Best Social Media Management Tools 2024

What Is Social Media Management Tools?

Social media management software lets people link several social media profiles and plan posts ahead of time using one platform. Think of a marketing manager at a restaurant planning posts for Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram well in advance—could be a week, a month, or even a year beforehand. This software often comes with extras like analytics, campaign assistance, and communication aids. These added tools help marketing teams maximize their social media efforts, from understanding audience engagement to creating impactful brand campaigns.

In today’s content marketing strategies, a social media marketing campaign plays a pivotal role. But managing multiple account postings throughout the day can eat up a lot of time. Savvy social media managers rely on management software to schedule and automate these tasks. These tools streamline the process, letting users publish, monitor, and handle all their social networks through a single dashboard.

Discover top-notch social media management software to enhance your campaigns efficiently. SiSu Freedom has meticulously reviewed numerous companies, ranking them based on value, features, and customer feedback. This guide presents the finest options available, making your choice simpler amidst the market’s offerings.

What makes the best social media management tool?

Social media management software faces a common constraint: its capabilities are tied to the access granted by different social networks. Consequently, most scheduling tools exhibit similar features but are tailored to the specifics of each supported network. For instance, TikTok offers distinct analytics from Facebook, and posting on Instagram differs from managing content on YouTube.

Before Elon Musk’s acquisition, Twitter boasted one of the most flexible APIs, allowing diverse features like competitor monitoring and social media listening. However, these features now come at a premium price, available only in high-tier enterprise apps or costly plans, pegged at around $42,000 per month.

Therefore, standout features specific to particular social networks shouldn’t be expected from top social media management platforms. None can directly post to personal Instagram profiles or engage with comments on another’s Facebook Page posts.

However, leading social media managers do possess distinguishing features that streamline the management of a business’s social media presence. They typically offer:

• Support for multiple social networks, including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, aiming to manage as many networks as possible within a single app. Future trends also hint at the importance of supporting emerging platforms like Mastodon, Threads, BlueSky, and Twitter replacements.
• Robust scheduling tools enable batch posts for weeks or months, minimizing daily efforts. Some offer access to social media inboxes for customer replies, though not obligatory.
• Comprehensive analytics illustrate post-performance, with more expensive apps providing more powerful analytics until reaching the limit imposed by social media platforms. Enterprise-level apps often include advanced features like social monitoring to scan for business or competitor-related posts.
• Cost-effectiveness becomes crucial given the parity in features among social media software. High prices must be justified with additional features, excellent customer support, and collaboration tools.

AI is anticipated to significantly impact social media management, but current implementations have yet to impress. Most scheduling apps employ some AI for optimal timing, while AI-generated post-writing tools don’t notably outshine capabilities like ChatGPT. However, there’s a list available for those seeking AI-powered social media managers.

Each listed tool offers a free trial or a free plan, encouraging users to explore and find the best fit based on their needs and budget. As tech enthusiasts continually update this list, the six recommended social media planning tools have undergone rigorous assessment for their features, user experience, and value proposition. These tools stand out among similarly priced options and are likely suitable for most businesses.

Top Social Media Management Software 2024

1. Zoho Social: Best for Individual Creators

Zoho Social is a comprehensive tool designed for managing social media tasks, aiding businesses and agencies in scheduling posts, monitoring social media mentions, crafting customizable performance analytics reports, and facilitating communication among team members regarding upcoming posts.

One standout feature distinguishing Zoho Social from others is its “pause post” capability. This function proves particularly valuable during local or national emergencies or brand crises when posting a marketing campaign might be inappropriate. It empowers social media managers to halt all scheduled posts. Once the unforeseen situation resolves, a simple click on the “resume” button swiftly restores the social media campaign to its previous state.

Beyond social media management, Zoho offers a customer relationship management (CRM) product. This versatile tool assists in email management, accounting tracking, lead generation from social media, and engagement with prospects. Seamlessly integrating with Zoho Social, enables users to define lead generation parameters, engage with brand-interacting individuals on social platforms, compile contact lists, and track potential customers for targeted marketing campaigns.

Zoho Social stands out for its affordability in the realm of management tools. The platform provides a free plan enabling a single brand to post across seven outlets. Additionally, its higher-tier plans, encompassing analytics, engagement features, and organizational functionalities, are attractively priced, ranging from to per month. This affordability, combined with its comprehensive features, renders Zoho Social an appealing choice for effectively managing a social media presence.

Features:

• Powerful CRM solution enabling social media as a lead generation tool
• Provides a complimentary basic plan
• Intuitive and easy-to-use interface

2. Hootsuite: Best for Many Platforms

Hootsuite is among the most comprehensive tools for managing social media listed. Like its rivals, Hootsuite allows users to plan social media content ahead of time, pinpoint the best times for engaging their audience, and use a planner to preview scheduled content. The higher-tier plans offer extensive analytics, multiple integrations with productivity apps, and live training sessions for entire teams.

Hootsuite provides four pricing options: Professional, Team, Business, and Enterprise. As you move up the tiers, Hootsuite provides more detailed analytics and reports on social media performance. The Professional tier suits individuals and small businesses, allowing one user to handle 10 social media accounts. The Team tier targets small teams, enabling three users to manage 20 social media accounts. Advanced customizable analytics reports come with the Team, Business, and Enterprise plans.

Though the upper-tier plans come at a cost, their additional analytics tools are essential for businesses heavily reliant on social media for marketing.

A key feature of Hootsuite is its seamless integration with a wide array of applications. All Hootsuite application programming interfaces (APIs) are open source, enabling compatibility with over 250 apps, including Microsoft business apps, Canva, Adobe, Spotify, and others. This integration is invaluable for social media managers and content creators working across multiple platforms, offering swift and effortless navigation between them.

Features:

• Several connections with other platforms
• A trial period of 30 days at no cost

3. Buffer: Best on a Budget

Buffer provides a free option designed for beginners, allowing users to schedule 10 posts across three social media channels. This plan includes a calendar view, a link shortener (buff.ly), and suggestions for Twitter hashtags. For just per month per channel, starting from their basic plans, users can access additional features like analytics reports, data storage, audience demographics, and campaign analysis. Both plans provide a 14-day trial period at no cost.

Buffer serves as an ideal choice for individuals or small businesses seeking a straightforward platform to schedule posts across various social media channels from a single dashboard. While it offers an affordable means to engage with your audience, its analytics and engagement capabilities are relatively limited compared to tools like Zoho Social and Hootsuite.

Features:

• Complimentary plan alongside cost-effective options
• Intuitive and straightforward
• Accessible scheduling calendar

4. Sprout Social: Best for Analytics

Sprout Social is among the more expensive options in this lineup, kicking off at $249 per month for its base tier. Despite the higher cost, users get unlimited posts and robust data analytics tools, but the Standard plan limits users to five social media platforms.

The most sought-after plan from Sprout Social is the Professional plan at $399 a month (billed annually). This plan grants users the ability to post across unlimited social media platforms. It encompasses an all-in-one social box, tools for analyzing Twitter hashtags, and reports on response rates. Moving up to the Advanced plan at $499 a month (billed annually) unlocks features like automated social chatbots, digital content libraries, and link tracking capabilities.

Sprout Social not only excels in scheduling but also shines as a formidable data analysis tool. Users can set parameters based on demographics and geography to assess how their content resonates with their audience. Moreover, Sprout enables keyword monitoring across all social media platforms, alerting users whenever their business or brand is mentioned.

Features:

• Easy-to-use dashboard consolidates management of all social networks
• Boasts robust analytics capabilities
• Free trial for 30 days

5. SocialPilot: Best for TikTok

SocialPilot stands out as an extremely affordable tool among various social media marketing options. Especially beneficial for social media managers handling numerous accounts through one interface, SocialPilot presents an economically viable choice. Their Small Team package allows three users to manage up to 20 social media accounts at a rate of $42.50 per month (when billed annually). In contrast, Hootsuite’s Team plan, enabling three users to handle 20 accounts, charges significantly more at $249 per month. Meanwhile, Sprout Social’s Professional plan, permitting one user to manage unlimited accounts, costs $399 monthly.

Aside from its compatibility with the standard social networks, SocialPilot sets itself apart by integrating with TikTok, a popular video-sharing platform boasting over 800 million active users. Accessing this extensive audience presents a fantastic opportunity to promote your brand to a new set of potential customers.

Among its standout features, SocialPilot offers a user-friendly drag-and-drop social media calendar, simplifying the process of rearranging posts. Additionally, it provides a feature that compiles a selection of previous posts for easy reposting, aiding in content recycling for enhanced engagement strategies.

Features:

• Excellent affordability
• Integration with TikTok
• Highly user-friendly

6. Iconosquare: Best for visual content

If you’re all about visually-driven platforms like Instagram and TikTok, Iconosquare could be the ideal tool for you. While it does support Facebook Pages, X accounts, and LinkedIn Company pages, its primary focus leans heavily towards visual content rather than text-based posts.

This emphasis on visuals becomes evident in what you can schedule. For Instagram, you can plan single photo posts, carousels featuring multiple photos, Reels, and Stories—plus, you have the option to cross-post them across various Instagram accounts simultaneously. Moreover, there’s even the possibility to schedule the first comment if desired.

Although TikTok doesn’t have as extensive support, you still have the capability to schedule posts and access content from a shared media library. However, when it comes to Facebook or X, the feature offerings seem a bit less comprehensive.

Similarly, Iconosquare surprisingly offers robust reporting, analytics, and social listening features—yet, its support for Instagram takes the lead. Users can monitor competitors, track specific hashtags, receive notifications when tagged, and much more within the realm of Instagram.

Additionally, like many other applications, there’s an AI-powered feature to generate captions. However, it’s currently in beta and comparatively more restricted than similar features available in other platforms.

Features:

• Outstanding Instagram features regardless of cost
• Competently performs in all aspects

7. Loomly: Best for automating any social media service

Loomly is a solid social media tool, but what truly sets it apart is its remarkable feature: the ability to craft a personalized social network to manage nearly every platform within your social media strategy. While it covers all the essential aspects such as scheduling, a multi-service inbox, and basic analytics, it’s this distinct capability that makes it stand out.

Using Loomly, you can create multiple scheduling calendars, each catering to your specific social media requirements. Within each calendar, you have the flexibility to integrate various social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile, Snapchat, YouTube, and TikTok—and, naturally, a Custom Channel.

Certainly, there exist other methods to automate tasks like posting on Reddit or sending emails to colleagues. However, what’s intriguing about Loomly is how seamlessly it merges these functions with your existing social networks. This means you can share the same content simultaneously across Twitter, Instagram, and your personalized network, streamlining your workflow without the need to juggle multiple applications.

Features:

• Tailored social network functionality enables posting across various channels
• Each social platform can possess its dedicated scheduling calendar

Social Media Management Tools Ratings

[wptb id=18738]

How To Choose the Best Social Media Management Tools

Choosing the ideal social media management tool among the plethora of software options can feel overwhelming. The key lies in understanding your specific needs and objectives within the realm of social media. Begin by identifying your priorities and goals: How many social platforms can you effectively manage with consistent content creation? How many hours per week are you willing to dedicate to social media? And what portion of your budget is allocated to social media efforts? Once you’ve clarified these aspects, navigating through software features that align with your priorities becomes a more straightforward task.

Essential Features

Your social media tools should attract new followers and engage your existing audience. To achieve this, consistent posting and knowing the best times to post are crucial. Here are some key features that can help:

• Platform Integration: Managing various social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and others can be overwhelming. Look for a social media management software that allows you to handle all these platforms from a single dashboard.
• Content Calendar: Visual content calendars help plan social media posts and campaigns for specific periods. They save time, organize marketing plans, track content performance, and ensure consistency in posting. This tool enables planning content for weeks, months, or even a year in advance.
• Scheduling Tools: Efficient scheduling tools are vital in social media management software. Once your posting schedule is set, scheduling posts in advance frees up time to focus on creating engaging content.
• Post Optimization Tool: Posting great content is effective when it reaches your audience when they’re active online. Optimal posting times differ for various social media audiences. Finding a tool that shares your content at the best times for your audience ensures maximum visibility.
• Analytics and Reporting Tools: Analytics provide insights into social media strategy effectiveness, identifying what works and what doesn’t.
• Keyword Monitoring: Keeping track of brand mentions on social media can be tough. Keyword monitoring tools help find conversations where your brand is mentioned, allowing you to engage when desired.

Managed Account Types and Amounts

Nowadays, almost every social media management software links up with major platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn. SocialPilot was among the pioneers in integrating with TikTok, the popular video-sharing platform. Over time, most other software providers have followed suit and integrated with TikTok as well.

However, not all social media management software tools support WhatsApp, the multiplatform messaging app. While platforms like Buffer and SproutSocial allow users to schedule and send various media types—text, images, audio, video, and PDFs—to customers on WhatsApp automatically, other platforms like Zoho Social do not offer this integration.

Company Size/Team Size

Your company’s size plays a pivotal role in determining the right features for your social media management software. For instance, if you’re a solopreneur handling your Instagram and TikTok accounts, your software needs will differ significantly from those of a social media manager overseeing eight separate platforms for multiple brands.

Solopreneurs or busy marketing managers handling their company’s social channels often seek software with various automation features. These tools help save time by scheduling posts in advance, automatically sharing new blog content across preferred platforms, and tailoring posts for each social network. Alongside an efficient scheduler, an affordable price point is crucial for small businesses. Some software like Buffer offers robust free plans, ideal for solopreneurs or small ventures managing their social presence.

For social media managers handling large or multiple accounts across different brands, teamwork matters. It’s crucial to find software that enables seamless collaboration among team members without overlap or duplication of efforts. When comparing social media management software, features like assigning roles and tasks, setting different account permissions, and tools to prevent multiple team members from sending conflicting responses to the same message are vital considerations.

Reporting and Analytics

When you invest time and effort in crafting social media content, it’s vital to understand its impact. Most social media management tools offer reporting and analytical features to evaluate the effectiveness of your strategy. These tools provide insights into various aspects, like whether it’s beneficial to maintain Twitter activity, which posts generate the most interaction, the monthly follower growth on Facebook, and which platform drives the most brand visibility for a specific product launch.

Hootsuite stands out for its exceptional reporting capabilities. Users get a comprehensive view of all social networks on a single dashboard, allowing them to set performance benchmarks and track improvements over time. Customizable reports, insights on optimal posting times for better outcomes, and easy-to-understand graphs illustrating how social channels and campaigns impact lead generation, conversions, and sales are some of Hootsuite’s strengths.

Sprout Social also boasts robust analytics and reporting tools. It enables users to set demographic and geographic parameters to gauge audience engagement. The software monitors brand mentions across social platforms, analyzes audience growth, demographics, engagement, and impressions. Moreover, Sprout Social allows users to compare their performance against competitors, providing valuable insights into social media strategies.

Free vs. Paid Software

Many of the leading social media management tools offer a free plan that’s available indefinitely. Typically, these plans come with limited functionalities, such as restricting the number of social media accounts you can manage, capping the user count, or providing limited access to analytics. For instance, Buffer’s free plan allows scheduling content across three social media channels, while Zoho Social offers a more comprehensive free plan permitting posting across seven social media channels, access to its zShare browser extension, and the ability to add one team member to the Zoho Social Portal.

Initially, these limitations might not pose a problem, especially when starting out. However, as your business grows, these constraints can hinder scalability unless you upgrade to a paid plan. It’s essential to examine the features offered in the software’s paid plans. Do they align with your evolving business needs? Compare the affordability of their basic and premium plans. When devising a business strategy for the next few years, consider when upgrading to a paid social media management tool will be necessary and which features will be crucial for your business. Seek software that provides a free plan for the present but also offers paid plans that support your company’s future objectives.

What Does Social Media Management Tool Cost?

The cost of social media management software can vary based on factors like the number of users, social media channels, available analytics, and automation features. Buffer stands out as a more budget-friendly option among the software platforms. Their paid plans begin at $5 per month per channel, offering planning and publishing tools, analytics, engagement features, and even a landing page builder. Their Agency plan, the most expensive option at $100 monthly for 10 channels, includes unlimited team members, clients, and collaboration tools for drafts.

Sprout Social’s paid plans start at $249 monthly, granting access to five social media channels. This plan includes a comprehensive social inbox to monitor comments, a content calendar, and tools for monitoring profiles, keywords, and locations. Their Professional plan, priced at $399 monthly, unlocks unlimited social media channels and features competitive reports for Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, scheduling for optimal post times, response rate analysis, and more.

The amount you invest in social media management software should correlate with the revenue you generate from social media. If your business posts infrequently across a few channels, investing in the priciest plan loaded with automation and analytics might not be the best choice. However, for an e-commerce store publishing frequently across multiple channels, opting for an all-inclusive plan that aids in timely posting, customer responses, and tracking social media ROI could be a worthwhile investment despite the higher cost.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are the best social media management tools?

Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and Buffer rank among the leading social media management tools available currently. Hootsuite caters well to businesses using various social media platforms, whereas Sprout Social stands out for its exceptional analytics features. Meanwhile, Buffer serves as an excellent choice for companies seeking cost-effective social media management software.

What is community management in social media?

Community management involves leveraging social media to cultivate a thriving online community that fosters brand enthusiasts. Effectively overseeing an online community entails ongoing monitoring of social media platforms, actively engaging with customers, potential clients, and influencers, and assessing the feedback received.

What is the purpose of social media management software tools?

Social media management software enables individuals to schedule posts across multiple social media accounts from a unified user interface (UI). Depending on the software provider and the plan chosen, there are additional functionalities like analytics tools, brand awareness campaign tools, and communication tools available.

Why are social media management tools important?

Social media management tools enable marketing managers, small business owners, and content creators to efficiently schedule posts across multiple accounts, track key metrics, and generate valuable leads from social media, ultimately saving them time and effort.

What types of social media tools are there?

Social media continually changes, and so do the tools available for companies to streamline their social media processes. Fresh tools encompass content curation, scheduling apps, content creation, and analytics for social media.

How do I manage multiple social media accounts?

Handling numerous social media accounts doesn’t need to be daunting. Tools like Hootsuite and Sprout Social simplify this by offering content calendars, automation for posts, and chatbots to handle messages.

How do I manage a business social media account?

Effectively managing a business’s social media demands a grasp of the brand, its audience, and the account’s business objectives. Craft a monthly and annual content schedule aligned with these goals, focusing on engaging content. Regularly assess social metrics to gauge whether the content aligns with the business objectives.