It's always interesting to try new social media management tools, so I was thrilled to get the chance to test Rignite. While the tool is aimed predominantly at enterprises, bloggers can try it for free (I'll tell you how later in the review). If your blog is your business, there's a lot to like about Rignite.
Getting Started with Rignite
Signing up for Rignite doesn't take long, then it's time to set up your account via the clean, modern interface. A good first step is connecting all your social media profiles. Rignite works with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn. You can also use Google+ via Buffer.
There were a couple of features that stood out here:
- You can use multiple accounts for each social site, and it pulls these in automatically, with the exception of Instagram, where logging out and in again will let you add those accounts.
- You can decide what access to give the Rignite app to each profile. There are three modes: no access, private and shared, with the last one letting Rignite post.
If you're managing social media for others, the ability to separate your own profiles from clients' profiles or to decide which LinkedIn groups you want to post to is also handy.
Posting Social Updates with Rignite
The “compose message” window is at the top of the dashboard, and it's one of the most important parts of Rignite. Rignite allows you to:
- Set up post templates and reuse them. That might come in handy if you regularly want to share an archived post or announce a new one.
- Choose the accounts you want to publish from (similar to Buffer and CoSchedule).
- Publish content immediately or schedule it.
- Save draft messages
You can also post “registered links” which are links that you have previously posted that might be already in the system. That feature is useful if you want to consistently promote the same post over a number of days or weeks. All links are shortened automatically.
The Rignite Calendar
All messages (draft, scheduled and posted) appear in the calendar, which shows by default all posts scheduled with a little icon to indicate which network it is being posted to.
There's also a handy color coding system where in green has been approved and anything that is awaiting approval is in orange. Just click the pause button once content has been approved to let it go. You also have the ability to drag and drop posts in order to change the date of your post.
Rignite lets you see six weeks' worth of posts at a time, but it can get a bit visually busy. That's why the filtering features are handy. You can filter the calendar view to show draft messages to make it easy to review those before they go into the schedule. Since Rignite allows you to create client groups, you can also filter the calendar view so you only see posts for the group you are currently working with.
Creating Campaigns with Rignite
Rignite believes bloggers will find its campaigns feature particularly useful. Campaign options in the tool include:
- promoting an event (by scheduling a series of posts and growing your email list)
- boosting engagement on Twitter or Facebook with a contest
- growing fans with a promotional code
- increasing sales
Currently, these are only available for Twitter and Facebook. Here's how Rignite campaigns work, using a Twitter campaign as an example.
Setting up a campaign is a seven-step process. First, you choose the social network where you want to run the campaign. Then you give the campaign a name and optional description and choose a start and end date and time.
Next, include campaign details such as instructions for a tweet, hashtags to include, whether you want to be @ mentioned, and how many prize winners there will be. All this information will create automatic tweets you can use.
Compose and schedule your campaign messages. Rignite allows you to have three different Twitter and three different Facebook messages for each campaign to avoid blindness to the messaging.
You can set how many times you want messages to go out and the number of times messages can run. If you have favorite messaging times from another tool, you can also set these in Rignite. You can also enable notifications for the campaign so you will know when people are taking part. Once that's done, review the campaign before making it live.
This approach works for all kinds of campaigns. Depending on the type of campaign, you can easily tweak the rules, add prize descriptions and more. You can also have a contest URL which you can track in Google Analytics, which Rignite also integrates.
Rignite collects and selects winners based on the campaign parameters (a real time saver, if you ask me!) and will post the appropriate notification to Facebook and Twitter when the contest ends.
Monitoring Social Streams
Like other social media management tools, Rignite includes a monitoring feature. You can keep tabs on:
- the stream for your social accounts via the “my communities” feature
- social media searches
- a watchlist (you create this yourself, though the Rignite developers eventually plan to allow you to import your own Twitter lists)
- a particular blog feed
- keywords and hashtags
I particularly like the fact that Rignite integrates with Feedly. Add it along with other accounts, then you can choose blogs to monitor from your Feedly account. You can also post directly from the Feedly stream to your social accounts, which is another time saver.
You can watch users or add them to a VIP list – they are identified by bookmark and trophy icons in your social stream. It's a good way to keep tabs on what the people most important to you are talking about.
The dashboard icon shows insights from social streams as well as analytics for posts shared via Rignite. It also shows related social posts and campaign analytics, making it a one stop shop for checking the success of your social media activity. All information can be exported to PDF to help with reporting.
Other Rignite features include:
- the ability to set up teams and use chat within the app
- the ability to assign cases to people (useful for agencies working with a range of marketing people)
- using forums to store campaign guidelines
Rignite for Bloggers
As I mentioned, Rignite is primarily a tool for enterprises, but bloggers can sign up for a free trial to gain useful insights into the tool. Bloggers can easily schedule posts in advance, promote these blog posts on social media with campaigns, and then monitor the activity of these posts all in one platform.
As a frequent social media user, I look forward to the integration of Twitter lists. In the meantime, though, the ability to set up campaigns and monitor and share my Feedly stream make Rignite a tool that offers value for bloggers.
Have you tried Rignite yet?
Recommended Reading:
- How to Manage Social Media with Rignite by Ian Cleary
- The Tao of Twitter, Revised and Expanded New Edition: Changing Your Life and Business 140 Characters at a Time
- The Quest for Social Media Nirvana from Ms. Ileane Speaks
- Create a Killer Social Media and Content Marketing Plan by Deltina Hay
