Social media platforms have grown in popularity over the years and become a necessity for most businesses. Many social media platforms have also introduced free tools to help you manage your accounts with ease.
Free Social Media Management Tools There are many ways you can use social media to help grow your business. Depending on the type of business you have, you can accomplish different tasks with these tools. For example, if you own a restaurant and want to increase the number of people following you on social media, Instagram may work the best whereas Pinterest may work best if you sell clothing online. These networks also tend to reach different audiences, depending on the demographics they appeal to most.
Hootsuite
Prices: Free plan, $29, $129, $599 per month, and enterprise pricing (with a 30-day free trial)
Description: Hootsuite, probably the biggest social media management tool, is used by over 15 million people and more than 800 of the Fortune 1000 companies.
There’s a good reason for their success: it’s an all-in-one platform that allows you to curate and schedule content, measure your social ROI, run social media ads, and more.
Unique value: Being such a comprehensive platform, there are several things that people love about Hootsuite: being able to monitor multiple accounts and keywords, connect with over 35 social networks, and bulk-schedule social media posts.
Social Pilot
Simple & cost-effective social media management tool for teams and agencies
Prices: $10, $24, $40, $80 per month, and enterprise pricing (with a 14-day free trial)
Description: I like how Social Pilot fits many of the social media management tools (such as scheduling and analytics but not monitoring) into a simple dashboard and offers it at very affordable prices. With its client management feature, I believe it’s great for agencies that work with several clients.
Unique value: Social Pilot curates and suggests content from several industries (such as tech, education, and health and fitness), which is great if you want to find relevant content easily.
Another valuable feature is its white label reports, which are especially handy for agencies.
SocialBee
Seamless social media posting for all your profiles
Prices: $19/ $39/ $79 per month (with a 14-day free trial)
Description: SocialBee is a social media management tool that promises to bring you more leads with less effort. Its core functionalities allow its users to add, organize, and share content across several social channels from one place: Facebook (Pages, Profiles, Groups), Twitter (Profiles), LinkedIn (Profiles, Pages), Pinterest (Boards), Instagram (Profiles), and even on Google My Business. And it even integrates with Buffer.
Unique value: One of SocialBee’s most-loved features is the possibility to recycle evergreen content while keeping it fresh by using post variations. You can use SocialBee to post consistently while having an overall balanced mix of content in each category. More than that, the quality of support and is another valued asset of SocialBee.
Oktopost
Oktopost is a social media management platform catered for B2B marketers who want to generate leads through social media and quantify the business value of their social media efforts. From social media management to promotion to employee advocacy, Oktopost has all the tools most B2B marketers would want.
Spredfast
The platform for enterprise social
Spredfast is social media software that’s used by some of the world’s biggest companies, such as Patagonia, LinkedIn, and Johnson & Johnson, to handle all aspects of their social media management.
Buffer
Buffer has been a prominent name in the market for quite some time. The tool is an all-in-one solution for social publishing, with many outstanding features to manage multiple social media profiles seamlessly.
Of all the features, the scheduling functions on Buffer are the heart of the platform. You can easily organize your scheduled posts in a queue list and scroll to monitor them across various social channels. With Buffer, you can also keep track of your users’ activities, then the tool will suggest the perfect time to post and engage based on the frequency of these activities. The platform offers both free and paid versions, and if you choose to start with no costs, you can link 10 scheduled posts across 3 different social media accounts and have one user.
Also, if you test Buffer publishing with a free trial, the results may not fulfill your expectations. There will be only three menu items at the top of the main dashboard – Queue, Analytics, Settings – along with your attached social media profiles. And things are not what they seem – you can only create and schedule (up to 10 posts), and Buffer won’t queue them or hand you a proper analytics report other than a list of posts you created in weeks.
About the prices, except for the free plan, Buffet offers other paid versions specifically categorized for post publishing and analyzing. For social publishing, you can choose from the Pro, Premium, and Business plans – and you will get a full Buffer publishing feature list for $65 per month only. For social analytics, there are two monthly Pro and Premium versions, starting at $35 per month. You can opt for annual subscriptions for all plans to save up to 20%.
Meet Edgar
Meet Edgar may not offer a comprehensive feature list like other social management platforms but it is an ideal option for businesses that aim to engage by queueing and emphasizing content. The tool is not supported with full social listening capabilities, but it does include the basic functions that are adequate to streamline your managing process.
Post scheduling on Meet Edgar is relatively competitive compared to other tools. You can schedule your content at ease with different categories across multiple social channels. Meet Edgar will suggest some default categories so you can consider choosing them directly or customizing them to fit your styles and purposes. Once your social accounts are connected to Meet Edgar you can start your scheduling by selecting the time and date for your posts throughout the week and deciding on the category for each post.
There are various ways to create posts on Meet Edgar. You can directly add your original content or import content through an RSS feed or the CSV spreadsheet that includes all the posts. All your content will be easily managed in Edgar’s library. Once approved, your content will be queued for the next 2 weeks, then Meet Edgar will automatically select the most newly-updated posts to add, but you can shuffle your posts in random order.
About the pricing, Meet Edgar only offers one default plan for $49 per month, with annual payment saving up a month of subscription. You can test the features with a free 14-day trial in advance, and when you have decided to pay, you will get access to Meet Edgar’s full feature list, with 25 social profiles available.
Social Champ
Social Champ is a social media management tool with some next-level automation features supporting the six major social platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google My Business.
With features, such as Auto RSS feed, Bulk Upload, Social Media Calendar, Analytics, Team Collaboration, Recycle, Repeat, and others, you can fully automate the processes.
Social Champ also has integrations for Canva, bit.ly, UTM tracking, and a royalty-free image library. All-in-all, Social Champ allows you to perform all social media tasks, ranging from creating and scheduling to analyzing and tracking.
Use the content dashboard to create, edit, design, and schedule posts. View all the scheduled/published posts in a calendar view and reschedule them using drag/drop features. Analytics and reports allow you to track the progress of different socials with platform-centric metrics.
SocialOomph
Tools like Hootsuite and Buffer are helpful for scheduling posts. But if you don’t want to pay for social media scheduling, you’ve still got options. SocialOoomph is a freemium tool that lets you schedule posts to your favorite social channel.
The free version gives you one profile, unlimited scheduled posts, and up to three posts per hour. Yes, if you want to post across multiple social feeds, you’ll need to purchase a premium membership. But if you just want to double down on one channel, this is an easy option.
Conclusion
Social media has become an integral part of any business’ strategy to attract traffic and engage with customers and potential clients. With so many social platforms to choose from, and the ability to connect with anyone you like, social media can feel a little overwhelming.