Loomly is a powerful cloud-based social media management tool that offers end-to-end social media management solutions. It facilitates content curation, workflow management, interaction with audiences, calculation of metrics and several other social media activities from a single dashboard.
So, it acts as a central dashboard that allows you to manage both your social media posts and social media ads. This social media solution is best suited for small businesses, social media influencers, and digital marketers. Let us now delve into some of Loomly’s features and how this social media calendar can take your business to the next level.
Loomly is a Content Curation Tool
Social media journey begins with content and unless you create social media posts that grab the reader’s attention, your campaigns may not prove to be as successful. Although initially, this may seem convenient, as time passes by, you start running out of ideas. During such times, you can count on Loomly, which acts as a powerful content curation tool.
By providing a glimpse into relevant trending topics, Loomly helps you with fresh ideas that are working well for your competitors. So, based on your niche, you get to pull out relevant ideas for your social media posts and ads.
If that would be all that Loomly did, then we’d call it an idea generator but that wouldn’t be fair. Loomly is indeed a content curation tool that also provides tips on optimizing your social media campaigns. So, as you create posts and ads, you get all the guidance that you need with regards to subject, label and more. Also, you can preview your social media post or ad, just to be sure of the end result.
Loomly’s social media calendar
No Loomly review can be complete without a mention of its highly functional social media calendar and its unique features. To get started with it, you must log on to Loomly’s Dashboard and click on ‘Add new Calendar’. After that, you would be directed to upload a logo, set the calendar name, industry and timezone.
This is where it gets tricky and here’s how you can get the most out of Loomly. While setting the timezone, remember that this is your publishing timezone. So, make it a point to add the timezone of your audiences. If you have a diverse set of audiences spread across various time zones, then you can set individual time zones for multiple calendars, it’s that simple.
As far as your Loomly account’s timezone is concerned, that could be the timezone of the one publishing the post. So, if it is you, then add yours or you could also add the timezone of your remote digital marketing manager. This feature helps keep track of all your social media accounts even if your audiences and you are located in different timezones. So, you could be in Bali and schedule posts for your audiences in Berlin, Germany, without worrying about timezones.
You can then choose to schedule posts through Loomly or Buffer, but since you are using Loomly, we recommend that you stick to it. Finally, connect your social media accounts to the calendar and start posting.
Managing Authors and Approvals
Loomly is a handy social media tool that lets you collaborate with a team of any size. Also, you can keep a tab on your social media accounts by limiting access. Loomly makes this possible by allowing you to grant calendar-wise access to your team members or your clients.
Every person that you provide access to is a ‘Collaborator’, whether it is a team member or a client. You can then share as many calendars with that collaborator, as you wish to. To invite a collaborator, open a particular calendar, click on ‘Collaborator’ on the top right-hand corner and choose ‘invite collaborator’ from the dropdown menu.
Alternately, you could invite collaborators from the ‘Collaborators’ section. Navigate there, choose a role for that collaborator, and grant access to specific calendars. You could assign roles such as Editor, Client, Collaborator, and Viewer. For WordPress users, this is a familiar feature that is used to manage posts and pages of a website.
However, Loomly goes a step further and allows you to create custom roles, so if you run a digital marketing firm and have a Partner, you can provide more access through this feature. Likewise, if you have a prospective client who wishes to take a look at your previous work, you can again grant limited access through necessary customization.
Managing Workflows
The most exciting thing about Loomly is that you can plan your workflow according to your business needs. So, depending on the type of business that you run, you can customize it. For example, if you are a small business that hires people to write social media posts, then you can add them as collaborators. Moreover, you can restrict their individual permissions, by allowing them to post content in the draft mode.
Likewise, if you are a Digital Marketer, you can collaborate with authors on one side and clients on the other. As Loomly allows you to share calendar-wise permissions, you can be sure of limited access to all your collaborators. Once you have done that, then the next step is to choose a workflow option depending on the size of your organization.
Larger teams can choose the ‘Original Workflow’ option, and teams with less than 5 members can choose the ‘Lite Workflow’ option. If you work all by yourself and are authorized to directly publish the social media posts and ads, then choose the ‘Zero Workflow’ option.
Finally, when your team is through with the assigned tasks, you can easily skim through minute details of every calendar. The list view allows you to see details such as subject, date, platforms, and more in rows and column format, similar to that of spreadsheets. This makes it a whole lot easier for you to keep track of your social media posts and ads.
Communicate effectively with your audiences
Loomly’s social media calendar is a complete social media solution, and we say this for a reason. Unlike other social media posters, this tool does not merely allow you to schedule your social media posts. Instead, you can also use it to communicate effectively with your audiences, which is important for any business to grow. So, you can track your reader’s reactions and respond to them accordingly. Also, if some of your readers are posting nasty comments, then you can easily delete or hide those comments.
To activate interactions through Loomly, simply navigate to a social media calendar and then select ‘Interactions’ on the navigation bar inside the social media calendar. That’s it! Now you can quickly interact with your audience and make them feel valued. Plus, you can do all of this for free because there’s no extra cost charged by Loomly for this extremely powerful feature.
Calculate Metrics
Whether you run an online business or a digital marketing firm — you need to keep track of how your social media posts are performing. Often, doing this requires you to make use of trackers, which can turn out to be quite complicated. So, Loomly eliminates the need for you to use trackers, at least for the social media platforms that it supports.
You can start tracking the performance of your posts by simply opening the calendar and choosing ‘Post Analytics’ in the toolbar. So, you can track all your Facebook comments, Tweets, likes on your Pins, Google+ comments and shares, Insta likes and comments, and also LinkedIn likes and comments through your social media calendar. This allows you to know which posts are doing well and which ones need more of your time and attention.
Pricing
Loomly offers 5 plans that you can choose from, which depends on the size and volume of your social media activities.
Plans offered by Loomly
- Base Plan
- Standard Plan
- Advanced Plan
- Premium Plan
- Enterprise Plan
For small companies, the Base Plan by Loomly, which is priced at $25 per month should suffice.
This plan allows the subscriber to:
- Connect a max of 10 social media accounts
- Permits access to 2 users
- Restricts Max Ad Budget to under $500
If you run a whole bunch of affiliate websites or are a professional Digital Marketer, then the Base Plan may not suffice. So, what you need is a more advanced plan such as the Standard Plan which is priced at $57 per month.
The Standard plan allows the subscriber to:
- Connect up to 20 social media accounts
- Permits access to 6 users
- Ad Budget must be under $1000
- Access to advanced analytics
- Download content in PDF or CSV formats
The third plan is the Advanced Plan, which is priced at $119 per month and allows you to connect up to 35 social media accounts and permits up to 16 users.
In addition to that, you can:
- Access all the features available under the Standard Plan
- Set custom roles for Collaborators
- Maximum Ad Budget limit is $2000
- Slack Integration
However, you cannot custom brand the Exports or add your logo under the Base, Standard, and Advanced Plans. To do that, you need to choose the Premium or Enterprise plans to manage your social media accounts.
Loomly understands that you would want tools that allow you to establish yourself as a brand, especially if you are a mid-sized digital marketing or social media marketing firm. However, that is only available under the Premium Plan, which is priced at $249 per month or the Enterprise Plan.
Premium Plan includes:
- Allows up to 26 users
- Lets you connect up to 50 social media accounts
- Limits Ad Budget to $5000
- Includes all the features of the Advanced Plans
- Allows custom branding
To get a quote for the Enterprise Plan, you would have to send in your exact requirements to Loomly’s Sales Team. This is a customizable plan for larger set-ups with a unique set of requirements.
Conclusion
In this Loomly review, we have highlighted some of the lesser-known features of this amazing social media calendar. However, we must admit that this tool is ideal for smaller businesses and Solopreneurs due to its pricing. Coming to digital marketers and social media marketers, it may turn out to be quite expensive.
That’s mainly due to the fact that most digital marketers need to manage at least 5 social media accounts per client. So, if a digital marketer has ten clients then his options would be limited to the Premium Plan or the Enterprise Plan, which are expensive. However, if you run a small business and have around 5 social media accounts that you wish to manage all by yourself, then Loomly is perfect for your needs.
Originally Published On: SaasTrac
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