I signed up for Symphony when my NetworkedBlogs account had a syndication problem stemming from the URL issues I had a few months ago. Initially, I was worried about the change in interface and moving to a new service. That worry was calmed pretty quickly when I realized Symphony was (in my opinion), better than NetworkedBlogs from both a user interface point-of-view and overall user-friendly configuration.
When you first login to Symphony after signing up for an account via logging in to Facebook, you are presented with a tutorial that walks you though setting up your account and linking social networks/blogs to your account. After going through the normal steps of setting up a profile and filling in the blanks, you are lead to a dashboard. On this dashboard, there are windows that layout social profiles (social network accounts), posts that are scheduled, and posts have been posted. The social profile windows give a snapshot of the corresponding profile so you can see, in real time, what is being presented to your audience. The final, and most important window, labeled as "Syndication" shows just that, what yo currently have syndicated through Symphony. When posts are syndicated on social networks, they look great too. They present themselves with corresponding info and photos, giving readers the perfect preview of what the content actually has.
At the top of this page, you will find three tabs. The first, labeled "Home", is your dashboard (shown above).
The second, labeled "Inbox" is pretty awesome, it is essentially a hub that shows "Facebook messages and comments, Twitter DMs, and brand mentions in one central place. The inbox is for messages you need to act on."
The third and final tab, labeled "Publishing" has two sub-tabs, labeled "Queues" and "Syndication". The first sub-tab, "Queues", allows you to schedule posts for later. Scheduling allows you to queue many posts and have them get published later" at whatever time you wish them to post, exactly what I do with my posts to make sure you get our quality content at an ideal time for you. The second sub-tab, "Syndication", does just that. It allows you to automate blog posts to all linked social networks.
In the top corner of any Symphony page, you'll notice a red rectangle that says "Crosspost". This allows you to formulate a post directly on Symphony an post it to any/all selected profiles rather than going to each social network individually and post on the actual network itself. It saves both time and frustration by typing what you posted once, in one place, and not having to copy and paste to each network.
With Symphony, promoting your blog and profiles is as easy as creating a share widget. These widgets allow you to "make your images sharable with links back to your site". I.e. whenever a image is syndicated, published, or shared, there will be a link embedded that will allow traffic to be diverted back to your site. This not only puts your current or potential reader's eyes on your content, but drives analytics, giving you more documented views/month. Best part, these widgets are free.
The final feature of Symphony to highlight is the ability to collaborate and manage projects in related profiles. So say you want to work on a project or line of posts with a neighboring blog or contributor. You can add then to a project by inviting them in as a collaborator. This then allows you to syndicate a post from one central location to have it published on all collaborators profiles/networks.
So, I know your wondering one last thing...cost. Symphony comes to you with four plans. I'll highlight each individually and lay out features as they match up with each plan. To show the creativity of the developers at Symphony, they matched the names of the three paid plans literally with symphonies...naming them after history's most famous musicians/composers.
- Free
- Verdi
- Bach
- Mozart
Free - Free
Allows you to link profiles to Symphony and manage them from your profile. It also allows you to crosspost (as highlighted above) from whatever linked profiles you may have. On the downside, you cannot syndicate and you cannot link more than two social profiles.
Verdi - $14/month
This plan allows you to publish, manage up to 8 social profiles, publish large photos, schedule posts, and automate sharing of your blog. It also allows you to create a tab on your Facebook page that directs people to your blog with custom themes. The final feature is that you get both chat and email.
Bach - $29/month
This plan is the "suggested" plan by Symphony. It allows you to publish, manage up to 12 social profiles, publish large photos, schedule posts, and automate sharing of your blog. It also allows you to create a tab on your Facebook page that directs people to your blog with custom themes. In addition, you can monitor and reply to messages via your Inbox as well as all other Inbox features highlighted above. You can collaborate with 2 users and have shared team profiles. And as with Verdi, you get both chat and email.
Mozart - $99/month
This plan is the "suggested" plan by Symphony. It allows you to publish, manage up to 50 social profiles, publish large photos, schedule posts, automate sharing of your blog, and publish videos. It also allows you to create a tab on your Facebook page that directs people to your blog with custom themes and provides you with Google Analytics Tracking. In addition, you can monitor and reply to messages via your Inbox as well as all other Inbox features highlighted above. You can collaborate with 6 users and have shared team profiles, create projects, and make/assign tasks. And as with Verdi and Bach, you get both chat and email.
There are a list of the exclusive features you receive with Symphony, all of which will make your blog more successful overall. Those can be found here.
There is a fifth plan option, one that requires customization based on the need for more size/features. This plan is customized and requires one-on-one planning with the developers and people at Symphony. This can be done by contacting them. Not exactly something you would need to do for a blog, but nice to have available for those who may need that feature.
You can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel at any time with these plans since they are a month-to-month deal. If you do change things up, your payment is prorated on your next bill, so no money is lost. There are annual billing plans and you do save money in selecting to do it this way.
The Symphony peeps are awesome. They are ready to answer questions with their popup instant chat window that appears on every Symphony screen, making you feel comfortable at all times to ask questions and suggest ideas.
Overall, I've very happy with Symphony and how it carried over from NetworkedBlogs very fluidly. In fact, it may have been an upgrade. Only downside, cost. NetworkedBlogs had a lot of the same features and was free. With that aside, Symphony has one satisfied customer in me.
Boom...Morgan
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