10 Best Social Media Management Tools (2024 Update)
Table of contents
Social media management tools have become an indispensable part of the lives of social media marketers. We suffer from an embarrassment of riches when it comes to social media management tools. It’s hard to choose the right one for all your social media activities.
Many social media management tools will hinder your work, not facilitate it. They will add to the chaos that social media already is by reporting vanity metrics or offering functionalities you don’t really need in your day-to-day activities.
Therefore, choosing the right social media management tool for you is a crucial decision. The right social media management tool will help you oversee all your activities and help achieve a high social media ROI.
That’s why choosing the right social media management tool is one of the key factors of your success on social media. Hopefully, with this post you’ll be able to make the most informed decision.
Here’s what’s ahead of us today:
- Brand24
- Google Analytics
- HootSuite
- IFTTT
- Tweetdeck
- CoSchedule
- Iconosquare
- Agora Pulse
- Meet Edgar
- MavSocial
- eClincher
Why do you need a social media management tool?
A robust social media management tool will help you:
- identify the most popular social media networks among your target audiences,
- find the best time to post,
- get to know your audience,
- measure the social media ROI of your campaign,
- analyse the sentiment around your brand.
and much more!
In this post, I’ll present ten social media management tools that will make your life as a social media manager much more manageable.
What are the best social media management tools?
All the management tools presented in this article have a few things in common. First of all, they are either free or offer a free trial period. That way you can try for yourself whether the social media management tool offers the functionalities your need.
Secondly, I looked for tools that are universal. Which means it’s possible to manage multiple social media accounts with help from just one or two services.
Some of the tools offer in-depth analytics, some of them are useful services that will save you a lot of time not only while managing your social media accounts, but also while monitoring your overall presence in the Internet.
Without further ado, here’s my list of the best social media management tools!
Brand24
Since social media is all about listening to your audience and meaningful interactions, let’s start with social media listening tool. The primary purpose of Internet monitoring tools was to gather all the mentions with predefined keywords.
But all the social listening tools have evolved immensely since the early days of Internet monitoring. Now they offer a range of tools and social media metrics suitable for social media management.
A social media listening tool will help you with:
- measuring the results of your hashtag marketing campaign;
- assessing the social media sentiment around your brand and marketing campaign;
- monitoring the volume of mentions containing your predefined keyword;
- responding to social media comments in real-time;
- discovering the number and types of interaction under your social media posts;
- finding the right influencers for your marketing campaigns;
As you can see, social media monitoring tool can assist you in many different aspects of social media management – starting with monitoring the discussion around your brand and ending at measuring your social media ROI.
Brand24 offers a 14-day free trial, no credit card required. Regular price starts at $79.
Google Analytics
What would we do without Google Analytics metrics? I don’t know about you, but I would be completely lost. The main goal of Google Analytics was to monitor the performance of websites, but GA has developed enormously since then. Now you can also measure:
- from which social media platforms your audience is visiting your website. Find out where your audience is and on which social media platforms you should focus;
- add goals to the Google Analytics dashboard. Think about traffic, downloads of ebooks or other promotional materials;
- monitor social media conversion rates. See which posts or photos bring revenue to your business.
Google Analytics is a free tool, and I strongly recommend setting up an account.
HootSuite
This social media management tool is one of my personal favourites. HootSuite is a great platform, especially when you have to manage multiple social media accounts. Moreover, the tool will help you with:
- scheduling social media posts and other forms of content
- measuring your social ROI
- running social media ads
- shortening links, attaching photos all within the same tab.
HootSuite is an all-in-one-place kind of tool. It’s integrated with 25 social networks, and it allows you to share content based on your customers’ location, demographics or language. Definitely a tool for savvier social media managers.
Hootsuite offers a free trial and its premium plan starts at $19.
IFTTT
Under this strange abbreviation hides an automation tool called “If This Then That”. The tool links different platforms and services based on a trigger and action command. For example, if you publish a photo on Instagram, it will be automatically and natively shared on Twitter.
IFTTT is a free tool.
Tweetdeck
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the number of notifications on Twitter? Tweetdeck is here to help. It’s a social media management tool dedicated to controlling your Twitter presence.
The main perks of Tweetdeck:
- legible and responsive interface with all the notifications in one place
- an easy way to engage with social media users
- add all Twitter streams to one dashboard, so you can keep an eye on all topics you’re interested in.
Tweetdeck is a free tool.
CoSchedule
I have to admit, I love to plan. That’s probably why I enjoy working with CoSchedule so much. If you’re looking for a tool, that will help you get a firm grasp on all your scheduling efforts.
CoSchedule will suggest:
- content to post
- what time to post
- what day to post
CoSchedule will not only help with scheduling but will facilitate the work of your entire team. You will not only be able to set up posts but also
- arrange meetings
- assign tasks.
CoSchedule offers a free trial, its paid option starts at $80 per month.
Iconosquare
Iconosquare focuses on Instagram and Facebook analytics, so it will be a perfect tool if your social media marketing activities focus on these two channels.
Iconosquare features are divided into three subcategories, and all of them sound amazing. Just take a look:
Analytics:
- measure your growth
- discover followers, fans, locations and demographics
- measure impressions and reach
- discover the best time to post
- track the performance of any post or Story
Activity:
- connect multiple social profiles
- create customized own Instagram feed
- track, moderate and respond to comments easily
Publishing:
- upload your photos directly from your computer
- preview your post
- save captions and hashtags
- get notified when it’s time to post.
Iconosquare also offers a top-notch training program and runs a blog with tons of helpful tips and tricks for succeeding on Instagram.
It’s a paid social media management tool (the cheapest plan costs 29 euro) but there is a 14-day free trial.
Agora Pulse
Agora Pulse is a very versatile tool for social media management.
The most compelling features include:
- publishing content. What’s really cool in this social media management tool is that you can loop and post indefinitely within previously determined intervals.
- labelling posts for easier analysis in the future
- engagement feature, where you can interact with every follower and message in one dashboard
- sharing the content with clients. This feature is especially important for agencies. You can easily share posts before publishing for acceptance.
The cheapest social media management plan starts at 79 euro per month, the plan for enterprises costs 459 euro a month.
Meet Edgar
Meet Edgar was one of the first social media management tool out there that introduce the feature of sharing content in a loop.
Now, Meet Edgar can do much more! Its main features include:
- adding your posts in a bulk and importing blogs and articles via a RSS feed
- scheduling social media posts
- generating posts using a Chrome extension
- A/B test social messaging
- link tracking
Meet Edgar offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. A monthly plan costs $49.
MavSocial
What distinguishes MavSocial from other social media management tools is the build-in stock image library. Besides the library, MavSocial offers:
- post automation and scheduling
- audience engagement
- industry trends tracking
- reports to present your data to your supervisors
- collaboration with other members of your team and your clients
- content curation
The most affordable plan starts at $16 per month, the enterprise solution costs $416 per month.
eClincher
eClincher is a social media management tool that lets you manage different social media accounts, funpages and communities within one neat dashboard.
The main features of eClincher contain:s
- scheduling your social media posts
- receiving all your messages in one place
- discovering relevant content by using keywords
- storing all your multimedia in one library
- exploring the most powerful influencers for your social media marketing campaign
eClincher starts at $49, the most expensive Agency plan costs $199 per month.
Which social media management tool should you choose?
Social media management can be a daunting and time-consuming task because of all the notifications and buzz. A social media management tool becomes a must-have at some point.
What is the best social media management tool for your company?
It all depends on your business. If you’re looking for robust social media analytics and hashtag monitoring tool, go for Brand24. You will be able to monitor the online talk about your company and react to your customers’ queries promptly.
But if you struggle with other aspects of social media management, for example, post scheduling, take a closer look at other tools.
In the end of the day, even the best tool won’t do the work for you; all it can do is facilitate your task. Choose a social media management tool that will help you become a social media ninja!
HANDPICKED RELATE READ
- The golden rules of PR crisis management
- How to measure PR campaign?
- How to measure the share of voice?
- 10 affordable news monitoring tools to keep you in the know