Management Platforms and Tools

I want to start out by sharing a quick definition of a word that is going to be very meaningful in this post, but many of us have probably never heard it before. The term is aggregators, which Wikipedia defines as, “…a web site or computer software that totals a specific type of information from multiple online sources.” As social media began to boom, it became a little too overwhelming for one individual to manage all social media platforms for an individual or an organization. This is where aggregators came in to play. The specific aggregator I would like to discuss right now is Sprout Social. According to their website at http://sproutsocial.com/about their goal is to make the communication between big companies and their customers simple. They do this by really just doing it for you. There are many different companies that provide similar services, but Sprout works with well-known companies such as Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.


According to http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/78473-Pros-and-Cons-of-Sprout-Social-for-Social-Media-Management there are far more pros to using Sprout Social than there are cons. Although some of these cons do include things such as “limited number of social networks” and “higher costs.” In the early stages of social media I can see how companies like Sprout Social or Hoot Suite were very beneficial to many large growing companies, but now it appears that there are far more social media experts. Every company that plays any role with the internet seems to have a team of these experts working fervently on their social media correspondences with the public. I am not sure that these additional, costly services are still as imperative to have. Don’t get me wrong, sites such as these have incredible programs and tools to offer and are helping countries all across the world. My fear for them, is how much longer will they be relevant? Or what will be next? Nonetheless, social media management is extremely important, especially in our ever expanding world of the internet. I am interested to see what the future holds, and what companies will use in the not so distant future.