The Best Social Engagement Platforms for Business in 2024

Editor: Hetal Bansal on Sep 27,2024

In today's digital-first world, businesses rely on more than product quality and customer service to grow. The key to thriving in 2024 and beyond is effective social engagement. Connecting with audiences, responding to their queries, and fostering an online community have become essential. This makes choosing the best business social engagement platforms crucial for every organization. From small startups to large enterprises, the right tools can help you connect with your audience, build a community, and improve customer loyalty. In this blog, we will explore the top business engagement tools in 2024, and how they can amplify online marketing efforts, and increase audience interaction. If you're ready to step up your social media strategy, these social media solutions and community platforms should be on your radar.

1. Sprout Social: A Comprehensive Social Media Management Tool

Sprout Social has been a favourite for businesses looking to maximize their social media presence, and in 2024, it will continue to top the charts. This platform helps businesses manage multiple social accounts, schedule posts, analyze social performance, and engage with their audience-all from a single dashboard. With Sprout Social, you can monitor conversations about your brand, reply to customer queries in real-time, and even automate responses for frequently asked questions.

For businesses that rely heavily on social media solutions for brand awareness, Sprout Social is a no-brainer. Its reporting features are particularly helpful in understanding engagement trends, which can inform your future campaigns.

Key Features

• Cross-channel social media management
• In-depth analytics reports
• Social listening and monitoring tools
• Competitor analysis and trend tracking

2. Hootsuite: A Powerhouse for Scheduling and Engagement

Hootsuite is another well-known name in the social media management space. It offers robust tools for scheduling content, managing multiple social profiles, and monitoring social media mentions. Hootsuite's integration with over 35 different social media platforms makes it one of the best business social engagement platforms for diverse industries.

With a strong focus on simplifying audience interaction, Hootsuite's streams feature lets businesses monitor conversations happening in real-time. You can quickly engage with customers, whether they're asking questions, sharing feedback, or commenting on your latest post.

Key Features

• Efficient post-scheduling and publishing
• Social media monitoring and tracking
• Multiple team collaboration features
• Customizable analytics reports

3. Zendesk: Best for Customer Engagement

When you think about business engagement tools, Zendesk might not come to mind as a social media platform, but it's one of the best tools for customer engagement across multiple channels, including social media. It allows businesses to manage customer support inquiries from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms. Zendesk's integration capabilities enable companies to provide seamless support, helping turn customer inquiries into meaningful interactions.

Zendesk can help companies understand their customers better through its detailed analytics on engagement, response times, and overall customer satisfaction. As customer service increasingly shifts to social media, Zendesk offers the ability to manage everything from a single dashboard.

Key Features

• Multichannel customer service management
• Integration with social media platforms
• Detailed customer service analytics
• Automated ticketing and workflows

4. Zoho Social: Affordable and Efficient

Zoho Social is an excellent option for small and medium-sized businesses looking for an affordable social media solution. It allows you to monitor social channels, schedule posts, and track the performance of your social media campaigns. Its intuitive interface ensures that even users with minimal social media experience can quickly get the hang of the platform.

One of Zoho Social's standout features is its ability to predict audience behaviour, which helps businesses optimize the timing of their posts. It also offers advanced tracking tools to measure engagement metrics like clicks, shares, and comments.

Key Features

• Affordable pricing for small businesses
• Predictive scheduling for audience engagement
• Advanced analytics to track engagement
• Integration with other Zoho products for CRM and marketing

5. Salesforce Social Studio: A Robust CRM for Social Engagement

Salesforce is widely known for its CRM capabilities, but Salesforce Social Studio is an equally impressive platform for social media management and audience engagement. Social Studio allows businesses to listen to their audience, manage content, and track social conversations that affect their brand. It's a powerful business engagement tool because it integrates customer data from Salesforce's CRM, helping brands personalize their interactions and respond to customer queries effectively.

The integration with Salesforce CRM is key to creating personalized interactions, and it also ensures that social media insights are tied to broader business goals. This can enhance online marketing efforts by allowing businesses to see how social engagement impacts sales and lead generation.

Key Features

• Seamless integration with Salesforce CRM
• Advanced social listening and monitoring
• Tailored audience insights for personalized marketing
• Custom workflows for managing social interactions

6. Buffer: Simplifying Social Posting for Businesses

Buffer is a great tool for businesses that want to streamline their content scheduling and publishing process. One of the more user-friendly platforms on the market, Buffer allows businesses to schedule posts across multiple social channels like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, all from one place.

While Buffer doesn't have the same level of social listening features as Sprout Social or Hootsuite, it's perfect for businesses that primarily need help managing social media content. Buffer's clean interface and simple workflow make it one of the best tools for companies that value simplicity.

Key Features

• Simple, intuitive interface
• Social media content scheduling
• Analytics to track engagement and performance
• Affordable for startups and small businesses

7. Discord: Building Strong Online Communities

Originally designed for gamers, Discord has evolved into one of the top community platforms for businesses. It provides a space where companies can foster community engagement, host discussions, and offer customer support. Discord is great for businesses that want to create a sense of community and have meaningful conversations with their customers.

Discord's real-time voice, video, and chat features make it an excellent tool for webinars, product launches, or Q&A sessions. For businesses seeking to build a dedicated following or niche community, Discord stands out as one of the best business social engagement platforms.

Key Features

• Real-time chat, video, and voice options
• Private channels for different customer segments
• Integration with various business tools and bots
• Ideal for building niche communities

8. HubSpot: All-in-One Marketing and Engagement Platform

HubSpot is a well-known inbound marketing and CRM platform, and its social media management tools are just as impressive. HubSpot's integrated platform allows businesses to create, manage, and measure all aspects of their online marketing and social engagement efforts. The social media tool within HubSpot allows businesses to schedule posts, track mentions, and analyze performance across channels.

With HubSpot, you can combine your social engagement data with CRM insights, giving you a clear view of how social media interactions impact customer journeys. For businesses looking for an all-in-one solution, HubSpot provides comprehensive tools for lead generation, customer management, and audience interaction.

Key Features

• All-in-one marketing and engagement platform
• Deep integration with CRM and email marketing
• Social media scheduling and performance tracking
• Analytics that ties social performance to business goals

Conclusion

Selecting the right business engagement tools is vital in today's digital landscape. With social media playing such a pivotal role in audience interaction, businesses must choose platforms that align with their needs and objectives. Whether you're looking for comprehensive social media solutions like Sprout Social and Hootsuite, or community-driven platforms like Discord, 2024 offers a wide array of options. By leveraging the tools outlined above, you can elevate your business's online marketing efforts, enhance customer engagement, and build a loyal community around your brand.

This content was created by AI