16 best social media management tools

Social media is a productivity desert.

Marketing specialists use social media to grow their businesses. However, most of them end up wasting their time.

I'm not saying that social media is a bad marketing channel. In fact, I use platforms such as Facebook totons quality traffic to my websites.

It is clear that I am not the only one.

92% of marketers have stated that they place great value on social media as a marketing platform.

Knowing this, it is not surprising that 8 out of 10 small and medium-sized businesses incorporate social media marketing into their growth strategy.

What is truly great is that it works, at least to some extent, for most businesses.

According to an industry report compiled by the Social Media Examiner, 80% of marketers indicate that social media has increased traffic to their company's websites. As expected, there are other benefits. For example, 72% of marketers say that social media helps them retain their fans.

So, when I talk aboutwasteI mean that, although almost everyone uses social media for their business, very littleto do it effectively.

They spend a lot of time and resources and get minimal results.

You need to dedicate time to optimizing your social media efforts. Once you have done this, you will save time and achieve better results in terms of engagement, traffic, and conversions.

One of the fundamental ways to accomplish tasks more efficiently is to use tools.

There are hundreds of social media tools specially designed to make the lives of social media marketing specialists easier.

I have compiled a list of 16 of the best social media marketing tools to enhance your social media marketing efforts.

1. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is great because it offers versatile plan options that can adapt to the size of your business and its needs. If you are the only one using it and have no more than 10 social media profiles, it will only cost you $20 per month to use this tool.

But for larger teams and companies, it provides up to 20 and 50 social media profiles that can be managed by multiple team members. These plans cost $99 and $499 per month, respectively.

Hootsuite helps you plan all your social media messages across all your accounts.

Therefore, you can schedule all your posts at once on all your accounts, instead of having to publish them manually on all your profiles throughout the day.

Hootsuite allows you to easily organize all of your content. Their content library dashboard is extremely clean and easy to navigate.

Those of you who store their content on cloud-based platforms, such as Drop Box, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, or Box, can access these files directly from the Hootsuite dashboard.

If you use other applications to help manage your social media accounts, Hootsuite can also work with these tools. This way, you can manage everything in one place.

The program menu clearly displays all your pending content, making it easy to control them. You can view the calendar by day, week, month, or even in list form.

If you have a large team that uses Hootsuite together, you can designate team leaders who will have final approval on content before it goes live. This way, you can catch errors and won't have to worry about publishing unapproved content.

One of the best aspects of this social media marketing tool is the analytics reports.

You will not need to use another third-party platform to measure the reach and engagement of your content. You will see the metrics of each article by platform, which can even help you determine your social return on investment.

Hootsuite also has tools that allow you to monitor your team and hold each member accountable. You can see which team members are completing tasks the fastest and which ones need improvement.

Overall, Hootsuite is worth checking out. They offer a free 30-day trial, so it can't hurt to give it a try.

2. MeetEdgar

If you are having trouble finding new content to post on your social profiles, you may consider MeetEdgar as a solution.

This software will recycle old messages when you no longer have any new ones, so that your queue is never empty.

Do not get me wrong. I am not saying that this is a permanent solution and a strategy that you should use all the time. That being said, there is nothing wrong with resurrecting old posts.

It is much better to recycle old content rather than displaying nothing at all.

If you have slackened in creating new content and your queue of posts is drying up, you can configure MeetEdgar to share old posts with high engagement statistics.

Even if you have a library full of new content but don't want to take the time to decide in what order to publish them, the automatic scheduling program can choose for you.

Instead of having to download the software and open it every time you want to manage your social media accounts, MeetEdgar has a browser extension that allows you to access its services from the web.

If you manage a small business and have more important tasks to accomplish than the daily micro-management of your social media accounts, I would say you are the perfect candidate for MeetEdgar.

It's $49 per month, and you will get one month free if you sign up for an annual billing cycle.

3. Tampon

Like most social media management tools, Buffer also allows you to schedule your social media posts from a single platform. But what sets Buffer apart from the crowd is its mobile app.

I know what it's like to constantly be on the move. You don't always have time to sit in front of your computer to manage your social media accounts.

Even if you are just scheduling posts for the week, being able to do it from a mobile application makes things easier and gives you a lot of flexibility.

You can access the Buffer application on your smartphone when you are on the train, bus, metro, or in the back of an Uber. If you have downtime between meetings, it is much easier to pull out your phone than to grab your computer to get the work done.

The buffer memory provides you with visual reports and analyses that allow you to track engagement metrics such as

• mention

• love

• comments

• actions

• retweets

• Click on

• scope.

This service also highlights your top-performing posts. You can see which strategy works best and develop your future posts in the same way.

With Buffer's RSS feed, it is very easy for you to publish content from your favorite websites in just one click. The platform also supports the uploading of videos and GIFs, allowing you to share different types of content with your subscribers.

Buffer also has its own image creator. This is an opportunity for you to unleash your creativity and create original images that highlight your social messages.

Here is a quick guide on how to create a posting schedule using Buffer.

Create a free account, and connect a social media account. Once you have done that, click on "Schedule"..

You can choose the time of your sending and the days of your sending. You can do it once and never have to think about scheduling social messages again, which will save you a lot of time.

You must now add content to your queue, which will be automatically shared at the hours you have just selected.

If you click on the main "Content" tab, you can choose a social profile from the left menu, then type a message that you want to share.

When you click on the blue button below, your post is added to your waiting list.

When you click on your main content area, you will see your current queue and the times at which your messages should be posted. You can drag the messages to change their order or edit them whenever you want.

The real power of Buffer is that you can add content to your queueanywhere on the web.

Let's imagine that you are reading an article from Quick Sprout and you think that your readers would also appreciate it.

If you click on a social sharing button, you will notice that an option to add it to the buffer now appears in addition to the usual options.

You can add a job to your queue without ever going to your actual account.

Finally, Buffer also provides useful information on the performance of your posts. You can use this information to determine whether you need to modify your sharing strategy or if the growth is going well.

Bonus Reservation Tool - In some cases, you will have a list of interesting URLs or a bunch of messages that you will want to add to your buffer queue all at once.

Bulk Buffer allows you to download a text or csv file with all your actions on your Buffer account at once.

Usually, with mass social posting tools, you have to follow a complicated format with dates and other information, but since you've already taken care of that in Buffer, it's much easier.

All you need for this tool is a simple list. Put a message you want to share on each line, and put each line in quotation marks.

For example, I could save the following three messages in a text file before downloading it:

"How to write an author biography that doesn't suck http://bit.ly/1JU6eoR My latest news from @hubspot"

"The step-by-step guide to fixing any Google penalty https://www.quicksprout.com/fixing-google-penalty/"

"27 travel tips that even seasoned travelers may not know http://ow.ly/QsS8i."

Inside Bulk Buffer, import your file where it gives you the possibility, then select the social account connected to Buffer where you want to share the posts (you can select multiple).

4. Buzzsumo

Buzzsumo differs from the marketing tools we have analyzed so far.

The software analyzes social media profiles and connects you with influential people to promote your brand.

If you have read my 2018 marketing trends, you know that micro-influencers are on the rise this year. If you are looking for help in this area, Buzzsumo is an excellent place to start.

Even if adding influencers to your marketing campaign is not part of your marketing strategy at the moment, Buzzsumo has many tools to facilitate your social media marketing strategy.

It has brand monitoring tools that will alert you by mentioning your company as well as that of your competitors, as well as any keyword, backlink, and other relevant domain.

You can easily see how you stack up against your biggest competitor.

Buzzsumo also searches for relevant content for your brand on the Internet. The software filters information that resonates with your audience to help you stay up to date on the latest trends.

You will have access to reports on the most shared content on various social media platforms. You can filter this information based on the last 24 hours or other time intervals, going back to the previous year.

You can determine what type of content is popular in the short and long term.

Buzzsumo allows you to organize popular content by type. You can view videos or infographics in addition to images and written articles.

Here are examples of two ways to use Buzzsumo.

The first step is to "spy" on competitors and see what has worked for them. When you enter their domain name in the search box, you get a list of their most popular social content, sorted by total shares.

If you look at 5 to 10 competitors, you can get a very good idea of the content that resonates best with your target audience.

You can even share some of the most popular content that you discover, which will resonate with your current followers.

You can also search for popular content to share by keyword.

In the text box, enter some main keywords related to your niche:

When you are looking for content to share on a particular network, you should always click on the header of that network to sort based on those shares.

5. Social germs

Social germs is another top choice if you are looking for a place to manage all your social media profiles.

This platform allows you to draft, store, and queue all your social media messages. You can see everything organized from the calendar, which serves as a visual representation of your schedule.

The dashboard also helps you track the progress of your posts. You can view all the indicators by platform or by post.

If several members of your team are working together on your social media campaigns, Sprout Social is an excellent option for you. It is easy to delegate tasks and choose who should approve messages before they are posted online.

Sprout Social also helps you respond to all messages from your followers. You won't need to individually log in to your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or other profiles to see these messages.

This will help you stay organized and respond to messages in the order they were received, rather than responding based on the platform you are connected to at that time.

Sprout Social has features that help you monitor hashtags and keywords. You can see the share of the volume of these specific keywords that your company has.

You will also have access to features specially designed to establish and manage your relationships with clients.

Your team members can take notes on different clients and their profiles on social media based on your history and interactions with them.

If the same customer contacts you multiple times using multiple platforms, all their information will be organized in an orderly manner in one place.

6. Oktopost

Oktopost is different from the other tools I have talked about so far, because it is specifically designed for B2B companies.

B2B marketing specialists do not use social media in the same way as B2C companies. The type of engagement and response they are trying to achieve with each post is different.

B2B marketing specialists focus on the quality of their lead generation strategies.

Depending on your company and industry, you may not need to expose your brand to hundreds of thousands of social media profiles. Sometimes, just a handful of new clients per year is enough for a business to be extremely profitable.

Oktopost is great because it helps B2B companies ensure that they are effectively using the right social platforms to reach their audience.

You will always benefit from the same automation, scheduling, and display management advantages as those you get with some of the other options I mentioned, but you will get B2B-focused analytics.

7. IFTTT

IFTTT is a fantastic Swiss Army knife designed for all types of traders. Even better, you can use all of its features for free.

If this tool has gained popularity, the reason why it has not been adopted by a larger number of marketing and search engine optimization specialists is that there is a certain learning curve.

IFTTT stands for:

• If this..

• While

You must define "this" and "that".

For example, you could say that IF a new message is published on Quick Sprout (the event "this"), then send me an email (the event "that").

Each series of events that you define is called a "recipe". You can create as many recipes as you want.

They will look something like this:

IFTTT is particularly interesting for social media marketing specialists because this tool can display, read, and do all sorts of things with almost all major social networks

• Facebook

• Twitter

• Interest

• YouTube

• Instagram

• LinkedIn

• Tumblr

Another advantage of IFTTT: you can add recipes created by other people. While it is good to think about how to customize a recipe for your specific business, you will sometimes find that the perfect recipe is already made.

There are thousands of great social media recipes, but I will present you with two so you can find your way around. It becomes really repetitive and simple once you get used to it.

Recommended Recipe #1 - Creating an automatic social media calendarI am a big fan of editorial and social calendars.

They are perfect for helping you stay on track and can also show you useful trends in performance so you know if your work is actually leading to growth.

This particular recipe requires you to be a user of the buffer memory (tool #1).

When you add a message to the buffer, it is automatically scheduled based on the times you have set. When you activate this recipe, it automatically takes the scheduled time for sending and adds it to your Google Calendar.

Thus, you can quickly see a visual representation of what you are posting on all your networks and how often.

When you find a recipe page, when you are logged in, you often see bright blue buttons that indicate you need to do something.

In this case, you will need to connect your Buffer and Google accounts before adding the recipe

Once you have connected these accounts, these buttons will disappear and the "Add" button will become active

Click on this button, and you're done!

Recommended Recipe #2 - Save tweets in a spreadsheetDepending on how you track your Tweets, it can be helpful to have them listed in a spreadsheet. This recipe does it for you automatically.

You can then rewrite or reuse the Tweets.

Here again, you will need to connect your Twitter and Google Drive accounts if you haven't already done so.

It's not as complicated as it seems with the label "automation tool".

Here are a ton of other great recipes that you can check out right now:

• 44 Tips for Social Media Productivity

• Recipes to streamline your social media

8. Canva

Social media has become increasingly visual over time, and this trend is not going to stop. Messages that contain images getmore engagement on almost all networks..

If you have a large audience and need high-quality images, I recommend hiring a quality designer.

Click on an appropriate template based on the network you are using, and a canvas will be created for you. It will also have the ideal size for your social network.

Under the "LAYOUTS" tab in the left sidebar, you can see all the different template options available to you

Click on a template that suits you, and it will appear on the right.

You can then click on any element of your canvas (background, text, symbols, etc.) and modify them as you wish

Once you have finished, click on "Download" in the top menu bar.

If you master Canvas, you can create an image in a minute or two that will attract attention to your social shares.

9. Job Planner

Post Planner is an application that integrates directly into Facebook. It is designed to make planning and scheduling posts on Facebook easier and more efficient.

The main limitation and strength is that it is limited to Facebook. If you focus solely on Facebook, it may be the best tool for you. But if you focus on other networks instead - or as well - you are probably better off with a tool like Buffer or Edgar.

This is a truly robust tool, so I cannot go over all of its features. Here are the most important ones:

• Post Programming - You can schedule posts on your Facebook page in advance and do them in bulk.

• Target your audience A really useful feature is the ability to target specific countries while scheduling a post. You can segment messages by time zone or launch a promotion for certain users.

• Automate display You can instruct the tool to automatically publish new content from an RSS feed. This is generally not the best solution, but it can be convenient.

• Content Trending - You can quickly find trending content on Facebook using a chosen keyword. You can share this content knowing that it will also be popular among your followers.

Since you are using the application directly within Facebook, it looks and functions very similarly to all other Facebook features

Facebook has always been very good at analysis, but Post Planner allows you to be a bit more advanced and really delve into the performance of past posts in its analyses

10. Bundlepost

Bundlepost allows you to schedule messages on all major social networks, but also has some interesting features that will save you even more time.

I will say, however, that Bundlepost is not as intuitive as most other tools, so although it is useful, it will take some time to learn the ins and outs.

One thing I am really bad at is including hashtags in posts even though I know they are an excellent way to improve your engagement.

One of the main features of Bundlepost is the ability to automatically replace common niche keywords with hashtags.

For example, you can add the phrase "social media" to a hashtag folder in the tool and tell it to replace any mention of this phrase with #SocialMedia.

Not only will this save you time, but it will also prevent you from forgetting to add the hashtags.

The second useful feature of the tool is the ability to create batch feeds. You enter as many keywords as you want, and the tool will automatically find relevant social media content to share on your channels.

It is possible that you may share low-quality or off-topic content, so it is advisable to review the suggestions generated.

11. Mention

One of the most challenging aspects of managing a social media program is spotting social mentions as they appear.

You only have a chance to respond if you are aware of the social mention. This gives you a chance to do so

• Responding to negative reviews or complaints and ending on a positive note

• Boost positive reviews

• Connect with partners and influencers who are already talking about you

• Discovering new audiences for future campaigns

The mention resolves this issue.

When you sign up with them, they do all the listening for you.

Set up an alert (like your brand) and every time someone mentions this topic, you will be instantly notified.

They even have a free plan that includes an alert and connects to three social accounts. It's a perfect way to see the power of social notifications.

For experienced users, there are a multitude of reporting, analysis, and account tools to help you manage everything. These tools include publishing functions that allow you to do everything from one tool. It is an ideal tool for social media marketing specialists.

Don't let social mentions continue without you, receive the alerts you need to stay up to date with the conversation.

12. Inkybee

Influencers are an important part of most social media marketing strategies. The goal is usually to connect with them, build a relationship, and get them to share your business.

It can be difficult to find the right influencers. This is where tools like Inkybee come in.

Inkybee allows you to search for the best bloggers in your niche on all major social networks.

Once logged in, search for a keyword in the "search" bar on the page

He will quickly find a significant list of related blogs. He also categorizes them based on their relevance, visibility, and engagement, all positive characteristics for an influencer

Notice that you can click on a button in the bottom right corner of each result to mark it as "selected". If you look again at the top of the results (in the designated area), you can see that you can save all selected blogs in a list. This will help you later on to develop a plan to strategically target each influencer.

As you can get many results for general keywords, consider using the filtering options on the left.

You can limit influencers to a specific domain or a specific profile of authority

13. Tagboard

One of the reasons why marketers are so eager to be present on social media is to monitor any mention of the brand or any opportunity for interaction with followers. Tagboard is a way to eliminate the worry of missing out on any of these opportunities.

To use this tool, simply search for a hashtag in the main search bar (once you are logged in).

Once you have done this, you will receive a results page of all the most recent posts that have included this hashtag on multiple platforms (mainly Instagram/Twitter).

You can definitely use it to monitor non-branded keywords like the ones above to search for people interested in a certain hashtag. You could then follow them or reply to them.

A better way to use Tagboard is to monitor brand keywords. These typically include your name and the name of your website (and its variations, for example, Quick Sprout and QuickSprout).

As long as you check once a day, you won't miss anything.

14. FollowerWonk

FollowerWonk is a robust tool focused solely on Twitter. It is primarily used to analyze your Twitter followers to provide you with insights on how to better engage with them.

In addition, you can use FollowerWonk to find people to follow.

Go to "Search bios" in the top menu, and type in keywords of your choice.

You can sort according to any standard measure such as "followers" and "social authority"

When you go to the "Analyse" tab of the tool, you can enter your Twitter username. The tool will then analyze the user profiles of your followers to determine data such as the time when most of them are active on Twitter

You can use this information to optimize your display calendar.

15. Onalytica

Onalytica is another tool that aims to find the right people to follow, but it takes a unique and interesting approach.

Instead of just searching for a keyword, you upload a file with a blog post or add a link to a published blog post. The tool then analyzes your content, determines its theme, and returns people who are likely to appreciate your content.

This is more of a promotional tool than anything else.

Choose one of the options to start.

Below, I clicked on "add a link" and then entered the URL of a Quick Sprout blog article

And in one minute, I had a long list (hopefully) of relevant influencers with whom I could connect and promote my content.

You can follow one or all of the listed influencing factors by clicking on the button at the top right of each results card.

16. Feather Engagement

I have heard just about every opinion on the use of analytics. Most complaints are that they are too complicated, or that there are too many options.

Quill Engage is a small smart tool that can scan your Google Analytics account and produce a report in clear language.

Instead of reportingeverythingHe takes note of the big changes that deserve your attention.

This obviously concerns marketing in general, not just social media, but it can help you know when there is an unexpected (good or bad) change in your social media SEO traffic.

There is not much to do: simply create an account and connect it to your Google Analytics account. Soon, you will receive a report like this one:

Depending on your business, this could save you hours per month.

Conclusion

Effective social media management is imperative for all businesses, regardless of their industry.

You just need to make sure that you are using your time wisely by doing this.

I have given you 16 excellent social media tools that you can use

• gain more followers

• better engage with social media users

• Generate more traffic to your website (that converts)

• to do all of this within a reasonable timeframe

My goal with this article is to help you choose, at this stage, some tools and integrate them into your social media strategy.

However, when you start using tools, remember that they should not be used as a crutch.

Do not automate simply because you can. If automation decreases the quality of the content you share, Do not use itChoose tools carefully and their features.

There are also many other social media tools, so if you have a specific problem, look for a solution.