team, and the understanding of how that translates into a better product and customer focus, is impressive.
I’m excited and honored to be joining that team.
Agorapulse: My Role
Now that you have a better understanding of who and what Agorapulse is, my role there will make a lot more sense.
My official title is “Brand Evangelist.” It’s a title that you might have seen folks like Guy Kawasaki use in reference to how they talk about and “evangelize” brands like Apple or Canva or Mercedes. And while my role will have some similarities in how I represent Agorapulse, there are differences.
My official job description reads:
I explore growth opportunities, and build lasting partnerships with influencers and educators whose teams and audiences can benefit from a relationship with Agorapulse.
So this isn’t a typical sales job. Instead of trying to convince individual business owners and bloggers of the benefits Agorapulse offers them, my focus is 100% on the relationships Agorapulse has with other marketers, bloggers and complimentary brands.
Partnering with influencers and brands creates incredible opportunities to combine expertise and help a broader audience.
For instance, Jenn Herman is the author of “Instagram for Business for Dummies” and the owner of Jenn’s Trends, a marketing blog and Instagram learning resource. She’s also an Agorapulse user and fan.
I will be sitting down with Jenn to talk about how we can do even more together and collaborate on various projects. This might include co-authored content, webinars, Social Media Lab experiments, and more.
I will be working with:
- Social Media educators & speakers
- Social Media bloggers & influencers
- Social Media Marketing agencies
If you consider yourself among one of the above groups, and would like to learn more about Agorapulse, let’s chat! (If you’re in San Diego for Social Media Marketing World, message me for a face-to-face!)
Schedule a quick chat with Mike
The best part of this position is the fact that it’s all about creating and strengthening professional relationships and friendships, something I’ve been working on myself for years. I couldn’t be more excited for the journey we’re going to take now together.
Got questions? Feel free to comment below or message me directly on your social network of choice.
