Some people say that social media will be dead in a few years. Others say its already revolutionized how we communicate and present ourselves to the world. I agree with the latter. Compared to a few short years ago the entire web has become much more integrated with Facebook and Twitter. With Google Glass getting ready to bolster Google+, things are about to heat up.
For a business that means one thing – they must improve their social media standings right away. Falcon claims to be the right tool for the job. A high-end social media manger application with big clients such as Swarovski and Carlsberg making use of their software we were very interested. The Copenhagen based start-up has just risen €6 million in Series A funding with the aim of “driving international expansion”.
Could they be the next “Big Thing” in social media?
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#CustomerService as it Should Be
It really feels like the whole Falcon team is behind you
An odd approach to begin a review of a web app on, I know. Falcon however isn’t simply a faceless web app that exists on a server. From the get go I could tell the team behind its creation really want each client experience to be useful and are on hand to answer any questions.
When I signed up for the free trial offered by Falcon I received a phone call almost immediately; the purpose being to talk me through the set-up procedure and make sure I was going to get the most out of the platform. I was impressed and I hadn’t even signed in yet.
Features
When I did log in I was shocked by how comprehensive the whole thing looked. Across the top there’s a menu bar and another collapsible one to the left hand side; dozens of options and tabs waiting to be explored.
Listening
The first tool I used was the ‘Listening’ tab. It’s an area of the site reserved for finding out what’s going on in your social world. I set up a few alerts for my fake bookstore and awaited some results. Right away I received awesome graphs and statistics about the conversation that was happening concerning the literary world. I could even reply to tweets and Facebook statuses.
View graphs and statistic about what’s going on out there
This enabled me to interact with conversations that were booming and discover influential people in my niche; a very important part of any social media strategy. Beyond your keywords, you can view broader conversations such as what’s trending on Twitter at the minute.
Moderating
For the day-to-day running of a company Facebook page or Twitter account they’ve created the ‘Moderation’ section. This enables you to reply to messages and interact with your community.
Keep in contact with your community
My favourite feature of this section is the ability to assign certain community messages to a specific member of your social media team. So if a customer service question comes in on the Facebook page you can direct your customer service department to respond.
Publishing
If Oreo have thought us anything, it’s that good content is king when it comes to drawing a crowd. The publishing feature is dedicated to this principle displaying a large monthly calendar so you can keep track of what’s going live, when. You can further break down the results by individual social media channels, tags or pages.
Keep an eye on the social calandar
You can also see how content performed and analyse freely published content against ‘paid’ (ads) or ‘earned’ (publicity). This is the most technical yet user friendly tool like this I’ve ever seen. It easily enables business owners to manage their social media budget and look for a return on investment.
Analytics
Speaking of Return on Investment, users are going to want to know if their time and money invested in Falcon is paying off. For this, there’s the ‘Analytics’ section. It’s a stunning collection of highly customization graphs and charts that show your growth in reach and influence in each social media channel.
Measure your ROI
You can also benchmark your presence against competitors and other influencers in your field to see who’s winning the race. It’s difficult to move the computer mouse without another visually stunning pop-up or information pane appearing to tell you exactly what’s going on.
Build Facebook Apps
Most businesses use Facebook to run polls, competitions and sign-up drives to increase their reach and hopefully go viral. Most are awfully designed, fail to preform or simply don’t live up to their potential (assuming they’re good).
Build stunning Facebook apps
The best feature of Falcon is their Facebook app creation tool. It blew me away.
You can create all different kinds of apps, each of which are organised under their uses for those unfamiliar with social media strategy. Some examples are viral, retention, commerce and integration. They all look like the user has hired a professional designer and coder to make these. Best of all they’re so easy to create. You can have a basic eCommerce store operating on Facebook in less than an hour.
This is by far the most powerful Facebook tool any company could possibly come across.
Final Thoughts
I’m having trouble faulting this app. It’s the most powerful online tool I’ve ever used and it looks gorgeous. It’s compatible with all major social networks including YouTube and Instagram. If I had to knit pick my only gripe is the need for a Facebook page when setting things up. If you don’t have one you’ll hit a brick wall that’s hard to get around (I couldn’t find a way). But then, what business doesn’t have a Facebook page?
Falcon Social is the best web app I’ve personally reviewed all year. If you’re a business owner or entrepreneur this is the social media tool for you. No ifs. No buts. The only gripe is that their pricing isn’t public, though they’ve promised to fill us in on more details in the comments below. Here’s to hoping that they fix that soon on their site and make pricing transparent. Beyond that, though, there’s nothing to complain about at all with Falcon Social.
I can’t wait to see it grow even more over the next couple of years.
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