A social media aggregator is a tool that helps you bring together content from multiple platforms, moderate it, curate it, and then show it off to the world. Having everything in one place allows you to interact with the people engaged with your content in real time. An open dialogue creates a sense of community around your business. It keeps people happy and encourages them to keep posting.

With Walls.io, you can aggregate and showcase the best posts, photos or videos from Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, ВКонтакте (VKontakte), Flickr, Tumblr, Pinterest, Vimeo, Messenger, Reddit, and RSS.

With so much choice out there, it’s very difficult to decide which one is the best social media aggregator for each brand. We’ve put together some tips to help you figure out what your needs are when choosing a social media aggregator. Here are some things to consider when picking a social media aggregator:
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1. Real-time updates
The number one thing you want from a social media aggregator is real-time updates. Why? Because a real-time social wall makes your website or event more interactive and fun by allowing you to display relevant content for your audience. It enables you to engage your customers in real-time conversations about your brand. It also enables you to spread the word about your product or services beyond your fan base.

Social media is all about engagement. If people participate in your social media campaign and use your hashtag, you need to engage with them immediately. That’s where real-time updates come in very handy.

2. Sponsored image and video ads
As an alternative to sponsoring conference swag or lanyards, you could generate sponsorship revenue with the integration of sponsors using a social media aggregator. If you set up a live social media feed for an event, sponsored posts give you a way to promote your sponsors and offer them advertising space on the wall. Another option is to publish ads that feature your product and have them highlighted on your wall.

You could also fill sponsored posts with your own campaign content. For example by adding photos to bring some variety to your social media wall. Especially at the beginning of a campaign when you haven’t collected a lot of posts by others yet, you can fill sponsored tiles with content that will make your wall look fuller and encourage others to post as well.

Make sure that you have the possibility to add advertising to your social wall mix when you choose a social media aggregator for your brand.

3. The possibility to post custom content
A social media aggregator is an awesome tool for blending various content types to your heart’s content. It’s not enough for a social media aggregator to be able to just pull social media content from all platforms. It should also let you create custom content when you need to.

You always need to have content curation in mind so you can showcase the most interesting content on your social wall. Show off the best content relating to your brand or event so you can reach target markets more effectively.

When you choose a social feed aggregator, pick one that lets you pull posts from different social platforms, RSS feeds, and even create your own content directly on the platform to toss into the mix. Custom content can contain details about your next event, information about your latest product, posts promoting a great product feature, interesting facts about your company, testimonials from your clients or employees — you name it! The sky’s the limit for what you can display on a social wall.

4. Advanced moderation features
Given the varying degrees in quality of user-generated content, it’s crucial for you to be able to readily curate and moderate these high volumes of social content and showcase only the most effective and compelling pieces. You’ll want to keep your social wall spam-free at all times, and a good social media aggregator will make it easy for you to do that.

Hashtag campaigns are amazing. They help spread your brand’s message by incentivising users to post original content relating to your brand. But hashtag campaigns can easily be turned against your brand as well. It can be something as simple as one of the countless bots scooping up trending hashtags to post porn. I’m sure that every social media marketer has had at least one hashtag hijacking nightmare.

The good news is that you can keep your social wall free from NSFW content and trolls, and even deal with a full-blown hashtag hijacking. Just make sure that you pick a social media aggregator that has advanced moderation features.

5. Access to a variety of social media platforms
There aren’t many social media aggregators that go beyond the most common social media networks. However, when you choose a social media aggregation software for your business, you want to make sure that, at the very least, the social platforms you already use are included. Ideally, there should be room for you to grow as well, should you choose to branch out to new platforms later on. The more options, the better.

While Twitter and Facebook are the most popular choices for brands, some people prefer Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube or other more niche social media websites. Becoming part of more than one social community will increase your reach and help you connect with more people.

Even if you are not currently using a social platform, there’s a good chance your competitors are. Don’t let them reap all of the benefits and potential customers that you could be getting. To find out which social media accounts your competitors are using, just have a look at their websites. Companies usually list their social media networks there.

If you have an international audience, make sure that you don’t exclude huge social networks such as the Russian ВКонтакте (VKontakte). Walls.io allows you to collect and display content from multiple social media networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, VKontakte, Reddit and Tumblr.

6. Responsive design and endless display options
To effectively communicate with your audience, you need to design an amazing social media wall that is in line with your brand’s design. Make sure that the social media aggregator you choose allows you to easily create your unique look and feel, and define the structure and layout of your custom social wall.

Whether you would like to display your social media content on a live social feed on your website, on a display screen, or project it at a conference or BarCamp, make it look great. You want to go for a social wall that is responsive, allows you to change the background and colors, upload your company’s logo and do advanced CSS changes. By employing great design, color, shape, and movement, you can make your social media wall a success.

Walls.io has a bunch of social wall themes to choose from, as well as advanced design customisation options. This allows you to adjust the social wall to fit your brand and your use case.