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Since 2019, the social media world has been in a stronger position than ever before. The industry is continually growing in terms of platforms, features, and technology. What was originally a place for friends to converse and update one another on their lives has become a home to many individuals including advertisers and marketers.
The steady growth of social media has provided many benefits. Despite these benefits, however, we can’t deny the fact that the world would be a little bit simpler with only one social platform to worry about and focus on. Imagine having only one set of login credentials, one set of ad campaigns, and one set of content to post. It’s a dream world, but, unfortunately, one in which we do not live.
Therefore, the next best solution is to work with a social media management tool. As the name suggests, these tools are designed to help marketers manage their social media accounts. They simplify the process by making it more efficient, ultimately providing marketers with more time to focus on other important matters.
Here are some of the best social media management tools for marketers in 2021:
If you’ve looked into this topic even briefly before, you have probably heard of HubSpot. HubSpot has been a reliable social media management solution for many years. In particular, it’s used to analyze social media performance. While some people publish through HubSpot, others only use it to analyze. Above all else, it’s one of the best ways to compare social channels and the strategies used in each.
For those who detest trying to make sense of dozens of numbers, HubSpot is the perfect introductory tool with easy-to-read charts and graphs. You’ll quickly learn more about interactions, the performance of published posts, clicks, session lengths, and your audience.
As a cloud-based tool, this next suggestion focuses on customer experience. If you are working to boost the UX across multiple social channels, this is one of the best places to begin. For starters, it works across the following:
What’s more, Falcon has features for customer data management, social media listening, content publishing, performance measurement, and engagement. Additionally, the platform offers a visual planner as well as an Auto-Queue feature to plan future social media posts.
Like HubSpot, HootSuite is another service that has built a strong digital presence since its introduction to the social media market. Some will say that HootSuite even developed this niche when it came out in 2008. Now, it has features to help with post scheduling, content curation, monitoring and assessment, and lots more.
Some experts will say that HootSuite caters to beginners, and it’s hard to disagree with this opinion. In many cases, businesses start with HootSuite and then progress to another tool once they better understand their needs. However, its reputation as an educator cannot be denied. If you don’t have much experience, you’ll love the HootSuite Academy.
What comes to mind when we use the phrase ‘social media management’? Most people will think of scheduling posts and organizing various accounts. However, the next thing on our watchlist is social media ads. With that said, your business should also use a management tool to optimize your return on ad spend in this area just as you would elsewhere.
Trapica is a leading service in this field because it automatically optimizes bidding, targeting, creatives, budgeting, and A/B testing for social media ads. Tell Trapica your goals and the effective machine learning, artificial intelligence, models will keep your campaigns on track. You no longer have to sit down and stare at a computer screen with all sorts of metrics and numbers to assess performance; Trapica does it on your behalf and continually improves the various aspects of a campaign to keep them on the right path (pushing towards your goals!).
If you need another reason to choose this tool, let it be that Trapica helps across more platforms than most. This includes Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit, Quora, YouTube, and more. Trapica also has several additional tools that help with digital marketing while boosting return on ad spend, ROI, and online conversions.
Instagram Stories and Snapchat don’t seem to get that much attention, which is why we wanted to introduce Snaplytics to you in this guide. Despite the simplicity of the features, they’re important to many marketers. With Snaplytics, you’ll get a detailed analysis for these platforms including metrics such as completion rate and open rate.
Are people engaging with Instagram Stories and Snapchat? Does 90% of the audience stop watching after the first post? This can help businesses to identify problems and create more engaging content.
Next, we find Loomly and a tool designed for two main areas above all else:
Sadly, this isn’t a one-stop-shop that can be integrated into a wider marketing strategy. Yet, those who manage their expectations can find value in Loomly. Though motoring and listening are both limited, you can use the advanced visual calendar while also taking advantage of the content suggestions tool.
Available for a sensible price, this is an advanced tool for freelancers and small businesses. Some of the best features include automated publishing, approval workflow, post mockups (and ad mockups), content library, and ads manager. Users also like the fact that it can be used with most social media platforms such as Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
Now, we return to a larger platform that has all the capabilities a large business needs. This includes a visual calendar, analytics, collaboration features, scheduling, and a social inbox. Two features in particular that grabbed our attention were the boosted Facebook posts and competitor analysis. As we all know, the pandemic has proved the importance of staying ahead of competition, so this final feature justifies much of the cost in itself.
If you’re looking for an influencer feature to keep track of market leaders, you will have to look elsewhere. Stepping back into the positives, though, and you can use Agorapulse for Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
We understand that this is a niche tool and that not everybody will want to use it, but it’s too valuable to omit from this list. As we’ve seen before, it’s an area that is either forgotten or falls behind many other features in terms of importance. As a relatively small tool, it analyses the efficacy of specific hashtags.
How do hashtags perform on Twitter and Instagram? Are they more popular at certain periods of the day? Essentially, the tool is questioning how you can get the most from your Instagram and Twitter posts. Also, you’ll learn which hashtags are the most valuable for your audience.
Often, we hear from businesses intent on spending money. After enjoying some success and growth in the market, they have money burning a hole in their pockets. In reality, you shouldn’t overlook some of the basic free tools that still exist like Google Analytics. Although it is not strictly a social media management tool, we can determine social ROI while also analyzing the performance of social media campaigns.
Since most businesses track their website using Google Analytics, you’re only a few clicks away from also tracking social media - this could save you from having to learn yet another set of login credentials.
Sometimes, all we need is a little organization, and this is an area in which Later excels. Along with a visual calendar, you’ll also have planning tools, posting schedules, and other features to keep everything moving in the same direction. Disappointingly, the features for Twitter and Facebook are somewhat limited. Yet, you can use Later for both Pinterest and Instagram.
In terms of interface and user experience, this is one of the best planning and scheduling tools for social media. With automatic posting, you can plan ahead and post to various platforms all in one place (and without having to physically log into your accounts).
We’ve mentioned lots of different tools with lots of different features in this guide. For example, you’ve seen planning, organization, visual calendars, ad optimization, auto-posting, analysis, and competitor analysis. How do you choose between these effective social media management tools? The answer is simpler than you might think - find one that matches your needs.
Write down what you want from a social media management tool and then choose the tool that best matches these needs. Why not get on top of social media management before even more platforms launch and cause stress?
