After years of managing social media campaigns that range from small hashtag driven campaigns to campaigns with major content development and follower engagement, I have put together a list of my top 5 management tools that have helped me create, publish, monitor and engage, making the daunting task of social media for brands a little easier. I have highlighted some of the features I find most useful about each option as well as the social platforms they support.
With free options for those just getting started to business and enterprise packages starting at $499 a month, Hootsuite is a great comprehensive tool for social media marketers of all levels.
Scheduling & Content
Hootsuite has a very user friendly auto-scheduling tool to help you plan ahead and create posts in advance. You can even do bulk uploading with .csv files to save time in editing and creating posts.
Platforms
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
YouTube
LinkedIn
Analytics & Monitoring
This tool offers good basic insights and key metrics for your social media accounts growth.
Set up streams to listen to the ongoing conversation about your brand. Monitor keywords, hashtags, and locations, then reply to posts and comments straight from the dashboard.
Later is the #1 marketing tool for Instagram and is extremely affordable with packages ranging from free for individuals to $49 a month for agencies and large marketing teams.
Scheduling & Content
Later has a great tool for scheduling that includes a calendar view to be able to preview posts as they actually appear which is fantastic for visual people. You can do bulk uploads of photos and videos straight from your phone, desktop or dropbox.
Later allows you to preview your posts with the Visual Instagram Planner, where you can perfect your feed by dragging and dropping posts where you want them to appear.
With this program being primarily for Instagram, it has the ability to search and repost content, which helps you curate relevant and on-brand content.
You can integrate Linkin.bio to let people shop straight from your feed.
Platforms
Instagram
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Analytics & Monitoring
Monitor your Instagram analytics straight from the app, track likes, followers and clicks.
MavSocial has free plans for small business for Twitter and Facebook scheduling to $199 a month for agencies who manage multiple brands across all platforms.
Scheduling & Content
Create campaigns to organize content, then use the user friendly calendar scheduling tool. You can view your content for all platforms on a calendar where you can drag and drop posts to make changes.
With MavSocial, you can access a library of stock images to help curate content.
Platforms
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Youtube
Instagram
Tumblr
WeChat
Analytics & Monitoring
MavSocial offers analytics reporting that is campaign-based which means you ‘ll be able to see how your campaigns are performing across all platforms collectively.
Monitor the conversation around your campaigns in your Social Inbox, you can reply, retweet and like posts without leaving the app.
Buffer has a free option for small business with the ability to connect to 3 social accounts all the way to a large business option for up to 150 social accounts for $399 a month.
Scheduling & Content
Buffer Publish offers a lets you schedule posts to be published later with both a desktop version and app. They also have a browser plug in, so as you’re browsing online you can directly pull imagery and content into your que.
Platforms
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
LinkedIn
Pinterest
Google +
Analytics & Monitoring
Buffer Analyze allows you to track key engagement metrics to easily monitor how your posts are performing.
Sprout Social doesn’t have a free option but their plans start at $99 a month and run to $249 a month.
Scheduling & Content
Sprout Social has a great Social Content Calendar tool that helps you visualize and manage your posts easily.
Do simple image editing within this system with filters and the ability to add text overlays.
Platforms
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
LinkedIn
Google+
Analytics & Monitoring
This tool offers the ability to monitor profiles, track keywords, hashtags and locations.
Monitor and engage with fans from one social inbox.
Dig deeper into your analytics with the key insights like responsiveness and engagement.