A solid social media marketing strategy is essential to any content marketing plan in today’s lightning-fast digital environment. However, it can be challenging to manage multiple profiles and keep up with the constant need for fresh content.
Still, there is no need to fret because astute social media managers always look to automate things, and that is why they rely on various social media management tools for businesses. Such cutting-edge resources as content scheduling, automatic posting, and more allow for centralized management of an entire social media marketing campaign.
The best social media management tool will free you from tedious manual tasks, allowing you to focus on expanding the reach of your social media initiatives. Let’s talk about some of the best social media management tools you can find today and help run your marketing campaigns with more confidence.
- The Best Overall Social Media Management Tool: Sprout Social
- The Best Social Media Management Tool for Analytics: Hootsuite
- The Best All-in-One Social Media Management Tool: Zoho
- The Best Social Media Management Tool for Automation: Meet Edgar
- The Best Social Media Management Tool for Large Teams: Loomly
- The Best Budget Option: Buffer
The Best Overall Social Media Management Tool: Sprout Social
When it comes to social media management, Sprout Social is one of the most all-encompassing tools available. It has an easy-to-use UI, powerful collaboration options, and a one-month free trial.
The platform’s many functionalities are readily accessible via a straightforward and aesthetically pleasing interface. Sprout Social’s features, which range from content scheduling to in-depth analytics, are extensive and suitable for a wide range of social media approaches.
As a result, companies may more easily oversee their social media profiles across various sites, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. The Smart Inbox in Sprout Social is where you’ll find all of your notifications and messages from all of your connected accounts in one convenient place.
This streamlines customer communication and interaction by removing the need to switch between several platforms. Similarly, the robust analytics features of this tool are another highlight. Stunning graphic reports make it simple for users to track the success of their content and campaigns.
Businesses may improve their social media operations with the use of the platform’s data, which includes information on audience demographics, post-performance, and overall reach.
The Best for Analytics Social Media Management Tool: Hootsuite
Hootsuite manages to beat its competition by delivering the most powerful analytics and data to make informed decisions. For companies that want to connect with many different social media platforms, Hootsuite is the ideal social media management application.
Its base plans are cost-effective, and the infrastructure they provide for creating and tracking social media material is impressive. Hootsuite boasts excellent audience communication options, including the ability to track hundreds of social media data across many platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and YouTube.
The home screen of your Hootsuite account is the Streams interface, which automatically refreshes every 15 minutes with the most recent activity. Hootsuite’s App Directory is one of the features that sets it apart from the competition.
More than 150 third-party apps broaden Hootsuite’s functionality; much beyond what the platform offers by default. Other apps connect Hootsuite with even more channels for advertising; some, like Google My Business, Adobe Stock, and the Fourstarzz Influencer Recommendation Engine, are free to use.
It is worth mentioning that you can upload videos to YouTube and post them across social media with Hootsuite, which offers a free account and a 30-day trial of its paid subscriptions. Costs may increase for firms that need to upgrade from a lower-tier plan, but it can provide exceptional value for those who understand their needs.
The Best All-in-One Social Media Management Tool: Zoho
Zoho ensures that small and large businesses benefit from its full customer relationship lifecycle management. It’s a popular choice for an all-in-one social media management tool. Key features include contact management, pipeline management, sales funnels, an AI-powered conversational assistant, and seamless integration with more than 500 popular business apps.
While other CRM solutions may be complex to set up and administer, Zoho CRM keeps simplicity and adaptability at its core. It is flexible enough to meet the needs of a wide range of businesses thanks to its modular design and adaptable configuration.
Powerful workflows are a big plus for users since they allow for things like automatic field updates, email/SMS dispatches, and specialized reports for various departments. Having these reports sent to you through email at predetermined intervals is a great time saver.
Moreover, Zoho CRM also allows for simple API connectivity with other programs, speeding up the installation process and improving the user experience. To top it all off, Zoho CRM has stellar support that helps users maximize the platform’s benefits for their enterprises.
The Best for Automation Social Media Management Tool: Meet Edgar
Meet Edgar delivers a solid performance punch when it comes to automating various tasks related to social media marketing. Marketers frequently utilize MeetEdgar, which is a powerful social media management tool created to schedule Facebook and LinkedIn updates for their clients.
If you want to save time managing your social media accounts, investing in this tool is a no-brainer. Essentially, MeetEdgar is a social media scheduling tool that boasts an intuitive user interface. Its content library is one of its best features since it allows for several post versions for a single piece of material and posts content in a last-in, first-out fashion.
The platform’s intuitive design and straightforward interface make managing multiple accounts a breeze. Although dashboards or other simple methods of tracking post-performance are missing from the reporting options, you will find a way around it once you use it for a while
Overall, MeetEdgar is a great tool for those who want to save time managing their social network accounts. It enables regular publishing while rotating through the library’s content, making it useful for both marketing departments and companies.
The Best for Large Team Social Media Management Tool: Loomly
Loomly is one of the finest options for those managing a large social media marketing team because of its features. It’s a versatile social media management tool that shines out because of its unique, prominent feature: the ability to establish a custom social network for posting to nearly any site.
This is in addition to the basics like scheduling, a multi-service inbox, and basic analytics. This sets Loomly apart from other social media management platforms.
Users are able to create and manage several social media scheduling calendars. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snapchat, YouTube, TikTok, and the Custom Channel are just some of the social media outlets that can be incorporated into each calendar.
Using Zapier as its backend, the Custom Channel gives its users the freedom to post to other platforms like Reddit or send emails to team leaders.
Its attractiveness lies in the fact that it can be used in tandem with other social media platforms, such as Twitter and Instagram, so that users do not have to switch between apps to share content. This novel strategy for managing social media reduces redundancies and increases productivity.
The Best Budget Social Media Management Tool: Buffer
Buffer offers a long list of features but at an affordable cost, which makes it the finest tool for those searching for a budget option. For small businesses and solo producers who want to encourage genuine interaction and see real results from their social media efforts, Buffer is the ideal social media management platform.
A free plan is available indefinitely, while subscription options begin at only $6 per month per channel after a free 14-day trial. The platform provides a full set of tools to facilitate content production in many forms, such as post-scheduling, audience engagement, data analytics, straightforward landing pages, and group work.
The goal of these carefully designed and refined tools is to make the lives of social media marketers and their teams easier. The distinct value that Buffer provides is what sets it apart from the competition.
The platform’s users vouch for its user-friendliness, ease of use, customer service, and content quality. When it comes to managing many social media accounts, Buffer is a complete and straightforward option.
How to Pick the Best Social Media Management Tool: Step by Step
In order to pick the best social media tool, you need to pay attention to your unique circumstances and your business needs. Here is what you should bear in mind.
Think About How Big Your Business Is
Your company’s size is a major factor in deciding what kinds of functions you require from a social media management tool. For solopreneurs and marketing managers who handle their own social media channels, it is important to get a tool that lets them post in advance, easily share fresh blog content, and tailor their messages to each social media network.
Cost-effectiveness is also important for small organizations, which is why Buffer seems a better choice, as it provides free plans specifically designed for them. For larger business organizations, the focus is also on better team management.
Teamwork is crucial for social media managers handling many brands or larger accounts. Finding tools that facilitate effective collaboration amongst team members is crucial in such circumstances.
Do You Need Managed Account Types or Not?
Most modern SMM tools connect seamlessly with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and even LinkedIn. Other platforms have since followed SocialPilot’s lead and included TikTok.
Some technologies, such as Buffer and SproutSocial, enable the scheduled and automatic distribution of numerous media formats to clients on WhatsApp, while others, such as Zoho Social, do not. So, consider what your true needs are before putting your money on any of the available SMM tools
Should You Choose a Tool with a Subscription Fee or Not?
Popular social media management tools frequently have basic, free versions. One or more of these limitations could be the amount of social media accounts, the number of users, or the extent to which analytics are available.
For instance, Buffer’s free plan only allows scheduling material on three channels, while Zoho Social’s free plan includes posting to seven channels, the browser extension zShare, and adding one team member.
You have to consider if these restrictions truly matter to your business or not. Remember, some of these limitations might become an issue as your business grows if you do not switch to a premium plan.
Therefore, it is also important to look into the paid tiers of any tool, even if the free tier has all the features you need now. Consider whether you will need to upgrade to a subscription plan by comparing the costs of the free and paid options.
What to Know When Choosing the Best Social Media Management Tool
In order to choose the best social media management tool, you also need to learn about some of its major features. Here is what to know when choosing an SMM tool.
Platform Interoperability
It is too much work to maintain active profiles on social networking platforms. Make sure the social network management tool you are considering gives you access to all of your accounts in one convenient location.
Content Scheduler
You can schedule all of your social media posts and social media campaigns for a given time period using a visual content calendar. Thanks to this, you may save time, get your social media marketing strategy in order, monitor the efficacy of individual posts, and maintain a regular publishing schedule.
Planning Tools
Before picking any SMM tool, you need to consider if you also get any planning tools, as well. It is more efficient to schedule all of your posts at once, as it also lets you spend more time on content creation.
Quality Analytics and Reporting
Never choose any SMM tool that does nothing to keep you informed about important figures related to your social media campaign. Therefore, a tool with powerful measurement and reporting applications is always a better option.
Using the Best Social Media Management Tool: What It’s Like
If you are a business owner looking to streamline your online marketing, a social media management tool is a must-have. You will find it a lot easier to develop, schedule, and post content across numerous social media sites.
It helps you save a lot of time by automating mundane activities and offering a central dashboard for tracking engagement and output. Moreover, the tool’s analytics features allow for data-driven decision-making, which in turn helps you maximize the effectiveness of your social media strategy.
In a nutshell, a good social media management tool lightens your load so you can concentrate more on strategizing better and improving core business activities.
The image featured at the top of this post is ©Gonzalo Aragon/Shutterstock.com.
