12 of the Best Social Media Tools for Your Business in 2021
Social media is a powerful tool that has the ability to transform your business, but managing it requires lots of time and effort. Use these 12 tools to efficiently manage and harness the power of social media.
For business big and small, social media is a powerful tool that has the ability to transform the way you make an impression.
By now, you probably realize that social media is a world of its own. Social media marketers are responsible for content creation, lead generation, post scheduling, and analytics reporting.
It’s no easy feat to continuously manage your business’s social media accounts in an efficient and effective way. Just think about the amount of apps, add-ons, and algorithms you’ll encounter.
These tools can help you achieve the perfect social media management strategy, so you can ensure your approach is streamlined and intuitive.
Why You Need Social Media Tools
If you’re still contemplating whether it’s worth it to invest in the top social media tools on the market right now, let me say that the answer is a resounding yes.
More than 3.5 billion people in the world are social media users. That equates to around 45% of the current population, and it continues to grow every day.
To put this into perspective, the average social media user spends around 3 hours a day on social networks.
As social media continues to integrate into multiple aspects of our lives, it provides businesses a plethora of opportunities for audience marketing strategies.
Now that we’ve got the big picture, let’s take a look at the best social media management tools out there.
Objective: Content Creation and Post Ideation
MavSocial
What does it do? MavSocial (www.mavsocial.com) is a social media management platform that’s great for curating and organizing visual content and posts. With this tool, you can:
- Schedule and manage your social presence
- Track keywords for post ideation
- Create your own digital library of content
What makes it special? MavSocial is unique, because its value lies in its ability to curate content in your own personalized digital library. This digital library allows you to manage, use, and edit your multimedia for all your posts. It also features a useful search engine that lets you browse through a wide variety of stock photos.
Pricing: 7-day free trial, paid plans start at $19/month
Best for: Businesses with large multimedia libraries and strategies that rely heavily on visual content curation.
BuzzSumo
What does it do? BuzzSumo helps you find popular online trends to base your content on.
Choose a category, and the software lists popular posts to use as references. It also includes information on influencers who could be beneficial to your content marketing strategy.
What makes it special? BuzzSumo is a useful tool for social media marketers, because it allows you to investigate online trends and content in a timely manner. By setting alerts, you can track your brand’s online presence and set alerts for competitors’ content.
Pricing: 7-day free trial, paid plans start at $99/month
Best for: Larger brands, publishers, and agencies that are trying to pinpoint the best performing content online.
Loomly
What does it do? Aside from organizing and scheduling your social media content, Loomly (www.loomly.com) gives you post ideas based on trending topics, RSS feeds, date-related events, and social media best practices.
What makes it special? Loomly is a great tool if you’re looking for a better way to create and maintain social media posts. You’re able to manage all your assets in one place, and the tool is especially useful for crafting your posts.
Loomly even guides you step by step to create unique posts and ads, making it an excellent choice if you need more help in the creation stage.
Pricing: 15-day free trial, paid plans start at $25/month
Best for: Any brand looking to spruce up their content management strategy and create unique, audience-centered content.
Objective: Post Scheduling
Hootsuite
What does it do? Known for its simplicity, Hootsuite allows users to schedule posts and gauge the success of a marketing strategy by tracking content engagement. Posts can also be scheduled for the highest activity times of the day to increase effectiveness.
What makes it special? One thing that draws marketers to Hootsuite is its simple yet engaging layout. The interface, designed as a user-friendly dashboard, makes it easy to view and analyze social media platforms.
Pricing: 30-day free trial, paid plans start at $29/month
Best for: Any brand looking for a basic, effective way to schedule and track social media content across various channels.
eClincher
What does it do? eClincher (www.eclincher.com) is another social media scheduling tool with additional features for enhancing your content marketing strategies.
Beyond publishing and scheduling, you can also analyze the success of your posts through different analytics. You can even manage your own content library.
What makes it special? One of the biggest benefits of eClincher is automatic post content using smart queues and RSS feeds. You can also search for different social media influencers based on your industry and the target audience.
Pricing: 14-day free trial, paid plans start at $59/month
Best for: Smaller individual brands and larger agencies trying to find an organized way to boost ROI across multiple social media channels.
CoSchedule
What does it do? CoSchedule organizes all your social media marketing campaigns and content in one place. Deemed “the fastest-growing marketing management software,” CoSchedule is a powerful tool that manages and organizes a wide variety of marketing strategies.
What makes it special? Unlike other social media platforms, CoSchedule organizes all your projects in one place.
Additionally, its collaborative features allow you to manage team members and delegate tasks in a clear and efficient way.
Pricing: 14-day free trial, paid plans start at $19/month
Best for: Brands looking for an efficient way to organize all of their social media content and projects in one cohesive place.
Objective: Lead Generation
Sendible
What does it do? Sendible (www.sendible.com) is another all-in-one social media management platform, but many of its features are geared toward lead generation and collaborative integration.
Generate leads straight through the tool by setting up an appropriate keyword alert, which then produces a list for you to browse through.
What makes it special? Beyond lead generation, Sendible is incredibly useful. Its compatibility and integration has a wide range of social media sites and platforms like Canva, YouTube, Flickr, and Google Images.
Pricing: 14-day free trial, paid plans start at $29/month
Best for: Agencies looking to develop new leads for different brands.
Audiense
What does it do? Audiense is a social media intelligence tool that finds the right audience to target with social media posts, emails, and advertisements.
It also gives insight into the response you can expect from your marketing campaign. Essentially, it’s a tool to help your brand develop customer relationships.
What makes it special? Audiense is a great tool to find new ways to strategize about what you post and how to cater your content toward specific audience segments.
It’s also a tool that turns insights into actions. Audiense offers a separate tool called “Audiense Connect” that’s specifically geared toward marketing on Twitter (www.twitter.com).
Pricing: Free starter plan, paid plans start at $99/month
Best for: Larger brands looking to discover new ways to use social media and gain relevant insights on their target audiences.
Objective: Reporting and Analytics
Sprout Social
What does it do? Sprout Social (www.sproutsocial.com) is a great social media marketing tool, particularly when it comes to analytics and reporting. It combines multiple features for social media management in one platform.
In addition to being one of the easiest analytics tools to use, it’s also great for scheduling, monitoring, and publishing social media.
What makes it special? Sprout’s reports automatically generate for you often need little to no additional editing to be considered “ready to send” to your team and/or clients.
Additionally, the platform’s dashboard is very user-friendly and easy to navigate.
Pricing: 30-day free trial, paid plans start at $99/month
Best for: Any brand looking for a user-friendly reporting and analytics platform.
Buffer
What does it do? When it comes to social media management and analytics, Buffer is a great tool to start with. With Buffer’s “Plan” and “Analyze” platforms, you can plan, publish, measure, and report your content.
This platform gives in-depth insights on your social media content. This helps you determine successful strategies to grow your reach, engagement, and sales.
What makes it special? Users love Buffer for its simple, clean layout and useful range of features. From stories and shop planners to custom reports, Buffer helps your brand achieve authentic engagement with straightforward tools.
Pricing: 14-day free trial, paid plans start at $85/month
Best for: Brands looking for simpler, easy-to-use social media tools and yield effective engagement results.
AgoraPulse
What does it do? AgoraPulse is another “all-in-one” social media management system that retains its biggest strengths in its reporting and analytics features. The tool also lets you schedule and respond to content.
What makes it special? Unlike other social media reporting tools, AgoraPulse allows you to compare your brand’s content to others through a special competitor analysis feature. This is especially useful as brands continue to introduce new social media strategies.
Pricing: 28-day free trial, paid plans start at $99/month
Best for: Both individual businesses and agencies looking for a useful reporting and analytics tool to discover new ways to stand out among their competitors.
Objective: Security
ZeroFox
What does it do? The cybersecurity tool, ZeroFox (www.zerofox.com), protects businesses from:
- Hackers
- Malware
- Piracy
- Counterfeit information
It keeps your customers safe from scams and removes dangerous content that could threaten your business’s reputation. This tool is functional on all popular social media platforms.
What makes it special? It’s one of the only cybersecurity tools of its kind. Though security is not something that often comes to mind in social media, cyberthreats are on the rise. ZeroFox is here to provide a solution.
Pricing: Contact ZeroFox for specific pricing.
Best for: Businesses looking to enhance their security management for social media accounts and online presence. It’s especially beneficial for companies that deal with sensitive customer information via social media platforms.
Finding What Works Best for Your Brand
Like most marketing tactics, finding the right social media management tool is a matter of trial and error. Finding what works best for your business depends on your needs and goals.
Once you take the time to identify the areas of your social media strategy that need extra attention, narrow down your options. Thanks to the free trials offered by most of these platforms, you can try out these social media tools risk free.
