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Top 10 Social Media Management Tools
Tom Gerencer
|
August 30, 2023
Managing social media accounts doesn’t have to be a full-time job, even if you have six, 10, or even 50 accounts. Scheduling and posting to all your profiles under one software umbrella can save you time and increase your ROI and productivity. Many social media management tools also offer social listening and brand monitoring.
With the right software, running a tight, cross-platform campaign can be a breeze. There are plenty of reasonably priced social media management apps on the market, with shallow learning curves and deep effectiveness. To help you find the right one, we did a deep analysis of user reviews, and ran each tool through a battery of tests.
Our top choice is the breakaway favorite Ripl, beloved by hundreds of thousands of happy users. Read on to learn more about Ripl and the other best social media management tools below.
1. Ripl
With a 9-star rating from more than 300,000 users, Ripl is the star performer in the field of social media planner apps. First, it’s incredibly full-featured. It lets you access (and create posts from) thousands of templates, stock images, and videos. Other tools don’t supply such a broad range of assets. Its analytics are a cut above, too.
As with other tools, you can schedule and share to all your accounts from one social media dashboard, while you create and monitor social media posts from any device. But the real reason for Ripl’s popularity is that it works – and it works well. It’s very easy to use, and its customer service team gets high marks, too.
Key features
- 9 stars for 302,924 ratings
- Manage multiple accounts
- Free templates, videos, stock images, music
- Easy tracking
- Endless customization
- Set brand colors and fonts to boost brand awareness
- Hashtag recommendations
- Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and more
- Price: Plan start at $15 per month
2. Hootsuite
Hootsuite comes in a close second on our list of the best social media management tools with a 30-day free trial, then $49 per month (or more, to add users and more than 10 social media accounts). It’s hard to go wrong with an app that satisfies more than 18 million active users. Hootsuite’s automation and analytics are effective, though not quite as intuitive as Ripl’s.
This solid social media planning tool falls slightly short of the #1 spot for two reasons: other tools offer more incisive analytics, and Hootsuite costs more than Ripl for a similar features list. Add-ons tend to boost the price, too, once you start to scale up.
Key features
- 8.7 stars for 114,017 reviews
- Unlimited posts
- Engage your audience through a social inbox
- See your top-performing social content
- Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and more
- Price: $49 per month and up
3. Buffer
For a much lower monthly rate than Hootsuite, you’ll get more social accounts and more features from Buffer. One of the best social media content manager apps on the market, Buffer handles multiple social media accounts with ease, even if its analytics are somewhat basic.
It’s also more affordable than other options, with a free forever plan that serves three social channels. However, scheduling can be glitchy at times.
Key features
- 8.6 stars for 107,369 reviews
- Social profile sharing
- Connect to RSS feeds
- Customizable browser extension is a great productivity hack
- Track and expand on top-performing posts
- Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and more
- Price: Free forever or $5 per month per social channel for unlimited posts
4. Agorapulse
If you only need to manage three social profiles and one user login, Agorapulse’s free forever plan is your best choice. The free plan gives you 40 posts per month, plus social CRM tools and a handy mobile app for posting on the fly.
You’ll need to pay for unlimited posts, more users, and additional profiles, but you’ll also get deep functionality like an automated inbox assistant and collision detection to save time spent double-answering incoming messages.
Key features
- 9 stars for 19,836 reviews
- LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and more
- Unified social media content calendar
- Bulk scheduling
- Easy team member management tool
- Facebook ROI calculator
- Email and chat support
- Price: Free forever or $79 per month and up
5. Loomly
Loomly gets rave reviews, but from a smaller pool of marketing pros. It may have a trimmer user base than other tools on our list, but it still allows you to manage a slew of social media accounts from one dashboard.
Store your assets in one place and use native collaboration tools to smooth out your approval and posting workflows. Schedule posts, target your Facebook audience, and track your success.
There’s a 15-day free trial to get started, and you can set up social notifications for email, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and more. It’s just not quite as feature-rich as other options on our list.
Key features
- 9.2 stars for 8,906 reviews
- Idea suggestions for Twitter trends, RSS feeds, events, and holidays
- Upload photos and videos
- Auto-generated previews for ads and posts
- Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and more
- Price: $25 per month and up
6. Sprout Social
Founded by tech guru and angel investor Aaron Rankin, Sprout Social is an integrated social media management software tool built around a smooth user experience. It delivers tools for social listening, publishing, engagement, and analytics in a single package.
The analytics are powerful and intuitive, and scheduling is easy with reporting broken out by categories. Collaboration is seamless, with customer queries routed to the right place and an intuitive grasp of which posts generate the most engagement. The price is on the high side, though, and there is a bit of a learning curve.
Key features
- 8.3 stars for 34,827 reviews
- Single smart inbox for all accounts
- Customer review management
- Automated chatbot integration
- Social CRM
- Mobile app for on-the-go social management
- Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and more
- Price: Starts at $89 per month
7. EClincher
EClincher has won dozens of awards for its tight, effective, and easy-to-use social media posting software. It integrates with any social platform you can name, for publishing to multiple social media sites, scheduling, engagement, content creation, listening and monitoring, analytics, and a full slate of other useful features.
The customer service team is top-notch with consistently fast response times and helpful answers. The price is on the higher side, and both the scheduling and general user interface feel clunky at first.
Key features
- 9.2 stars for 7,428 reviews
- Visual calendar/scheduler
- Link shortener
- Free commercial use image libraries
- Monitoring and listening
- Team collaboration
- Advanced analytics
- Integrates with just about any social media platform on the web
- Price: $59 per month and up
8. Social Pilot
With plans starting at $25 per month, Social Pilot packs in a respectable features list at a low price, letting you schedule and post on more than 50 accounts at once. Like the other tools on our list, it offers useful analytics and monitoring, and lets you manage all your conversations with a single social inbox.
This is one of the best social media content management tools on a budget. It integrates seamlessly with Facebook advertising, and the customer service team is responsive and helpful. The interface and user experience aren’t quite as polished as Hootsuite, but if you’re working on a tight budget, that’s not a bad tradeoff.
Key features
- 8.6 stars for 7,452 reviews
- Respond to all messages from one social inbox
- Easy team management and collaboration tools
- Clear social media calendar
- Bulk scheduling
- Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and more
- Price: $25 month and up
9. Sendible
Sendible offers a one-stop-shop for social media monitoring, planning, scheduling, and engagement at a budget-friendly price point. Canva integration lets you design the perfect social posts with a top-rated graphic design tool. You can also get a one-click look at your most engaging content, or you can drill down to build custom reports.
This tool is a major time saver, with an intuitive scheduling interface and excellent customer service. Carousel uploads via API are lacking with some platforms, but that’s more an issue with the social networks themselves. Instagram, for example, doesn’t allow carousel uploads via API. One other hitch is that the navigation takes some time to learn.
Key features
- 8.9 stars for 4,879 reviews
- Visual social media planning calendar
- Preview posts as they’ll look on different platforms
- Deep analytics and reporting
- Monitor and respond to all brand mentions
- Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and more
- Pricing: $29 per month and up
10. Talkwalker
With a strong social media listening focus, Talkwalker would sit much higher on this list if not for the sticker shock. It delivers competitive social media analytics and real-time monitoring, and its unique AI-backed pattern-tracking makes it a standout, but the data deluge it provides can be overwhelming.
The customer support quality is excellent, and a free-forever version for the social listening feature makes up for the cost of its paid variants. Manipulating the dashboard space can be daunting at first, though it gets easier with regular use.
Key features
- 8.8 stars for 4,193 reviews
- Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and more
- Exceptional analytics and social listening tools
- Price: Free forever, or $800 per month and up for premium features
Honorable mentions
The five cross-platform social media marketing apps in the list below are worthy options. They don’t have as many users and ratings, and they score slightly lower than the winners in most cases.
11. Iconosquare: 8.7 stars for 3,872 reviews
12. Falcon.io: 8.6 stars for 3,897 reviews
13. Later: 8.3 stars for 4,312 reviews
14. Meet Edgar: 7.5 stars for 2,881 reviews
15. Zoho: 7.1 stars for 10,249 reviews
Summary
Small businesses need easy-to-use social media management tools to engage meaningfully with customers, answer queries, and drive ROI without spending a lot of time. The best social media management tools deliver excellent scheduling, posting, monitoring, and engagement across all the major platforms.
Ripl is the breakaway favorite for its robust features list, excellent customer service, ease of use, and low price.
