There are various social media management tools available online. So, how do you know which one to choose? With so many options out there, choosing a social media management tool can feel overwhelming. Not only do you have to find the best free social media management tools, but you also have to consider the factors such as integrations, scheduling capabilities and the user experience. Follow this guide to discover some of the best free social media management tools on the market today to help you optimize your social media efforts.
Here are the best!
Wistia and Soapbox
Video content isn’t going anywhere in 2020, and while it’s all too easy to press record with Instagram, sometimes you need a more sophisticated set up for your video files.
Whether you’re hosting a webinar or recording a tutorial, Wistia helps you organize and keep all your video playlists in one place. Without any pesky ads interrupting the flow!
Plus, Wistia comes with a super recording and editing tool called Soapbox — it allows you to record both your screen and your webcam at the same time. Making a presentation a cinch to record, edit, and share with your followers!https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZhHbgMkneP4?autoplay=0&mute=0&controls=1&origin=https%3A%2F%2Flater.com&playsinline=1&showinfo=0&rel=0&iv_load_policy=3&modestbranding=1&enablejsapi=1&widgetid=3
Wistia comes with a free trial for three videos, but you can upgrade at any time to get access to all their features.
Mailchimp
In the last few years, newsletters have really had their renaissance.
They’re perfect for delivering content to your followers and keeping your name and brand in their brains week-on-week.
Plus, your newsletter is an audience that you “own” — no need to battle with an algorithm to get your content seen! All you need is a free Mailchimp account, a stellar subject line, and some great content to share with your followers.
You can choose when and what to send to your audience, and where to direct your newsletter traffic to — making Mailchimp one of the best ways for small brands to get eyes on their latest product launches and encourage sales!
Mailchimp also provides insights to help you deliver relevant content that’ll actually make an impression on your followers. And best of all, the basic plan is completely free.
Facebook’s Ads Manager
More and more businesses are turning to Instagram and Facebook ads to reach new customers and make sales. But few businesses are tracking their performance.
If you’ve ever run an ad campaign before, you know how important it is to track and measure the success of your current ads so you can replicate (and improve on!) that success in the future.
And when it comes to Facebook and Instagram ads, there’s no better tool for this than Facebook’s Ads Manager.
Instagram uses Facebook’s advertising platform to run all their ad campaigns. So any ad setup, goal setting, budgeting, and creation is all through Facebook Ads Manager!
Once your campaign is live, you can measure your ad performance and see if they’re driving their intended goal with Ad Manager’s many reporting tools.
And the best news? Facebook’s Ads Manager is free to use!
Social Blade
If your business regularly works with influencers, it’s a good idea to build in some health checks for your influencer partnerships. And Social Blade is the best tool for that!
Marketed as a statistics website, Social Blade lets you track user data and growth trends across multiple social channels, including Twitter, YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, and more. And it’s all for free!
Just type in the name of an account, select Instagram from the drop-down menu, and then peruse through tons of valuable insights and analytics.
One Social Blade feature that we really like is Historical Data, which lets you see the number of followers an account has gained and lost every day across a period of time.
If you notice any big spikes in follower growth, it could mean that the influencer is using a bot to grow their account.
Note: growth spikes can also be explained by other reasons, like being shown on Instagram’s Explore page, having a post go viral, doing a giveaway, or being featured in the media, so take the data with a grain of salt.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite has a special place in my heart, likely because it’s the first social media management platform that I used at my very first job as a Marketing Assistant. At the time, I was managing the company’s social strategy before social advertising had really taken off. I can still remember the hours upon hours I would spend putting together a posting content calendar and setting reminders for myself to tweet at certain times. This was until I discovered Hootsuite and my life as a frantic Twitter bird instantly changed.
So what does the Hootsuite free plan include? This option is decently robust with the ability to:
- Manage 3 social profiles in one place
- Schedule 30 posts in advance
- Generate leads with social contests
The free plan also includes basic analytics for tracking followers and various growth and content statistics and two RSS feed integrations. Not too shabby!
Free download: Up your game with our free all-star online advertising playbook.
#2: Buffer
Next up is Buffer. Similar to Hootsuite, Buffer has been in the social media management space for quite some time, and they are a respectable platform that allows you to manage multiple social profiles with ease.
With many overlapping features to Hootsuite, some of my favorite Buffer features include the ability to easily schedule content while browsing the web with their Chrome extensions. Buffer also suggests the perfect moments to post based on follower activity – pretty neat!
While there are a variety of options for larger organizations and agencies, the free plan just may suit your social media management needs. Buffer’s free plan includes the ability to manage three social profiles, schedule up to ten posts, utilize their browser extensions and mobile apps (iOS and android) feature, create and schedule content using their image creator and GIF/video uploader, and shorten and track links.
#3: TweetDeck
If Twitter is the bread and butter of your social media strategy, then TweetDeck is likely the best social management platform for you! TweetDeck will allow Twitter birds to use custom timelines, create and manage Twitter lists and searches, and add team accounts. It is also free for Twitter users!
While TweetDeck may not be the all-in-one platform you’re searching for, it is the perfect tool for social marketers managing multiple Twitter accounts where these live conversations are critical for business success.
#4: SocialOomph
Not only do I love the name of SocialOomph, I’m quite impressed by the wide range of features they offer for multiple platforms – ranging from the typical features like scheduling and analytics, to some interesting ones like keeping your DM Twitter Inbox clean to help with increasing followers. They definitely offer a wide variety of unique features for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest management, as well as the ability to manage and schedule blog posts.
While SocialOomph does indeed have a free plan, the features are limited and mostly lean towards Twitter management. On the free plan you can do things like schedule tweets, track keywords, shorten URL’s, and manage up to five Twitter accounts, but some of the more sophisticated features require a paid plan. If you’re looking to manage multiple social platforms aside from Twitter you will need to pay to play.
Friends+Me
Friends+Me is another prime player in the social media management tools family. While Friends+Me puts the highest emphasis on Google Plus features, many other social platforms are supported. Friends+Me appears to get rave reviews from users, and has a beautifully designed website with plans available based on the size of your business. And yes, there is a free plan!
While the free plan is not super robust, it still allows for two queues (which is a destination to publish posts), the ability to schedule five posts per queue at one time, link shortening, browser extensions, an integration with Zapier, as well as standard support. The free plan can also be used for a variety of social platforms like Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Tumblr.
Pinterest and Instagram are supported as well, but you will need to upgrade. Plans range from $7.50 to $216 depending on if you decide to utilize monthly or annual billing.
Followerwonk
Followerwonk is definitely not your tradition social media management tool when it comes to scheduling posts, but it is an effective tool when it comes to understanding your audience at a much deeper level. Followerwonk allows you to dig deep into Twitter bios and compare various accounts to find the most relevant influencers. With this tool, you can analyze your current followers – by location, bio, accounts they follow, and more – and contrast relationships with competitors. This will help you improve your social content by matching your activities with gains and losses of followers.
This tool is definitely worth exploring, because having a lot of followers is meaningless if these followers are not relevant and actually engaging with your brand. Luckily, Followerwonk offers a free account, as well! Like many of the others on this list, the free account does come with several limitations, but you will still be able to connect one profile, view authority rankings, see followers and their locations, see when followers are active, and access several other details to further analyze your social audience. If you are interested in more capabilities their plans are still decently affordable ranging from $29 to $79 per month.
Zoho Social
Whether you’re a growing business or an agency, Zoho Social will help you manage multiple profiles, research relevant keywords, work with team members, and of course schedule posts from one dashboard.
Zoho Social has many of the same tools and features that the other platforms have, but they also have Facebook lead ads, advanced reporting features, a SocialShare browser plugin, and CRM integrations. Zoho Social caters to agencies as well so marketers have the choice of choosing between the business or agency plans. Pricing for the paid plans ranges from $8.33 to $125+ for larger agencies. Zoho Social’s free plan allows you to manage 1 brand, and includes the URL shortener and SocialShare browser plugin.
I know, I know there are a lot of options here! Luckily, they all have free plans so you can experiment and find the platform that works best for your social strategy. At the end of the day you can’t go wrong moving onto a social media management tool – it will likely save you time, grow your social presence, and possibly even make you some money!
Conclusion
If you want to manage and publish posts on multiple channels at one go, then Buffer is the perfect free social media management tool for you. It has a slick interface and one can easily schedule posts in advance with it. Being a popular tool, there are tons of tutorials and resources available online to help you understand its user-interface and functionality. If you also want to sync your Buffer account with other social platforms then you can use Buffer’s extensions to log into other social profiles via extensions.