8 Must-Have Features for A Killer Social Media Aggregator

I don’t know how some people and small companies do it. I only participate in 3-4 social media sites and I can’t keep them all up-to-date simultaneously—at least, not if I want to keep my job and occasionally sleep!

I recently went on a tiny rant about companies abandoning their websites to focus on building their social media pages. I’m not really a social media hater so I wanted to see if anyone was working on a solution. I knew that some sites had two-way connections. For example, I can have tweets automatically post to my LinkedIn status and vice versa. I think we need a much bigger solution, like a one-to-many connection.

I did some sleuthing around the internet and it seems that several development companies are working on a content management solution (CMS) for social media. The idea is that you can input your dynamic content (blogs, news/announcements, events, etc…) and the CMS will post the items not only to your website but also to your social media pages as well.

Awesome! A solution that maintains the website AND the social media presence. Type it once and let the application spin it out where you want it to go. Think about the possibilities! Search engines will once again love your website because the content is fresh. New customers will find your website because of all the search engine love you’re now getting. Old customers will once again come to your website because there’s something new to see on a regular basis.

Yeah, awesome…if they get it right.

Based on my experience with WordPress, I’m sure any solution will handle the basics:  adding images and multimedia, allow users to add, modify and delete content and allow the user to select an alternate language. It’s going to take much more than that to be the next big CMS killer app.

Here’s my list of must-have features for any social media input aggregation.

  1. Allow the user to input publish and removal dates for each post. This will allow the user to set up content to be released on a specific date or even maintain a continuous flow new content without scheduling writing time everyday.
  2. Figure a way for the interface to allow for the automated removal of out-dated content (like past events) from the social media pages.
  3. Allow for multiple authorization levels. Authorization should be configurable by type of post and editing permissions of each user.
  4. Provide a method for the user to select a subset of the social media sites for each post to get published. Not everything is tweet-able nor does every tweet belong on your LinkedIn status. (You know who you are.)
  5. Create short URLs without leaving the interface. A bit.ly widget or something like it within the interface would do the job nicely.
  6. Provide a smart solution for posts to meet the maximum character limits for each type of social media site. Yeah I’m still talking about you Twitter!
  7. Support translated posts in multiple language for internationalized websites.
  8. Sync resumes. (I soooo need this feature.) It might be easier to sync from a site like LinkedIn to a website, but I leave that decision in the hands of a capable developer.

Okay this last one’s a not a wishlist item but please come up with a better acronym than I did! CMS-SM, ugh.

Hey, I’m a user experience designer not a developer. From my perspective, this is what it will take for a CMS application to be the next big deal. Can anyone add to my list? What do you think is a must-have feature?

Author’s note: I’m not affiliated with any of the development companies working on a CMS for social media application so I can’t discuss or recommend any of their products.

2 Replies to “8 Must-Have Features for A Killer Social Media Aggregator”

    1. ifttt.com looks promising in theory. The blog is a bunch of developer-speak. So I’m holding out my full endorsement until I see the interface. If it’s not intuitive for the average person, it won’t work.

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