Social media marketing is an integral part of many companies’ digital strategies. The key to getting the most from these efforts is to have social media management tools that let you automate activities and measure everything. These tools help brand owners and agencies judge the effectiveness of their social media marketing activities and identify which areas of marketing are paying off. It also helps them to make the most of their resources by pinpointing areas that need improvement.
Social marketing is the hottest trend right now in internet-based promotion. It enables businesses and consumers alike to communicate with one another in real time. Almost everyone has an account on one or more social sites and uses it regularly. As a result, businesses that don’t actively use Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok as part of their marketing strategy may find themselves losing out on potential customers and brand exposure.
Here you’ll find a list of the best tools to make the most of your social media marketing efforts.
One-Size-Fits-All Social Media Tools
These tools will be helpful regardless of the social media platform you’re using for promotion. They incorporate things like scheduling social updates, launching email marketing campaigns, automating replies, and creating high-quality content.
Mention
Use: media monitoring, trend researching, post publishing
Cost: limited free plan; paid plans start at $25 per month
Access: Web, Android, iOS
Mention is an all-in-one solution for monitoring social media activity. Thanks to its algorithms, you won’t miss any mention of your brand across the web, whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter. It will help you understand your audience better, listen to their wants and needs, and get instant feedback. Take advantage of Mention’s competitor analysis to
figure out your next steps. As a bonus, you can also plan your content via a handy editorial calendar.
Oktopost
Use: post scheduling, marketing automation
Cost: not provided; free demo available
Access: Web
Oktopost is a handy platform that helps you achieve your marketing goals in the B2B space. It crawls into every social networking site and retrieves all the data you need. It enables you to engage with your customers right from the dashboard, find trending topics, and prepare relevant content. It also gives you the ability to monitor posts’ performance and find the best ways to monetize them. The shared dashboard lets you work on blog posts with your team and approve them in a timely manner.
SproutSocial
Use: user engagement, analytics, content delivery
Cost: free trial; paid plans start at $99 per month
Access: Web, Android, iOS
SproutSocial takes social media campaigns to a new level. The main features of the software are listening, publishing, engagement, and analytics. You can use it to find out what your customers are saying about your brand, draft and post content, get in touch with your audience, and analyze what makes your campaign successful (or not). You will be able to easily find blind spots in your strategy, see what performs well, and get the feedback you need almost immediately.
Content Creation Tools
Posts on social media are nothing without actual media content. The tools below help you create amazing graphics, videos, and illustrations.
Fastreel Video Editor
Use: video making
Cost: limited free plan; paid plans start at $5.95 per video
Access: Web
Fastreel Video Editor will help you spruce up your Instagram stories and Facebook ads. This handy toolkit enables you to create videos that will boost your marketing campaign. You can choose a ready-made template from the library and customize it to your needs. You can also take advantage of editing tools and even create a video from raw footage. With Fastreel, you can merge clips, overlay filters and text, apply special effects, and use royalty-free music for your projects.
Canva
Use: illustrations, presentations
Cost: free version available; paid plans start at $12.99 per month
Access: Web, Windows, Mac, Android, iOS
Canva is the ultimate tool for creating one-of-a-kind illustrations. With an abundance of options, the likelihood you will choose the same design as your competition is pretty low, as you can customize all the templates. The variety of shapes and sizes available is also impressive – there are templates tailored specifically for Instagram and Facebook stories and posts, Twitter banners, as well as other options like newsletters, flyers, presentations, and more. One of the most recent additions is the video-making feature that provides you with multiple design options.
Unsplash
Use: royalty-free images
Cost: free
Access: Web, Mac, iOS
Unsplash is a wonderful source of royalty-free images. The site categorizes photos by topics and collections and shows trending searches. Stock photos are finally going out of style, and using pictures of people with fake smiles is considered bad taste. Unsplash, however, provides you with high-quality images that look great on social media. The service also gives information on whether the authors are available for hire if that’s what your business needs.
Instagram Tools
Instagram has some peculiarities when it comes to brand promotion. It mostly relies on influencers, informative stories, and targeted ads.
NinjaOutreach
Use: finding influencers
Cost: paid plans start at $189 per month (billed annually)
Access: Web
NinjaOutreach helps you find just the right people to promote your business on Instagram. Search influencers by keywords and filter the results by location, category, engagement rate, and number of followers. NinjaOutreach gives you access to its extensive database so you can extend your reach and make useful connections. The tool also keeps track of all your conversations, monitors email open rates, and enables you to manage multiple projects at once.
Later
Use: post scheduling, social strategy optimization
Cost: free for individuals; paid company plans start at $15 per month
Access: Web
Later is a handy scheduler that allows you to take control of multiple social media accounts, including Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. You can create a content calendar using simple drag-and-drop controls, find appropriate user-generated content, and analyze the performance of your posts. However, Later is not just about scheduling. It can also help you upgrade your bio and overall profile to match top websites.
Kicksta
Use: followers growth
Cost: paid plans start at $49 per month
Access: Web
Kicksta automates the process of getting followers. The app doesn’t use bots, so you don’t have to worry about a fake fanbase. It uses an extensive database to find people who follow brands similar to yours and like their posts for you. All you need to do is list your competitors, and their followers will come to you themselves if they’re interested in the content you post.
Iconosquare
Use: analytics, profile management
Cost: free trial available; paid plans start at $49 per month
Access: Web, Android, iOS
Iconosquare gives you a 360° overview of your posts’ performance. Its algorithms provide you with comprehensive scheduled reports so you are always up to speed on your campaigns’ results. Iconosquare also enables you to manage multiple profiles, monitor your competition, and share reports with clients, partners, and colleagues.
Plann
Use: all-in-one
Cost: free for individuals (Instagram scheduling only); paid plans start at $9 per month
Access: Web, Android, iOS
Plann lets you plan everything related to your Instagram promotion strategies. You can craft posts via a handy dashboard, schedule publication, and use templates to create a detailed content calendar. It integrates with Canva, LinkedIn, Facebook, and stock image services to help you come out on top.
Facebook Tools
When promoting your business on Facebook, you should also take into account Facebook Messenger and targeted advertising for a coherent marketing strategy.
Agorapulse Facebook Barometer
Use: page performance monitoring
Cost: free
Access: Web
Agorapulse Facebook Barometer compares your Facebook with other pages on the social network. This free tool takes into account the number of fans, engagement rate, people who talk about you, and negative feedback. It helps you understand how well your page is performing and what you can do to get ahead of the competition – you will find all the insights you need in one handy report.
Pagemodo
Use: page customization
Cost: limited free plan; paid plans start at $9 per month
Access: Web, Android, iOS
Pagemodo is your go-to service when your Facebook business page needs a makeover. You can use it to create banners or graphics for your posts, add CTA buttons, and collect leads using custom tabs. The tool boasts of a vast collection of stock content to get your social media presence noticed.
MobileMonkey
Use: marketing automation, live chat support
Cost: limited free plan; paid plans start at $29 per month
Access: Web
MobileMonkey focuses on Facebook Messenger and makes it easier for you to get in touch with your followers. You can integrate a chatbot into practically any social network and get instant notifications from your customers. This will let you immediately get in touch with hot leads, warm up potential clients, and get more sales.
MeetEdgar
Use: content scheduling, content creation, analytics
Cost: free trial; paid plans start at $19 per month
Access: Web
MeetEdgar is a content publisher that keeps every single one of your accounts up to date. With its handy dashboard, you can design your future posts, learn how to reuse them, and create evergreen content. The app can also search for quotes and provide you with post ideas if you ever have writer’s block. Among other features are A/B testing, link tracking, and performance monitoring.
AdEspresso
Use: targeted advertising
Cost: free trial; paid plans start at $49 per month
Access: Web
AdEspresso is the ultimate tool when it comes to targeted advertising. It helps you find the right audience with A/B testing and optimize your campaigns to maximize your profit. It’s perfect for both standalone businesses and marketing agencies, as you can share reports with your team and clients to get instant feedback.
TikTok Tools
TikTok is a relatively new player in the marketing tools arena, but it is already delivering great results for both small businesses and enterprises.
Loomly
Use: post scheduling, analytics
Cost: free trial; paid plans start at $25 per month
Access: Web
Loomly is a great way to organize your workflow and build your TikTok promotional strategy. Not only does it give you content ideas and optimization tips, but you can also use it to mock up ads and automate publishing. Thanks to the shared dashboard, everyone on your team can access the tool and get instant progress updates.
Upfluence
Use: finding influencers
Cost: not provided
Access: Web
Upfluence claims to be the leader in influencer marketing, and it really does get the job done. The tool uses multiple criteria to find the right influencers for you. It searches through your customer base and collects data so that you can use this information to reach out to them. Upfluence also keeps track of negotiations and briefs, so you can access the history at any time.
Toksocial
Use: growing followers
Cost: paid plans start at $15 per week
Access: Web
Toksocial helps you increase the number of people subscribing to your updates. The app gets you noticed by TikTok users who may have an interest in your content. The main advantage of the service is that you have a dedicated account manager who can take care of your campaign. You can adjust the filters for a more advanced search and even blacklist some topics.
Social Insider
Use: analytics
Cost: free trial; paid plans start at $99 per month
Access: Web
With Social Insider, you’ll get the full picture of what’s going on with your videos. The app tracks key metrics like posts, engagement, average engagement, followers growth, and more. But that’s not all. You can also see what benefits your collaboration with influencers brings – and whose content pops the most. Plus, thanks to the app’s algorithms, you can keep track of your competitors.
TokUpgrade
Use: growing followers
Cost: paid plans start at $25 per week
Access: Web
Last but not least, TokUpgrade helps you engage with the right people and get more followers. Similar to other services, the app likes posts of your potential customers, making them notice you. But here, you can target not only your competition but also influencers, which gives you a whole lot more chances to enrich your follower base.
Conclusion
Social media has become increasingly popular in recent years. This popularity has led to a surge of tools that enable brands to connect with their customers. These tools provide businesses with the ability to measure performance in real-time, determine what keywords are bringing in the most traffic, analyze audience demographics, and more. Ultimately, these tools will help you build stronger customer relationships and increase the profitability of your brand.
The apps we’ve listed in this article are available through any web browser; some also have a smartphone-based version. Before you make any purchasing decisions, take advantage of trial versions to understand whether a tool fits your needs. We hope we’ve help your search – now it’s time to go rock the social media world!