Social media is one of the biggest and most foundational pieces of a successful digital marketing strategy. Whether through organic or paid efforts, social media is a powerful tool for gaining awareness and establishing a strong presence for your brand. However, it can be a huge undertaking to create content, write engaging copy, keep track of followers, and manage your community. To help streamline these processes, there are several tools that allow you to schedule content in advance and even provide valuable insights and analytics to help you elevate your social strategy. In this blog, we’ll go over a few of the best social media management tools and their features.
HootSuite
One of the most popular social media management platforms, HootSuite allows you to schedule your content in advance and keeps you informed on relevant trends while monitoring the engagement you are receiving on your channel. It also allows you to connect your account across platforms, and even lets you manage multiple accounts at once. There are several features on HootSuite that allow you to optimize your strategy such as recommended posting times, the ability to create search streams for relevant hashtags/keywords, and a way to manage both organic and paid media and their respective performance. However, some find HootSuite to be difficult to navigate and not as user-friendly as other social media management platforms.
HootSuite does come with some limitations, especially in the free and first-tier paid versions. These include not being able to schedule/auto-post carousels, videos longer than 60 seconds, or stories. It also is not ideal for reels, which are becoming increasingly popular. Regardless, HootSuite is still a great option for a medium-sized business looking for streamlined publishing and good insight overview. HootSuite offers a free trial and plans start at $49/month.
Sprout Social
Much like HootSuite, Sprout Social offers the same basic features of posting and scheduling but is more advanced when it comes to analytics and social listening. Sprout Social also offers an engagement feature so you can manage your inbox/community within the platform. With the way social media is now, it is vital to be actively engaged with your audience in your comments and direct messages. In addition, Sprout Social identifies relevant trends to ensure your content is up to date, and even hashtag recommendations so you can reach a wider audience. Sprout Social is ideal for a larger, established brand that needs all social media functions in one place. It even offers channel metrics and insights across platforms to streamline reporting and give an accurate picture of where you can improve. Sprout Social is more expensive than many other social media management platforms, with standard plans starting at $249/month.
Planable
Out of the three highlighted platforms in this blog, Planable is the most user-friendly. Planable keeps things simple and intuitive by focusing on scheduling and curating content as their primary features. It allows you to schedule posts ahead of time and, unlike other platforms, offers various views so you can get a dynamic look at your content — they even offer a grid view so you can preview your upcoming Instagram feed. It also includes bulk actions such as mass scheduling and makes collaborating with your team easy by providing various approval options and keeping all notes and revisions in one place for easy access. Planable pricing is affordable, with their pro plan being $22/month, making this platform ideal for smaller businesses in their beginning stages.
These are just a few of the best social media platforms. There are dozens of them out there, all with their own unique interface and features. Because social media is an ever-evolving landscape and social media platform needs can vary greatly from brand to brand, we recommend shopping around to find one that best fits your brand’s needs and budget. If you need some help picking out or implementing a tool, reach out to us! From content planning to asset creation and community management, we would love to help you make the most of your social media marketing efforts.
About BuzzShift
BuzzShift is a digital strategy agency on a mission to grow mid-market, purpose-driven brands with the power to positively impact society and improve people’s lives. By combining the ideologies of branding, performance marketing, and retention agency, we can create memorable experiences with measurable results and build long-term success for our clients.
