Social Network and Texting Search Tools?

Technology ChMS
1

The Skinny
Does anybody know of a solution that allows you to search your email, facebook messenger, facebook timeline and texting all at once? (It should be possible, depending on the texting provider, because I believe all of those have APIs.)

The Why
I split my time between Worship Arts and IT. On the worship side, just about everybody prefers texting, Facebook Messenger or writing on my Facebook wall (sorry, timeline). However, these systems don’t integrate well with my workflow. I used to tell people “Email me or I’ll forget.”, but I’ve come to see that as shifting of responsibility that is not good service. We are churches, so whenever possible, we should find ways to communicate to people the way they are comfortable and not force them into using our systems.

So, I’d like to be able to review the recent activity of all these types of personal communication when I get back to my desk where I have all my workflow tools available. Also, sometimes I think to myself, “Didn’t someone once mention something about that to me…somewhere?”

What I’ve Tried
I’m currently searching each separately. Searching Gmail is awesome. Searching Facebook groups works well, but I have to search each separately. Facebook activity searches are so incomplete as to be almost useless. Downloading all my Facebook data is time consuming and then I have to bring my own tools for searching it. Searching my texts is OK on my iPhone or in Messages (MacOS X).

IFTTT doesn’t integrate with Facebook or Texting in a way where I can just redirect all activity to my Gmail. At least it didn’t last I looked about 6 months ago.

So, instead, I’ve learned to be diligent in capturing things the first time I see it and immediately enter it into whatever part of my workflow makes sense (send an email, put it in my project software, put it in a ChMS note or change a volunteer status in Planning Center). Even if something doesn’t inspire a task, if it’s church related I capture it for later searching. Relying on my diligence is a poor system. Something always falls through the cracks. Nobody likes cracks! :slight_smile:

Ideas?

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It occurred to me that this something marketing might use so I asked our Marketing Manager for her input. Her response is below. Sounds like Hootsuite might be worth a look.

I honestly don’t know of a program that does what he is looking for, especially across platforms. I know of posting programs that can post across multiple programs and track engagement, but not sure what the messaging capabilities in that would be. Hootsuite is pretty popular among social media managers: https://hootsuite.com/ . That might help him post seamlessly across his social platforms and track the engagement, but isn’t his one-for-all answer he is looking for.

I have used Hootsuite in the past (and even IFTTT, which he mentioned) and wasn’t wowed by either one. IFTTT has limitations and wasn’t always consistent, and I didn’t like how when HootSuite posted on our behalf (when you schedule posts out), it would show up that we used a third party and took away that personal element of engagement.

Sorry I couldn’t be more help!

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Thanks for your reply. Our communications team uses HootSuite, too.

I should add that I have found CRM Solutions that are not specifically ChMS that integrate in various different ways with Facebook: Zoho, Agile and Salesforce.