At some point, your company will take the dive into social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Maybe you’ve never tried to build a following on social media, or maybe you’ve found some success on Facebook and you’re now ready to expand to several other networks. Regardless of your situation, you’ll quickly realize how tedious it is to manage your social media posts and keep your pages flowing with content. That’s where social media management tools come into play.
Creating and publishing your social media posts takes far more time and creativity than the average person would expect, so when you have a management tool on your side, it becomes more efficient.
We’re going to outline what to look for in an excellent social media management tool. After that, we’ll go through the pros and cons of our favorite social media management tools on the market.
When attempting to figure out which social tool is right for you, you should break down exactly how you plan on using the tool. This involves understanding the size of your business, its customers, and how often you’d like to post.
Each of the tools below has different functions, but the primary features are standard throughout the solutions. However, you’ll find that some of them focus on specific functions like advanced reporting, while others are made for all-around social management with scheduling, analytics, and market research features.
It’s up to you to decide which of the features you absolutely need, but here are some of the essentials:
As I mentioned, these features are only the primary tools to look for. As we go through the options below, you’ll realize that some of the social media management tools have extremely unique settings, making them perfect for certain individuals or organizations.
Hootsuite is one of the most popular social media management tools. It provides a free plan for those getting started or with smaller companies. This way, you can work with three social profiles and send out 30 scheduled messages in the calendar. As a social management tool, it helps you save time by scheduling posts to multiple social accounts. You can also curate content from the internet and use the powerful analytics to show which of the posts are performing well in terms of ROI.
Most companies will opt for the Professional Plan, which costs $29 per month and allows for 10 social profiles and unlimited scheduling. You can also expand this to additional social profiles and custom analytics for more money.
👉 Who should consider this as one of their social media management tools? Any sized business that can fit it in the budget. We like it for those that want lots of features in one dashboard. It’s also great if you’d like many integrations and apps.
The Buffer app has its fair share of fame in the social media world, mainly due to how streamlined it makes the publishing, replying, and analyzing of your social media posts.
Along with an incredible blog and resource center, Buffer offers a completely free plan for up to three social accounts and 10 scheduled posts for each profile. The other option is a Pro Plan, which starts at $15 per month and goes up to hundreds of dollars per month depending on how big your company is.
👉 Who should consider this as one of their social media management tools? If the social networks you use are in the free plan (and you don’t need to post that much) the free plan is amazing. Really, any business size could use Buffer and probably get away with the $15 per month Pro plan. The problem arises when you need to upgrade to a pricey Business plan.
Social Pilot is known for connecting you with just about every social network you can think of. It provides simple scheduling, team collaboration tools, and a content curator. The analytics are also quite impressive, with white label PDF reports for sending out to clients or stakeholders.
Although Social Pilot calls itself a cost-effective social scheduling solution, that might be a stretch. It doesn’t have a free plan, and the Professional plan starts at $30 per month. The good news is that it supports 50 social accounts, so you are getting more bang for your buck.
👉 Who should consider this as one of their social media management tools? Social Pilot makes the most sense for companies with lots of clients since it doesn’t limit you much on social network connections or posts per day.
Sprout Social has a focus on building and fostering more human relationships with followers on social media.
It’s definitely built for more established businesses, since it does a great job of linking companies with brand advocates. Not only that, but the pricing starts at $99 per user per month.
👉 Who should consider this as one of their social media management tools? Sprout Social looks like a steal for mid-sized to large businesses that are ready to partner with brand advocates.
The MavSocial tool offers a modern, streamlined interface for curating and scheduling your posts. It’s one of the easiest dashboards to use, and it focuses on the most important parts of social sharing: scheduling, messaging followers, and understanding what others are posting.
The pricing is reasonable, including a free plan for two social profiles. The Advanced version starts at $16 per month for one user.
👉 Who should consider this as one of their social media management tools? MavSocial caters to those who want the essentials of social media management. The pricing plans are flexible, so anyone can use it, from a freelancer to a large corporation.
Sendible is marketed directly to social media agencies. It caters to companies that have teams of people.
That said, Sendible manages to keep prices fairly low, with the Micro plan starting at $29 per month (12 services and one user).
👉 Who should consider this as one of their social media management tools? There’s no doubt about it. Sendible is best for agencies.
The Zoho Social product, like everything from Zoho, is modern, extremely simple, and far less expensive than any competition.
Zoho Social has a free edition for one team member, and you can publish on all networks. After that, the Standard plan costs $10 per month.
👉 Who should consider this as one of their social media management tools? The pricing and simplicity makes Zoho Social great for individuals and small to medium-sized businesses.
Oktopost is built specifically for B2B companies, allowing for the combination of three social media elements. The first is social management, with scheduling and content curation. The second is social employee advocacy. And the third is social media promotions.
You’ll have to request a demo for pricing. Your pricing could be as low as a few hundred per month and could go up to thousands per month. It all depends on how many employees use the software, along with the number of social profiles and social advocates.
👉 Who should consider this as one of their social media management tools? We like Oktopost for most B2B companies, but we encourage you to go through a demo to see if the interface and pricing is right.
AgoraPulse takes the tools you would typically find with expensive agency software and makes them more affordable and clean.
The pricing starts at $39 per month for three social profiles and one user. This isn’t rock-bottom pricing, but it’s nice to know that all features are included with this price.
👉 Who should consider this as one of their social media management tools? AgoraPulse looks good for smaller agencies and those who like an extremely clean interface.
IFTTT is not so much a social media management suite, but rather a way to integrate a collection of your current social tools. For instance, you may want to automatically share new YouTube videos to Facebook.
IFTTT is free to use, and it has a wide range of social applets for complementing other social or small business tools you’re currently using.
👉 Who should consider this as one of their social media management tools? We recommend that all businesses at least test out IFTTT to see how it can complement a social strategy.
Sprinklr helps enterprises promote social engagement, advertising, customer care, and advocacy. Some of the biggerest companies in the world use Sprinklr.
A demo is required to get your custom pricing.
👉 Who should consider this as one of their social media management tools? Sprinklr is meant for large enterprises.
Hopefully, this helps you narrow down your search a bit! If you have any questions, let us know in the comments.
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