The Top Social Media Management Tools for 2020

What You Need to Know About Social Media Management Tools

Sometimes business owners ask us which social media management app or tool they should use to market and grow their business. And we always tell them that it depends on the nature of their company, product or service. For instance, if you are a tax accountant, you probably shouldn’t share your clients’ tax returns on Instagram. Restaurants do better with visually-oriented platforms. You get the drift. Unfortunately, we have not come across a one-size-fits-all social media management tools yet.

Business owners and marketers have a lot of options. If you include all the niche networks out there, you are looking at literally hundreds of social media apps and sites out there. Which one is best for you? For starters, we recommend that you stay with one of the major social apps and sites; you can always get more creative and adventurous later! And there are still plenty of options.

There are tons of social media apps and sites out there. And there are all kinds of social media management tools to help you make the most out of your social media efforts. Some of these tools are relatively basic, while others have a whole range of available options and configurations. And selecting the best tool for your brand or product company can be a daunting task.

To help you get a better understanding of the different benefits each of the primary social media management tools, we have curated a list of our favorites. Please note that this is by no means an exhaustive list. We simply selected the social media management tools we and some of our clients use. Let’s take a look!

Social Media Management Tools

1 – Agorapulse

Agorapulse is a full social media management tool that’s grown hugely in popularity over the past few years. It has an “inbox zero” workflow-based social inbox, advanced listening, monitoring, reporting and analytics, and of course, publishing and scheduling. It’s what we have used for our social media workflow for many years and wouldn’t be without it.

They were founded back in 2011 by Benoit Hédiard and Emeric Ernoult and initially integrated with just Facebook. This tool offers you updates about your social content, using the social media inbox (an email-like inbox). It retains old conversations as well as syncs all your social media profiles in real-time to ensure that you do not miss any comments, likes, tweets, and so on.

Agorapulse is excellent for businesses, organizations, and agencies who have established a social media presence. Small companies or some individuals may find Agorapulse’s feature set overkill for their needs. The prices reflect that – starting at $99 per month ($ 79.00 if you pay yearly). But you do get a lot for your money.

2 – Sprout Social

Sprout Social is probably first and foremost known as a one-stop-shop for managing and scheduling all your social media accounts through one simple-to-use platform. It is convenient for your company’s social media administrator when they’re trying to juggle Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and more.

But it doubles up as a powerful tool for analyzing your data, too. You can sort by various demographics and geographic measures to precisely quantify what content is working for which followers. Sprout can manage multiple accounts and monitor keywords across all social media to know when followers discuss your brand. It also helps your company respond to customers by directing messages to the organization’s people who need to act on them.

3 – Buffer

Rather like Sprout Social above, Buffer is another all-rounder that lets you post to your platform and then analyze the results. One of its major plus points is how simple and straightforward it is to use, while also giving you flexibility. The fact it provides analytics in real-time makes instantly judging the impact of your content a doddle.

Use the “Top Post” icon to compare different forms of content to see which works best for each network. While the Buffer app also allows for seamless Google Analytics integration for tracking the success of your marketing campaigns.

4 – Hootsuite

Hootsuite aims to provide an all-in-one platform for social media management across multiple sites. As expected, there’s an option to search and filter through existing social media to find brand mentions, insights, and demographic information.

Additionally, with Hootsuite’s plans, you can schedule posts from multiple profiles across multiple social media sites. This flexibility allows you to ensure any marketing campaigns are appropriately timed and targeted when and where you need them to be. Posts can be tagged to ensure you store them in the right place for posting at the right time.

5 – Ripl

Create branded videos and images in minutes – then instantly post to all your social media accounts and track your results automatically. Make beautiful digital images and videos from your phone, tablet, and computer.

Ripl helps you make professional-looking posts every time to ensure you look as good on social media as you feel about your business. Market your products and services with short videos that Ripl helps you customize yourself or start with Ripl design recommendations personalized to your business. Ripl even tracks the social media engagement your posts get so you can see what types of posts work best.

6 – Adobe Spark

With Adobe Spark, it is easy to create videos and graphics that are visually appealing and socially engaging. If you want to create ads that enjoy a high CTR (click-through rate), then Adobe Spark will be your best friend. The more attractive your posts are, the more you will be seen as an authority in your niche. Leveraging the power of Adobe with Adobe Spark will surely help you get there.

Another thing that I liked about Adobe Spark is; you can create perfect sized images for every social media platform. This functionality is a nifty feature that makes it a robust social media mobile app for all kind of users.

7 – Commun.it

If your target market is Twitter-focused, Commun.it is hard to beat. Although you can post to other social media sites from the platform, this is a deliberate Twitter-specific tool, which is handy if you are concentrating your digital marketing efforts.

The simple things are all covered – this tool; groups all your conversations in one place, and you can easily share curated comments and tweets. You can get to know your followers and establish the high-value and influential people in your community.

However, Commun.it goes a stage further than simply identifying the best time to post. It offers recommendations for the next steps to take for better engagement. Commun.it has robust reporting features. It also helps you unearth inauthentic followers so that you can cleanse your following of bots, etc.

Time spent on Twitter is more valuable to your public relations if you are nurturing genuine leads and connecting with a real community. Therefore Commun.it is one of the best social media management tools to help you achieve your digital marketing objectives.

8 – SEMrush

We all know that SEMrush is a stellar platform for auditing your SEO efforts. In addition to monitoring your content’s performance and researching the right keywords to use, you can also post and manage your social media accounts in the SEMrush interface.

In their Social Media Toolkit, you can schedule posts, edit images, and import from CSV files. You can even create posts while surfing the web. They provide in-depth audience analytics tracking age, country, and online presence, and the types of content that work for them. As part of a cohesive digital marketing and PR plan, SEMrush has everything you need to drill deep into the data and increase your visibility and results.

9 – Sendible

Sendible is an up and coming SMM (Social Media Marketing) tool suite with an excellent user interface. It’s is a fully integrated social media productivity tool and, in our opinion, one of the best on the market. With Sendible, you get 20 integrations with the top social media networks, blogs, social sharing sites. You can even hook it up to Slack, which makes communicating with other members of your content marketing team an absolute breeze.

Sendible is an excellent weapon in the arsenal of a social media marketer/content marketer. It helps you create content that gets you and your client the traction you need and enables you to keep your editorial calendar busy and active.

This all-in-one tool helps you stay on top of the important stuff that appears on your social media profiles through its social inbox. You can track all your name or brand mentions and immediately respond to any negative comments (from customers or readers). Timely response helps to establish a solid rapport and open a communication channel.

10 – ContentCal

ContentCal is a social media content tool that puts a planning calendar at the heart of your workflow. It has many features of a typical social media management tool. It helps with planning, team workflows, posting, scheduling, and reporting. Currently, it doesn’t have listening or monitoring tools. However, ContentCal will be bringing in a social inbox with its Respond tool, which is now in beta.

ContentCal is an excellent tool for small businesses, charities, public sector, and organizations small to medium (or even large) agencies. They have very competitive prices, including a free plan. The free plan allows one person to manage up to 4 social media channels with up to 10 posts per month. It is not going to be enough for anyone other than a hobbyist (which is what they say the plan is for), but it’s great to get started.

11 – Planable.io

If your social media strategy requires collaboration from multiple team members, Planable works to streamline that process. Like many of their competitors, the platform allows you to centralize your content management from a variety of social feeds and plan your content marketing.

One of the most useful things about Planable is the ability to view your social posts as if they were live in the social feeds themselves. This feature is helpful if you want to create posts across a variety of different feeds and need to customize them for each one. You can drag and drop media files into your posts. It allows you to schedule them and create a visual calendar to see your campaigns with clarity.

12 – Social Booster

Social Booster is another highly comprehensive SMM solution that makes SMM easy. It automates posting updates by scheduling them in advance (you can even schedule them weeks and months before the day that you want the posts to be published). This ability keeps your social media presence active while you are offline.

It also gives you access to a single dashboard that you can use to manage your multiple social media accounts and remain engaged with your audience. Moreover, you can get a complete insight into your social media activities and campaigns’ performance, which helps you develop a sound understanding of your audience. And, you can get these reports on demand.

For businesses, Social Booster also enables you to create a workflow from the dashboard for your team members, which will increase your overall business productivity. It also helps your business increase its reach through increased social media usage, without spending additional time for the same.

13 – Social Pilot

The Social Pilot suite has won plenty of fans with its simple and easy-to-use design and competitive pricing. You can do all the essential tasks, including integrating social accounts. It allows bulk scheduling, content curation, and brand management from the platform. But they offer even more functionality.

Their calendar feature is a goldmine. Users can go in and use filters to find the posts they need. If you want to repeat posts, you can simply drag and drop them in the calendar.  Rescheduling content is a breeze. They also have an excellent reporting system that alerts you to any problems in your feeds immediately.

Customers talk positively about the onboarding session given to all new users. Easy onboarding means every member of your team working in Social Pilot knows what they are doing. As they continue to make the software more intuitive and work towards getting integration with Instagram, Social Pilot’s offer can only get more enticing.

14 – MeetEdgar

This intuitive platform offers a variety of different approaches to content creation. You can create and schedule a post for one-time-only use or MeetEdgar will continue to post evergreen content (with just a few small tweaks) repeatedly at appropriate intervals until you decide it’s no longer relevant.

With RSS feed and content curation tools, you can set MeetEdgar up and watch as a mix of content is sent out on your feeds. Another great feature is its content mix calendar. The platform groups posts into different content categories and makes sure that you have variety in your feed to keep your audience engaged and informed.

The combination of consistency and variety will help your brand stand out and can support the objectives of any public relations campaign you are running. In terms of the reporting features, you get pretty good analytics from MeetEdgar, so you can see which posts resonate with your audience. You can also split test posts to find out what works best, an excellent feature for digital marketing teams trying to figure out how to make an impact.

Currently, MeetEdgar supports feeds from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, so if your target market is on those platforms, it’s a good option for you.

15 – BrandMentions

BrandMentions is a social media tracker that allows you to monitor and engage in online conversations in real-time. The tool works great for managing your brand reputation, spying on your competitors, content marketing, and much more. BrandMentions sends you real-time notifications when a new post appears anywhere online, be it Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, or any other place on the world wide web. BrandMentions is the tool to have if you want to measure the buzz around your brand, product, or keyword.

Using the Top Social Media Management Tools

So, there you have them, the 15 top social media management tools for 2020. Take a look and see which ones best meet your social media management objectives.

Then start with the ones that work for your business. As always, I recommend that you try any social media management tool one by one. Evaluate if it meets your needs and provides the results you require and envision. Feel free to switch to a different tool if you are not getting the benefits you expect.

If you are not comfortable doing social media marketing for your business, you should leave this in the hand of a professional. Incorrectly using any of the top social media management tools will not provide the benefits you expect and can hurt you and your business!

How is Social Media Management Working for You?

Have you tried any of the top social media management tools yourself? How are they working out for you? Are you achieving your business objectives, or are you facing obstacles?  If you have any thoughts regarding our small business social media management tools, please leave them in the comments below. Don’t forget to grab our feed, so you don’t miss our next post. And help your audience become better social media marketers by sharing this post with them!

Thank you! We appreciate your help to end bad business websites, one pixel at a time!

By Gregor Schmidt
Co-Founder / CXO
@gregoraschmidt