If content is king, then social media is queen. Social media posts and content marketing go hand in hand, a dynamic duo where each supports the other’s initiatives. To drive your social media and content marketing strategy, the right social media management tools can help you stay on track and move forward.
Tools can help with every aspect of your social media management, from finding the perfect keyword to developing and publishing LinkedIn content to analyzing and reporting on your Facebook ad campaigns. They can help you learn more about your existing audience, find new niche audiences, and connect with an influencer in your market.
For every task, there’s a tool. Which ones will bring the most value to you? Here’s our round-up of the best social media management secret weapons for small businesses and enterprises.
Table of Contents:
Why You Need Social Media Management Software
Best Social Media Management Tools for SMBs
Best Social Media Management Tools for Enterprise
Free Social Media Management Tools
Are Some Social Media Management Tools Designed for Specific Platforms?
Try Meltwater's Social Media Management Tool Today
Why You Need Social Media Management Software
Social media management is a complex ecosystem, one that’s tough to navigate by hand. Part of the reason is that the landscape has grown so large. As of 2023, more than 4.76 billion people worldwide use at least one social media channel, a number that’s expected to reach almost 6 billion by 2027. The number of social platforms also continues to grow. The more ground to cover, the harder it is for team members to keep managing social media manually.
Much like using a GPS to get you where you need to go quickly and efficiently, social media software can accomplish similar goals.
Brands need to learn the unique intricacies of each channel, including the brand-growing features available to them. They also need to create content for each channel – what works for Pinterest might not translate well to LinkedIn, for example. And then there’s the chore of finding the right times to post content on all your social media platforms (and remembering to post!), responding to comments, and measuring your results.
Social media managers can hand off these and other tasks to social media management software. Purpose-built social media management tools like the Meltwater social media management solution reduce the workload on social media managers so they can dedicate more time and resources to strategy. Plus, as you grow, your tools will scale with you.
Tip: Take a look at the best brand management software, platforms, and tools to ensure your brand is always on point.
Best Social Media Management Tools for SMBs
While automation and social media analytics software is often thought to be reserved for larger companies, small businesses can take advantage of social media management tools, too. Lighten the workload, improve social engagement, and share on-brand content flawlessly. Here are our top picks for the best social media management tools for small businesses:
Meltwater
Shameless plug for Meltwater, we know. But we’d be remiss if we didn’t include ourselves on the list because our social media engagement platform is designed with a social-first mindset. Our social media management plugin lets brands schedule posts, engage with influencers and other social communities, and measure analytics across all their social networks. With a central anchor to unite your team and your cross-channel social media strategy, enterprises can keep everyone on the same page and never miss an opportunity.
Companies can engage in social listening across the most popular social media networks in the West (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) and the East.
But, what really differentiates Meltwater from the other names on this list is the ability to listen across traditional media networks (Broadcast, online news, blogs, forums, etc.) in addition to the social media networks so that brands can get the full picture of how consumers are talking about them.
By integrating the needs of PR, Marketing, and Social Media teams, Meltwater is the ideal platform for teams looking to improve collaboration -- not only simplify social media scheduling and community management.
If you'd like to get a free tour of our Meltwater Social Media Management Platform, fill out the form at the bottom of this post.
Hootsuite
One of the biggest (and first) names in social media management, Hootsuite automates your social schedule so you can worry less about posting.
In Hootsuite, you can:
- Bulk-schedule, manage, and review posts
- View engagement analytics
- Manage your image assets
- Keep track of social conversations, brand mentions, and trends
- Track real-time insights on a user-friendly dashboard
This tool works across multiple social media platforms, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, offering a high-level view from a single dashboard.
MeetEdgar
Small businesses that don’t have a full copywriting team will love the AI power of MeetEdgar. You can connect all of your social profiles to the platform and schedule posts ahead of time. The social media tool will automatically scrape your blog for new content and post it on your behalf. And if you’re not an expert copywriter, MeetEdgar’s AI can generate several caption variations on your behalf and let you choose the best one. Plans start at just $29.99 per month for up to five social media accounts.
Zoho Social
One of the best CRMs also features dedicated social media tools. Zoho Social differentiates itself from other scheduling tools with advanced features like CRM integrations, Facebook lead ads, and advanced custom reporting. Create visual content pipelines to find gaps in your content marketing. Stay tuned into users’ conversations to monitor your brand mentions and reputation. Most importantly, learn more about your audience so you can continue to create social posts that connect with them.
Tip: See other alternatives to Zoho Social.
Hopperhq
Thanks to its emphasis on simplicity and ease of use, Hopper HQ is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) who want to optimize and automate their social media marketing.
You’ll have available the expected scheduling and auto posting features, as well as an array of AI-powered tools, including automated image resizing and smart caption creation, designed to make content creation as effortless as possible.
With features like bulk scheduling and CSV upload, Hopper HQ ensures that businesses can maintain a consistent online presence across all social media channels. Additionally, it's visual Instagram grid planner and dynamic social media calendar aid in planning and publishing posts to always have an aesthetically pleasing Instagram feed that fits your branding.
Social Champ
With its easy-to-use dashboard, Social Champ differentiates itself as the industry's leading social media management platform. The feature-rich tool allows you to create, post, and schedule content on 11 major social media platforms, such as BlueSKy, Mastodon, and Threads.
Beyond scheduling features, the tool has a lot to offer, such as Social Listening, Social Inbox, Team Collaboration, Bulk Upload, in-depth Social Media Analytics, Champ AI Suite (exclusively powered by ChatGPT), and much more. The best part is that Social Champ offers a FREE plan with exclusive features. It also extends customer support 24/7 to timely resolve customer queries.
Ideal for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), Social Champ ensures that even growing companies can efficiently manage their social media presence and scale their strategies with ease.
Best Social Media Management Tools for Enterprise
Larger companies have bigger needs when it comes to social media management. Teams are usually larger, responsibilities are often spread between multiple users, and the brand’s stakes are much higher.
For more robust social strategies, here’s a look at our favorite social media management tools:
Oktopost
Oktopost is a user-friendly social media management tool specifically geared toward B2B brands. Teams can plan, approve, and schedule posts directly within the platform, discover content ideas, and increase productivity. It also includes a built-in employee advocacy platform that makes it easy to share company content on their personal social profiles. Oktopost integrates with some of the leading marketing technology, including Salesforce, Bitly, HubSpot, and Zapier.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social offers an all-in-one management tool across multiple social networks. Publish, schedule, and report all from a single place. Sprout Social users can also track campaign performance, respond to audience messages, and easily assign tasks across your team to maximize each person’s time. Take advantage of a free trial and test all of its cool features.
HubSpot
HubSpot is a user-friendly tool with robust features. Part marketing platform, part CRM and, HubSpot help sales and marketing team members bridge the gap so they can work toward common goals. Create and manage your content, generate inbound leads that are qualified and scored for your sales team, and easily compare results and ROI across all of your channels.
When you build marketing campaigns based on your CRM data on HubSpot, you can use the same insights, enhanced by the power of HubSpot AI for social media. With HubSpot’s Social Media Management software, you can integrate all your social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter). Furthermore, you can even link your blog to social media within HubSpot to post links to new blog posts on social media as soon as the blog goes live. While you’re creating content for social media, you don’t have to worry about scheduling as well. Create, optimize and schedule content without switching multiple tabs.
HubSpot can help with social media marketing by helping you come up with content ideas that resonate with your audience. HubSpot AI for social media can help you avoid writer’s block and consistently come up with fresh ideas that are bound to resonate. For hashtags-dependent platforms like Facebook, Instagram & TikTok, HubSpot AI can suggest the hashtags that your audience engages with.
Managing growth on multiple platforms is complicated, especially when the dashboards are different. With HubSpot AI, you can have all the metrics for all the social platforms in one place. Furthermore, replicating what works on one platform on other platforms is now easy. You can also repurpose, and republish what worked on one platform on other platforms as well.
You can empower your sales team by setting up email alerts when specific keywords are mentioned on your social media. Then the sales team can directly get in touch with the person who published a post with that keyword(s).
Khoros
Formerly Spredfast, Khoros goes beyond core social media capabilities to improve every digital interaction. It centralizes your social media posts to promote better collaboration, get insights into what’s working and what’s not, and makes it easy to shift your strategy when needed. Enterprise-level governance features help you control access and posting restrictions to protect your brand.
Visme
Visme’s all-in-one design tool & social media scheduler is a powerful platform for nonprofessional designers and social media managers. From its initial concept to design, approval, scheduling, and publishing, Visme streamlines your process to save time and money.
Visme centralizes social media content creation and management. Start by choosing the right templates for your content. Visme’s social media calendar helps you pre-plan your content goals for posting beautifully branded visuals. With Visme’s easy-to-follow social media content scheduler, you can do bulk scheduling for auto-posting.
Using Visme’s AI, you can create stunningly crafted visual content for Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more within Visme’s dashboard. The collaborative feature of Visme allows you to share your work with your team for further edits and incorporate feedback before you hit ‘publish’.
Free Social Media Management Tools
Got a business on a budget? There are tons of free social media tools that can help you jumpstart your strategy. In addition to the options above, we’ve picked out some of our favorite tools that don’t cost a cent.
Agorapulse
While Agorapulse is not technically free, the feature-rich social media management tool offers a free plan with limited features. Its suite of modules includes publishing, inbox management, monitoring, and a reporting dashboard to help you gain a comprehensive grasp of your social strategy. With its free version, you get one user seat and can connect up to three social platforms at once.
Tip: See more alternatives to Agorapulse.
Followerwonk
Followerwonk is a must-have real-time analytics tool to learn more about your audience. The tool digs into Twitter bios to find your most engaged fans. These are the people you’re creating content for – not the many followers that never like, share, or comment on your posts. By learning more about your most active audience members, you can build on your successes and compare your relationships to your competitors.
Canva
Creating professional-looking content for social media can be quite an undertaking, especially if you don’t have a designer’s eye. Canva takes care of the bulk of this problem with its suite of easy-to-use design tools.
Social media pros can import images and use pre-defined templates to craft stunning imagery to headline their content. Add captions, decorate the image with shapes and lines, change colors, and apply filters in seconds. Then, use your visual content to add interest to your social media profiles and posts. Canva also doubles as your image asset library by automatically saving all of your creations.
Are Some Social Media Management Tools Designed for Specific Platforms?
Maybe you don’t need all the bells and whistles of the above social media software tools. Maybe you’re not investing in multiple social media accounts because you've got a solid foundation on just one platform. We’ve got you covered there, too.
Meet our top picks for platform-specific social media software:
Instagram Management Service SnoopReport
Twitter Management Tool TweetDeck
Tailwind for Pinterest and Instagram
Instagram Management Service SnoopReport
Curious to learn more about your followers and who they’re following? Consider SnoopReport, your new favorite Instagram management service. You can see what someone likes and who they follow on Instagram – perfect for a little IG spying on your competitors. This is a great way to discover influencers in your niche and even competitors you didn’t know you had.
Twitter Management Tool TweetDeck
One of our favorite Twitter management tools, TweetDeck is a must for any brand on Twitter. Use this tool for real-time tracking and engagement so you can take part in live conversations.
Tailwind for Pinterest and Instagram
One of the best social media tools for Pinterest and Instagram, Tailwind takes social media publishing to new heights. Tailwind is equal parts content creation, social publishing, and post optimizing. It turns photos and images into professional designs in seconds – zero design skills required. It optimizes the size of each image for the right platform and device so each piece of content looks perfect as soon as it’s posted. Plus, you can automate scheduling, find high-performing hashtags, connect with content creators in other Tailwind communities, and create shoppable feeds, all from within the platform.
Try Meltwater's Social Media Management Tool Today
This is just the tip of the iceberg of all the available social media management tools, but it’s a great place to start. For more insight on how Meltwater can support your social strategy, reach out today!
