7 best social media management tools every marketing manager needs

If you’re responsible for managing multiple social media accounts across a number of platforms, you know how much of an overwhelming task it can become.

From creating, scheduling and publishing content, to monitoring and analysing its performance, it’s easy for that task to eat into your time and budget - which is where having an effective social media management tool comes in. 

Best social media management tools

With so many great social media management tools out there, we thought we’d highlight a few of our favourites to help you decide which are best for your business.

1. HubSpot
2. Sprout Social
3. Buffer
4. Hootsuite
5. Agorapulse
6. Social Pilot
7. Sendible

What are social media management tools?

Social media management tools enable you to publish, monitor, manage and analyse your multiple social platforms from one place. These apps give the ability to publish posts across multiple accounts and platforms, recommend the optimal times to post, schedule future content and keep track of post and follower engagement, saving those who work in social media A LOT of time.

HubSpot

Kicking off with ESM Inbound’s social media management tool of choice, HubSpot! HubSpot is great as it combines several social media tools into one platform. The publishing feature enables you to schedule content for a later date, and gives suggestions for the best time to post it so you’re most likely to get it in front of your followers at the perfect time!

If, like us, you already use HubSpot, you’ll know it’s perfect for tying social in with your inbound marketing campaigns. If you have a business blog, connect your social accounts and automatically share your new blog post as it’s published. Once it’s published, you can monitor any interactions you receive, and analyse campaign performance using Reports to understand how your target audience is engaging with your content. 

You can also use employee amplification to post across different channels on behalf of your team; using individual accounts has been proven to increase engagement, rather than only publishing from your business account (when employees share brand messages, the reach is 561% further than when shared through a company handle.)

Sprout Social

Similar to HubSpot, Sprout Social provides CRM features and allows you to manage, schedule and analyse all of your social media accounts through one platform. 

Sprout Social has many impressive features: content publishing, conversion management, and an extensive range of features to help you measure and evaluate your results.

This tool is perfect for businesses that use a collaborative approach to social media management. The message approval workflows and message tagging features allow for the review and approval of messages to maintain oversight, safeguard brand standards and simplify collaboration, meaning there’s no chance of a mistake being published!

Buffer

Buffer is another great all-rounder that allows you to publish and analyse your social data. Buffer is known for its clean and easy-to-use interface, whilst still being very flexible, making it popular for those new to social media management tools. 

One of its most stand-out features is that it has the ability to plan, prepare and provide data and analytics on Instagram stories, which most tools don’t provide. It also has an analytics and reporting dashboard, enabling you to track and create reports for each social platform.

Hootsuite

This all-in-one platform offers so many features. Like many of the other tools, you can schedule and publish content, monitor its performance and analyse its results, but unlike many of the other tools, Hootsuite also allows you to create and manage ad campaigns within the platform!

Perfect for companies that specialise in paid social, you can manage all of your paid ad campaigns across multiple platforms all in one place! Amazing, right? Hootsuite has the ability to create and launch your ad campaigns, approve ads or share feedback, and request or give access to social platforms directly from Hootsuite Ads. What more could you ask for?

Agorapulse

Agorapulse enables agencies, businesses and marketers to manage all their social media messages, schedule and publish content, identify key influencers, monitor social channels, and get reports all in one easy-to-use dashboard.

What sets Agorapulse apart is its engagement and scheduling features; including an automated inbox assistant which enables you to set up automated moderation rules to automatically review, tag, hide, or assign key messages; and the ability to organise queued content by time slot and topic, so that your team always knows what content is going out when.

Social Pilot

With its simple, easy to use dashboard and very affordable pricing, Social Pilot is great for startups and small businesses. Like the others, this tool offers a single place for publishing and scheduling, including bulk scheduling - with the ability to schedule up to 500 posts.

We all know what it’s like to get in a content rut, which is why one of Social Pilot’s most unique selling points; its content curation feature, will save you from ever running out of inspiration. All you need to do is type in a keyword relating to a specific topic, and the tool provides you with a list of content pieces that help you come up with unique ideas, genius!

Sendible

Sendible was built specifically for agencies with several clients. On top of the usual elements that most social media management tools provide, Sendible has some great features that make them unique. 

Similar to Social Pilot, they have a content suggestions tool, designed to provide suggestions on what content is most likely to generate higher follower engagement. They also have a built-in CRM, perfect to help you send customised, personal messages without having to spend a lot of time researching elsewhere. Finally, they offer auto-replies and auto-retweets on Twitter. Sendible can monitor Twitter for certain keywords or hashtags and then post an automatic reply or retweet.

Your own business and agency needs will dictate which type of social media management tool best fits your requirements, budget, and social media goals. But, whichever tool you choose should save you and your team valuable time!