Having the right social media tools helps you build brand awareness, contact customers, drive traffic and even help to sell products and services. Whether you are a small business owner, a content creator or an entrepreneur, these tools can help you save your time.
These social media tools can streamline your workflow, create visual content, track your social media performance and ensure that your content reaches the right audience at the right time. But how do you know which tool is best for you? Well lucky for you we’ve put together the 9 best social media tools to help you manage, create, plan and schedule your social accounts.
What are social media tools?
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Social media tools allow you to plan, create, organize and analyze your social media posts and accounts.
There are three key types of social media tools: listening platforms to engage with users, publishing platforms to plan your schedule and competitive analysis programs to get insights into your posts. On top of that, there are design tools you can use to create content. Depending on what you need and what social media platforms you use, it’s important to find the right social media tool for you.
Why do we need social media tools?
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Social media management tools streamline the posting process by removing the need to shift between many platforms. You can plan everything in one place to get the messages consistent, then post all at once, or tweak and send as needed.
Combining that with social media analytic tools provides you with the data you need to assess your social media marketing strategy on both macro and micro levels. It allows you to figure out what is working and what is not.
Of course, it is not just social media management, scheduling and analytics tools that you need. Social media design tools are equally as important as they help create image assets for your social media platforms. These might be stories, posts, cover images and banners, and animated GIFS or videos that can make your content more engaging and dynamic.
So what social media tools should you choose? Well, there is no right or wrong answer. It all depends on your needs as a social media user. Just be aware that it takes time to learn how to use social media tools. It could take a couple of days or even a few months. But investing in these tools can help you achieve your goals by increasing your following, engaging with your audience and driving traffic. It can help keep your brand identity consistent and help you understand what your audience wants and needs.
Most social media tools have free and paid-for plans. So take a moment to figure out your budget and your business needs, then take a look at our 9 best social media tools to help you pick the right platform, or platforms, to be successful with your social media strategy.
9 best social media tools
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Hootsuite
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Hootsuite is technically a hybrid social media tool, as it can be used for scheduling, managing, analyzing and social commerce. But it especially excels as a social media scheduling tool. Beyond its scheduling and publishing capabilities, you can also use social media streams. These streams help you monitor your accounts by keeping track of new followers, likes and mentions. Because it’s easy to use, it’s one of the best content strategy platforms for small businesses and content creators.
All plans have access to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Youtube.
Pros
- Monitors multiple social media streams in one place
- Easily views analytics data from scheduled posts
- Insightful audience targeting and social media aggregation
- Updated social media listening capabilities
Cons
- Limited functionality on free plans
- Only has access to three social media accounts
- Costs can mount up quickly on a paid plan
- It can take a while to learn how to use Hootsuite
Price
- Free: 1 user and 2 accounts
- Professional: $49/month for 1 user and 10 accounts
- Team: $129/month for 3 users and 20 accounts
- Business: $739/month 5 users and 35 accounts
- Enterprise: contact for pricing for 5+ users and 50+ accounts
Later
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Later helps small businesses, social media managers and creators harness the power of a successful marketing strategy as well as social media scheduling. It has a drag and drop style scheduler that is easy to use and helps you plan a month’s worth of social media posts in minutes. Although it is mainly for Instagram, it can also be used for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tik Tok and LinkedIn.
Pros
- You can schedule Instagram stories in advance
- Your planned posts get delivered to your mobile
- You can track your social media’s hashtag performance
Cons
- Focuses on visual apps like Instagram and ignores video content
- Social media posts don’t schedule automatically
- You need social media business accounts
Price
- Starter: $15/month for 1 user and 1 social set (a social set is 6 social profiles, 1 per platform)
- Growth: $40/month for 3 users and 3 social sets
- Advanced: $80/month for 6 users and 6 social sets
Meet Edgar
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Meet Edgar is a new kind of social media tool loaded with entrepreneur-approved time savers. It will keep your content topped up day in and day out with your unique, evergreen content. It is an automatic social media scheduler that writes and selects your social media content for you.
Simple and easy to use, it saves a lot of time when it comes to social media posting and scheduling. The platform also gathers data on when your audience is most likely to be online and suggests the best times to post to maximize visibility across social media channels.
Pros
- It pulls content from content libraries
- Your content can be auto-cycled based on your calendar
- It is tailored toward small businesses, creators and entrepreneurs
- Pricing plans are really affordable
Cons
- No access to manage real conversations
- Limited reporting tools available
- You have to log into each platform individually
Price
- Eddie monthly plan: $29.99/month, for 20 users and 5 accounts
- Edgar annual plan: $49.99/month, for 20 users and 25 accounts
Buffer
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Buffer is a one-stop shop for your social media needs. On the platform, you can publish your post, analyze how well they do and reply to mentions and engage with customers. There are also features to group campaign posts together to see how they are doing. It’s also got a handy calendar to schedule your posts. With a clean and easy-to-use platform, it’s great for small businesses and individuals who want to get started and organized with their social media accounts.
Pros
- Simple and easy to use interface
- Has a detailed analysis of performance that can help grow and optimize your following
- Can add most social platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Instagram stories, Pinterest, LinkedIn)
Cons
- High price for simple features like team management and multiple users
- Need to pay for a subscription plan in order to get access to analytics and engagement features
Price
- Free for up to 3 accounts (good for people who are just getting started)
- Essentials: $6/month per social channel
- Team: $12/month per social channel
- Agency: $120/month for 10 social channels
Buzzsumo
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Buzzsumo is a robust social media tool that provides you with the data and analysis to develop your social and content strategy. Through the platform, you are able to see how well your posts and accounts are doing, such as details on the engagement of your posts and who and where they are shared.
In addition to the analysis that Buzzsumo provides, there are research tools to help you discover content that is trending, keyword research and even help find influencers that can promote your brand. With all this data in hand, your social and content strategy will be more informed and fruitful.
Pros
- Data is in one place and broken down by each platform
- Goes beyond data analysis, it also has research and discovery tools to find trending topics and influencers to work with
- Monitors mention of your brand to help you respond in a timely manner
Cons
- Doesn’t have the newest social media networks like TikTok
- Higher price point
Price
- Free: 1 user for 1 year of data
- Pro: $99/month for 5 users and 1 year of data
- Plus: $179/month for 10 users and 1 year of data
- Large: $299/month for 15 users and 2 years of data
Sprout Social
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Sprout Social is a social media management, analytics and intelligence tool. It is widely considered the best social media tool for success and uses AI to surface actionable insights that drive real business impact. It’s an all-in-one solution for all your social media needs—composing, scheduling, engaging, listening and analyzing robust reports. It’s a platform that takes the difficulty out of your social media workflow.
Pros
- Cross channel analytics for a social media deep dive
- Custom comparison tool to curate data
- Monitors your social media performance over time
Cons
- It is expensive for small businesses and creators
- You have to pay extra for social media listening tools
- It ignores video platforms like TikTok and Youtube
Price
- Standard: $89/month per user and 5 social profiles
- Professional: $149/month per user and 10 social profiles
- Advanced: $249/month per user and 10 social profiles
VistaCreate
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VistaCreate (formerly Crello) is a design platform that can help you create all your social media design needs. With thousands of templates available, you can easily create profile banners, images for posts and video content for stories. The platform has a feature that allows you to keep your brand fonts, colors and logos in one place to easily create consistent branded content for all your posts.
Pros
- Handy “remove background” tool
- Enrich visuals with animation, music or sounds
- Adding new templates daily
Cons
- Extensive editing tools can take a bit to figure out
- Could have more options for templates
Price
- Starter: free with limited features
- Pro: $10/month
Adobe Creative Cloud Express
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Adobe Creative Cloud Express (formerly Adobe Spark) has design assets for social media content, logos and templates. With an online and mobile design app, you can easily make standout content from thousands of beautiful templates. It feels like you have the help of a trusted designer in your corner, with the entire Adobe Stock royalty-free photo collection and a full library of Adobe Fonts at your fingertips.
Pros
- Easy to remove backgrounds
- Beautiful unique social media templates
- You can convert your videos into fun GIFs
Cons
- You have to sign up for an Adobe Creative Cloud Membership
- Limited Adobe Stock functionality available in web pages
- Video editing is basic in comparison to other tools
Price
- Free: basic editing and photo effects, and 2GB of storage
- Premium: $9.99/month, 100 GB of storage
Desynger
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Desynger is built with social media content creators in mind. With its handy resize tool, it’s easy to tweak your design for each of your platforms. Besides this, there are a bunch of features that can help you, such as a social media calendar to schedule posts, version history tracking for designers and easy background removal. Since Desynger is powered by Shutterstock, you also have access to Shutterstock images, videos and music.
Pros
- Resize tool to adjust content to various sizes, especially for social posts
- Has social media calendar to schedule posts
- Track revisions to avoid redoing edits
Cons
- Best of Desygner’s features are only available if upgraded to a paid version
- Access to Shutterstock images is limited depending on the subscription
Price
- Free with limited features
- Pro+: $4.95/month, includes 6 users
- Business: $9.95/month, 100 guest accounts
The future of social media
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Social media tools not only allow you to manage multiple social media accounts, but you can also keep up with engagement, create stunning visual content, track your analytics and monitor your progress. It’s important to give attention to your social media accounts to define your brand identity and convert leads, whether that is sales, impressions, visitors or click-throughs.
Organic social media promotion takes a lot of time and effort, and you shouldn’t expect an instant payoff. These tools can be effective in helping you reach your goals. It’s about taking the time to find the right tools for your needs.
