When you manage all social media in one place, three jobs stop living in separate tabs: publishing, replying and reporting. The result for a 60-person firm is simple. A post goes out, a prospect comments, someone replies from the planner, the prospect's direct message lands in the same inbox as their earlier email, and the enquiry shows up in the pipeline report at month end. This article explains how to set up that single operating model on the levelpartner.ai platform and what it replaces.
What one place actually means
Most firms already have a scheduling tool. Few have the next two steps joined up. Comments are answered from a phone app, direct messages sit in a network's own inbox, and the person who handles email never sees either. Reporting means exporting figures from each network and pasting them into a spreadsheet.
The single-place model puts the Social Planner, the unified inbox in Conversations and Reporting on top of the same contact records. That shared record is the point. A comment is not just a comment; it belongs to a contact who may already be in your pipeline.
What it replaces
- Logging in to each network to post separately.
- Answering comments and messages from personal phones.
- Copying a prospect's details from a social message into the CRM by hand.
- Monthly spreadsheets built from several network exports.
Each of those costs time, but the larger cost is what slips through. A message answered from a phone leaves no record, so the next person to speak to that prospect starts from nothing.
Before you start
- Every business account connected to the Social Planner under a company login.
- Your team set up as users, with a clear owner for social replies.
- A pipeline that has a stage for new enquiries.
- Notifications switched off on personal phone apps, so replies happen in one place.
How to set it up
Start with connections and the comment queue. Once both work, route direct messages in Conversations to a team, and add a workflow that tags the source and opens an opportunity when a message shows buying intent.
- In Social Planner, click the Settings gear.
- Open Social Accounts and click + Connect Social.
- Select the platform, sign in and approve permissions.
- Confirm the account shows as connected, then repeat per network.
- Go to Marketing > Social Planner > Comments.
- Read and reply to comments on posts published through the planner.
- Filter by Latest or Top to choose what to answer first.
- Select a platform, apply filters, then Mark All as Read.
How the day changes
The person who owns social starts the day in Conversations, not in five apps. Direct messages sit next to emails and SMS, sorted by who needs a reply, and comments are cleared in one pass through the planner's Comments view. Publishing happens once a week in a planning block, and the planner pushes posts out on schedule. At month end, the report already knows which enquiries started on social.
For a firm with flat revenue, the gain shows up as speed. A prospect who asks a question under a post gets an answer from someone who can see that they also downloaded a guide last month. That reply is better, and it happens sooner. For planning the publishing side, see how to schedule social media posts.
Imagine three negotiators answering Instagram messages from their own phones while the office answers Facebook on a shared tablet. Say that is 80 social messages a month leaving no trace in the CRM, or 240 a quarter. Routed into Conversations, every one of them would create or update a contact. Then, for the first time, the firm could count how many valuation requests began with a social message rather than guess.
The trade-off
Some networks add features to their own apps before any outside tool supports them. A new post format or editing tool may appear in the native app months before it reaches any single-place system. You give up early access to those features in exchange for one record and one inbox. If a particular format matters to you, post it natively and log the conversation in the platform.
Connecting the accounts but leaving everyone's phone notifications on. People keep replying from the apps out of habit, and half the conversations never reach the shared inbox. Turn off app notifications on the same day you switch over.
When not to consolidate
If one person runs a single network for a niche audience and the conversations never lead to sales, there is little to gain. Consolidation pays when social conversations feed your pipeline, which for agencies, consultants, mortgage brokers and real estate firms is most of the time.
Weekly time it takes
Roughly an hour a week for publishing in a single planning block, plus a short daily pass through Conversations. Our social media scheduler article covers the publishing block in more depth.
Troubleshooting
Some comments or messages never appear. The account was connected with limited permissions. Reconnect it from Social Accounts and approve every permission requested.
Duplicate contacts appear for social messages. Social profiles rarely share an email address. Merge duplicates when a person later gives their email, and ask for it early in the conversation.
Staff still reply from apps. Old habits persist. Remove app access for anyone who does not need it, and review replies in the weekly meeting.
Reports show no social enquiries. Contacts are created but not tagged by source. Add a source tag in the workflow that creates them.
Frequently asked questions
Can I really reply to every social network from one inbox?
You can reply to comments on planner posts from the Comments view, and to direct messages from networks that support outside replies in Conversations. Where a network does not allow outside replies, the platform still records the contact so you can follow up by another channel.
Does managing everything in one place mean posting the same thing everywhere?
No. You publish from one planner but tailor each version per network. One place means one workflow, not one caption.
How does this help with account security?
Staff use their own users rather than shared passwords. For connecting and offboarding, read manage social media accounts.