In the growing battle between social media management tools for small to medium size organizations, a few solutions are rising above the noise. These include HootSuite, Sprout Social and newcomer Rignite.

Sure, there are other social media engagement platforms, but any solution that doesn’t include one of the top four social networks — Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, and LinkedIn — is simply missing too much of the overall picture to be considered a serious contender.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Kim Cooper (@FullyMarketed) and Glen Kosaka (@glenkosaka) from Rignite and going through a demo of their software’s latest features. While you can get much of what Rignite offers in the way of basic social interaction from other solutions, this new platform is taking the idea of engagement to a new level. I was especially impressed with new features that I believe are giving Rignite a competitive edge.

1. Campaigns

Social media communicators don’t just want to engage with their audiences. They want their audience members to engage with their brands. Rignite’s Social Media Campaigns feature provides a tool to solicit engagement through Facebook comment contests, Twitter hashtag contests, and coupon campaigns.

For setting up a Twitter hashtag campaign, you draft a call to action such as “Post a photo of yourself with your favorite ice cream, mention @thecompany, and include the hashtag #GimmeIceCream for a chance to win a free ice cream.”

In Rignite’s system, you tell it what hashtag to look for and whether or not to require a photo to qualify for the contest. You also select the number of winners for the contest and your target goal for the number of contest entries. You can check to see if the hashtag is unique in case you want to avoid conflicts with other brands or campaigns, and you can cross promote the campaign on other social networks to help increase participation.

Once you launch the campaign and audience members start participating, the system will display a feed of qualifying entries based on these parameters. You and your team can rate and select winners and the system will publicly notify them on your social media channels.

Rignite’s Social Media Campaigns feature also offers metrics specific to each campaign. Segregating campaign-specific engagement metrics from general metrics is something unique in small to medium sized social media engagement solutions.

2. Shopify Integration

On May 27, Rignite announced that it now integrates with e-commerce solution Shopify. This integration helps Rignite users who sell products via Shopify track the performance of social media campaigns as they relate to the value of purchases and number of coupons used.

I don’t run a Shopify store, so I couldn’t personally demo this feature. However, integrating e-commerce tools and ROI metrics is a step in the right direction for any social media management platform. If I were going to setup an online store, I would seriously consider a Rignite + Shopify combo strategy.

3. Sentiment

Sentiment is not a new feature for Rignite. I saw this feature when I first demoed the solution several months ago. However, the ability to mark elements of online conversations as positive, negative, or neutral can be useful in measuring trends related to brand perception. This is especially important for highly competitive markets or products and services that contain potentially controversial elements.

Rignite’s sentiment analysis is not automatic. You’ll need to scroll through comments and mark each with an appropriate sentiment. This is likely manageable for small or medium size operations. However, if your online engagement volume is too high for manual sentiment analysis, you probably can afford SalesForce.com’s ExactTarget Marketing Cloud (Radian6).

I’m a sucker for useful metrics. The ability to track sentiment trends can tell you if your latest campaign or recent media coverage is helping or hurting your brand and to what degree. HootSuite’s free version and Sprout Social lack this feature, giving Rignite the advantage.

4. Unlimited Social Accounts

This feature is rather simple to explain and compare. HootSuite’s free version allows up-to five social media accounts. Sprout Social’s basic account allows up-to 20 and it’s mid-range level allows up-to 50. Rignite allows unlimited social profiles in all of its account levels, which is a huge plus for medium-sized organizations.

5. Price

Rignite just added a three-tier pricing model for users who want the new Campaign features. The mid-level account fee is $39/month, which is what Sprout Social used to charge for it’s basic level account. Sprout Social recently hiked the price of its basic level account from $39/month to $59/month — a 51.3% increase. If you like the Campaign and Sentiment features, you might get more bang for your buck from Rignite.

Conclusion

I was harsh in my first assessment of Rignite’s solution — and rightfully so. It was a new offering that lacked interesting metrics and competitive features (besides manual sentiment analysis). However, the addition of Campaigns and Shopify ROI integration to its system is giving it a much-needed competitive boost. If you haven’t checked out Rignite lately, I think it’s worth another look.

What I’ve come to realize is that each social media management solution offers unique advantages. Perhaps the perfect solution is to use different applications to accomplish different goals. Until an affordable platform offers everything everyone could possibly want, juggling multiple applications might be the way to go.

What do you think?

Do you think that social media communicators should stick with one platform or attempt to juggle multiple applications to achieve different objectives? Have you used or demoed Rignite, Sprout Social, or other solutions and what is your opinion of them?

Note: Rignite did not pay me to write this or offer to compensate me in any way for the review. Rignite did provide me with an extended trial to allow me to evaluate its new features. The images are from the demo and are used with permission.

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