Find out how to get the most out of the top social media tools. Social media is one of the two fastest-growing areas on the Internet, and it’s helping to connect people in ways never before thought possible. However, it can be overwhelming to find out where to start. Learn about the best social media tools that are available right now for creating successful strategies for your business or organization.
Many people find their social media work a bit overwhelming. Though the tools have evolved, they still struggle to create a complete strategy in a way that can scale in any organization. Our goal is to help organizations with this complex challenge.
eClincher
Best in class social media management tool
Prices: $49, $99, $199 per month, and enterprise pricing (with a 14-day free trial)
Description: Like most social media management tools, eClincher allows you to schedule and publish posts, respond to social messages, and analyze your social media performance.
Unique value: What makes eClincher different from other tools is that it enables you to auto-post with smart queues and RSS feeds, has a media library for your images, and lets you search for social media influencers.
CoSchedule
#1 marketing calendar
Prices: Starting at $0 – 20, $40, $60, $210, $300, $1,200 per month (with a 14-day free trial)
Description: CoSchedule is more than a social media management tool; it’s a powerful calendar to manage many aspects of your marketing. With CoSchedule, you can manage and collaborate with your team to create your social media posts, content, events, and tasks.
Unique value: CoSchedule is great for marketers who want to organize all their projects (social media, content, events, emails, etc.) in one place.
Their ReQueue feature helps you automatically find optimal posting times and fill gaps in your social media schedule with your best posts.
Buffer
If you know me, you’ll already know that I am a huge Buffer fan. Buffer is a tool that allows you to easily post or share to all your social networks. I know I mentioned I wouldn’t be mentioning any standard social media management tools, but Buffer is different in that it is mainly for scheduling your posts. The advantage of this is that you can post to Twitter or Facebook when your followers or fans are more likely to be there. Your followers might be using Twitter or Facebook in the evening once you’ve gone home from work- Buffer posts automatically at times you choose throughout the week.
Buffer allows you to post to Twitter, Facebook profiles. groups and pages, LinkedIn profiles and pages, Google+ pages and Instagram. Whenever you add a post to Buffer you choose which network or networks you want to post it to (for example you might want to post to your Facebook Page, your LinkedIn profile and Twitter) and it gets added to each network’s queue. When it comes to the next time to post for your Facebook page, Buffer will post the first post in that queue and the same for each other network. You don’t have to wait for your Buffer queue either, if you want to post something straight away, then you can do.
Sharing articles is easy to do by using a button in your browser. If I find an article that I know my Twitter followers and LinkedIn connections will find interesting then I just need to click my Buffer button in my browser and I can instantly add the link and title to those social networks either straight away or add it to their queues. As well as that Buffer has great mobile apps for iPhone and Android smartphones and you can even link it to other apps using another great tool called IFTTT (If This Then That).
Google Analytics
If you have a website or a blog then it’s highly likely that you already have Google Analytics installed, and if not- you should!
Google Analytics was launched back in November 2005 and is a completely free enterprise analytics product. That means it doesn’t just tell you how many hits you have to your website- it tells you how many actual visitors you have, where they’re from, how long they stay on the website, where they come from and much more!
GA was radically overhauled back in 2011 to include custom dashboards and real-time statistics and it also has a very powerful social media analytics report built in. If you don’t track your visits and visitors on your website then how can you tell if your social media presence is actually making a difference? Whatever business you are in, Google Analytics is a must. Sure there are other analytics tools that you can add in addition that can do some cool things like Crazy Egg, but I think for the majority of websites GA is the tool to use.
Sprout Social
We chose Sprout Social as our best overall due to the platform’s usability, publishing features, and analytics across all major social media platforms. This provider also offers one of the longest free trials in the business.Pros
- Excellent user dashboard lets you manage your social networks in one place
- Utilize Social Media Optimization tools
- Analytics and reports help you manage your user engagement and return on investment (ROI)
- Scheduling tools make creating posts a breeze
- Free 30-day trial
Cons
- Expensive standard plan
- Limits to how many social profiles you can manage
We chose Sprout Social as the best option for businesses based on the array of scheduling tools and analytics they offer, their mobile app for iOS and Android, and their paid promotion tools to help you expertly boost Meta posts. One major benefit you get with Sprout Social is a 30-day free trial with any of their plans. If you’re unsure of the value of this software, this free trial gives you a full month to try it out.
This software currently supports all the major social media platforms, including Meta, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, making it an excellent choice for all-in-one management. There are three paid plans to choose from:
- Standard: $89 per month
- Professional: $149 per month
- Advanced: $249 per month.
Sprout Social says their Professional plan is most popular since it lets you manage up to 10 social media accounts in one place. It also comes with an all-in-one social box, social content calendar, response rate and time analysis reports, analysis tools for Twitter hashtags, and plenty more valuable tools. With any of their plans, you also get a mobile app to manage your social media accounts on the go.
The Standard plan includes many of the features of the Professional plan, yet you can only manage up to five social profiles if you choose this option.
Conclusion
Social media tools keep you up to date with the latest changes in platforms like Twitter, Pinterest, and Snapchat for any business. You can find the top brands like Buffer, Hootsuite, and Sprout Social on this list to help you stay on-task.