Around.io Review: Everything You Need to Know

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The average internet user has five social media accounts.

That's not even including businesses. Strangely enough, I would guess that most individuals have more social accounts than businesses do.

You'd think it would be the other way around, considering most people don't have much to promote on social media, whereas businesses should all be on places like Facebook and Twitter. We're not saying that you have to get on every network out there, but it's much easier when you have a tool to go about doing so.

Anyone who handles two or three different social accounts knows just how much time it takes out of the day to simply switch over to the other account. If this process happens every day, there's no telling how much time is being wasted on a yearly basis. Ecommerce stores don't need these problems.

We recently noticed an interesting tool called Around.io, which is billed as a social media productivity tool for online sellers. It's supposed to cut down on the amount of work you need to do with social media posting, and the core platform is built on a dashboard where you can manage, edit and schedule posts from numerous social accounts.

Wanna check it out?

Around.io Pricing

  • Basic Social Plan – For $9.99 per month you can post on all social media from one place, choose any image from your product images to share, schedule posts in one click, find and share relevant content, monitor and share favorite sites and locate awesome GIFs to share.
  • Advanced Social Plan – For $19.99 per month you get everything talked about in the Basic Social plan, along with a weekly planner which lets you setup a whole week within 30 seconds.
  • Image Plus Plan – (currently in private beta) For $49.99 per month you receive everything from the previous plans, and the ability to add, edit and save your images in one place. In addition, you can upload images from places like Facebook, Instagram Dropbox, Google Drive and more.

Each of the plans offers a 7-day risk free trial to get a feel for what comes along with the Around.io system.

Around.io Features

The Ultimate Social Day and Week Planner

day_planner

I've seen lots of social planners, whether they be as WordPress plugins, Shopify add-ons or third party programs such as Hootsuite. Heck, some sites like Facebook even have scheduling built in now. However, not all of the planning tools are the greatest. That's not the case with Around.io, since it provides a way to create posts, pins and tweets, all scheduled for a day or week. It's useful because all of your posts are seen on a single page, and you can jump from one social media site to another, then view the entire calendar for your entire strategy.

Personally, I would like to see some sort of scheduling tool with an option to drag and drop your scheduled posts, but maybe we'll see this in the future from Around.io.

GIF and Content Searching and Sharing

gif_search

GIFs, articles, links and images are known to perform well on places like Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook. Unfortunately, you have to bring up multiple news sources, search one Google images or follow other blogs through email to see what can be shared on your own social pages.

Around.io has a solid solution, seeing as how all of the content and GIF discover modules are managed right from the Around.io dashboard. Searching around the website isn't that difficult, and you can quickly see things like the number of shares for each item.

Around.io Supports Numerous Marketplaces

Seeing as how this is a tool made for ecommerce stores, it's good to see that the integration options are plentiful. Take a look at the list below to see if your current platform is supported through Around.io. Connecting literally only takes about a minute through the Around.io dashboard.

  • Etsy
  • Ebay
  • StoreEnvy
  • Shopify
  • Big Cartel
  • Magento
  • Ecwid

The following integrations are coming soon:

  • Woo-Commerce (coming soon)
  • Big Commerce (cominbg soon)
  • Amazon (coming soon)
  • Wix (coming soon)
  • Weebly (coming soon)

Collage Creator

collage_creator

Collages are rather popular with online store social strategies, since you need to showcase several products in individual postings. However, most collage apps are a pain to work with, and you rarely have all the right product images in one place. Therefore, Around.io has a page with all your product images, where you can combine them together to make sleek collages.

Promoting Products on Multiple Social Platforms

products_sent_to_multiple_accounts

This is the main functionality for Around.io. As you have seen above, the products from your online store are pulled into the Around.io interface. You then have the option to share details about a product to any social media outlet of your choice. So, if you want to post about a shirt through Pinterest and Facebook, it only takes one click to do so.

Around.io Support

The support from Around.io is excellent. You don't have to access a phone support line or live chat, but it's not exactly the most complicated of tools. However, you can send in an email in case something goes wrong, and the company provides FAQs, a blog and social media outlets for getting a response quickly. Overall, I wouldn't expect much more from this type of company (most people know how to share on social accounts). The only reason you'd maybe need to send in an email is if one of the settings wasn't working for you.

Around.io uses Intercom's interactive support system with very quick response time. 16 hours a day they provide live support, and the maximum response time is 8 hours. From the dashboard, if you click Contact Us or the floating question mark on the bottom right corner it will take you to the support system.

Who is Around.io Built For?

It's fairly obvious who Around.io is built for. Individual ecommerce sellers and businesses like the tool for cutting down on the amount of time they spend on social media. I figure that most smart ecommerce stores are working on at least two social networks, so the basic Around.io plan is a pretty solid choice for companies like that. There's not much you get for the advanced plan besides the weekly planner. This is a pretty huge feature, so I assume many people will upgrade. However, it would be cool if they gave you something else worthwhile for the extra money per month.

If you have any questions about the Around.io system, please feel free to drop a line in the comments section below.

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