"This week in SMToolbox, we are in Paris to review Tigerlily, a social media management tool." That is how I would have liked to have started this week's column. Unfortunately the SMT review budget wouldn't stretch to a trip to Paris, so I had to make do with a demo and a webinar. Still, it was enough for me to experience the commitment to customer service that has led many leading brands to select Tigerlily for their social media management.
Background
Tigerlily was founded in 2009 with a mission to help simplify the management of social media activity. Those of us who have been involved in social media in recent years recognize how quickly things can become complicated and overwhelming. The team has worked hard to develop a set of tools to help companies manage and optimise their social media activity. The Tigerlily approach is reflected in the tool interface which is clean, simple and easy to use.
As you might expect from a company originating in France, the tool has been adopted by many leading French brands such as L'Oreal and Yves Saint Laurent, as well as over 80 other leading international brands.
The tool is currently focused on the management of Twitter and Facebook accounts. I understand other platforms will be supported in due course. Increasingly, companies are looking for support across a wider range of platforms so this is a good move. As an example, B2B companies are making increasing use of LinkedIn and seeking social media management tools that can support them.
The Tigerlily Difference
The Tigerlily tools have similar functionality to many other social media management platforms in terms of publication management (scheduling, geo-targeting, etc.), moderating (notifications, response times, community management) and analytics (content engagement by type, time, etc.). However, the company recognizes rightly that differentiation in this market is as much about service as it is about features. They have a team of consultants that work with clients on how to best use the platform and support their social media strategy.
The company also offers a range of services such as Facebook App creation, and they have developed apps for clients such as Spotify and Orange. I didn't try their App builder tool, but there are App templates to help you quickly create Apps, such as social contests.
Managing Conversations and Communities
Tigerlily is designed to simplify the management of conversations and communities in order to help social managers save time. The tool allows you to create user groups so teams can collaborate to manage incoming messages and publishing efficiently. You are able to create your own workflow process and define a range of permissions such as who can post contents, moderate comments or and publish. These controls can be down to country or language levels.
You can also track performance against key indicators you set for engagement and reach. The tool does track by organic, earned and paid media so you can see what is working best. The tool does not provide any automated sentiment analysis which may be a factor for some social media managers, though I would question the validity and helpfulness of some of the more simplistic sentiment analysis rankings by other tools.
The tool is community focused, the screen below for example, shows the top fans for an account. The tool tracks private messages, comments, posts and likes to provide overall Fan scores such as the UIR (User interaction Rate) and the UAS (User ambassador score).
You can dive into more detail on any Fan and see a complete history of your interactions with them.
Insights
The tool is designed to help you discover insights that will improve your performance. The screen below analyzes your engagement by time and recommends times to publish to get the best engagement.
Tigerlily helps create data driven insights by tracking engagement by post types and tags as shown below. These help inform decisions on future posts to create maximum engagement.
Moderation Management
Tigerlily recognizes the importance of good moderation management. It provides you with a nice overview of how quickly your team deals with messages and alerts.
Support Over Features
The Tigerlily approach is heavily focused on customer support rather than features. The team provide consultancy support and provide dedicated consultants to larger clients such as L'Oreal. These support services are included in the monthly subscription price. The team also pride themselves on responding to client requests and developing new features quickly, if required by several clients.
Summary
Tigerlily does what it says on the tin: it helps make social media management easier. Whilst the tool does not have the full range of features of many of the other tools, such as sentiment analysis, and a more restricted platform base, it does have a strong commitment to customer support and helping you improve your social media management. If you are looking for a tool to help you simplify the management of your Twitter and Facebook activity then it is a tool to consider, particularly if you operate in teams with multiple languages and locations. Unlike me, you might even manage a trip to Paris to meet the team.
At the time of writing, prices start from around $600 a month for an unlimited number of users. If you want to explore Tigerlily further, you can request a demo from their team at http://www.tigerlilyapps.com/.