Social media has been a huge part of the digital marketing world for quite some time now. It is an essential element that cannot be overlooked by any company that wants to thrive in this age of technology. The challenge lies in the fact that social media is actually a lot of work and all that work takes time. You need to invest heavily in order to effectively market your brand on these platforms. This can be expensive and time consuming when we’re talking about large organizations, especially those with limited resources. Over the past few years, social media management tools have popped up to help businesses meet their marketing goals without breaking the bank or burning out their employees. These tools are designed to make social media marketing easy enough that any company can start doing it without feeling overwhelmed by how much work will get done.
Managing social media can be a daunting, time-consuming job. But it doesn’t have to be. Social media management tools make it quick and simple to schedule social media posts, analyze your audience, measure your performance and so much more.
Social media is a great channel for business growth. No matter what you do – you need to be present in the social media. Some companies have everything figured out already and are excelling with their social campaigns. If you’re looking for some extra help, though, here is a list of the best free social media management tools. Let’s see if any of the tools on this list are a good fit for your brand.
Whether you are just getting started on social media or have an established brand, social media management tools will help you grow your business like Hootsuite Hootsuite is a company that provides a web-based social media management tool enabling businesses and organizations to collaborate and schedule social media posts across multiple social networks.
Free vs. kind of free
Not all free social media management platforms are created equal. Many free plans are limited in what they offer, while some providers, like Sendible and Sprout Social, offer free trials but not free plans.
For example, some free plans only allow you to work with a limited number of social media accounts or to schedule a small number of posts at a time. This may not be an issue when you’re getting started, but could pose a problem later on. Other plans may limit your number of users, which could be a hindrance as your team expands, or they may restrict the amount of analytic information you have access to. Other free versions may not allow you to manage your advertisements.
Metigy — Technology made for SME Marketers
Metigy is the world’s leading decision support technology made for SME Marketers. Metigy’s AI-powered real-time Insights, Recommendations and resources help even novice marketers achieve 2-3x improvement quarter on quarter.
Designed by marketers for marketers, think of Metigy as your personal strategist. They’re there to assist and advise you in real-time, ensuring that marketing opportunities are capitalized upon to allow you to achieve greater results, no matter your expertise or experience.
Key features
- Promote brand awareness – decision support based on insights and data-driven AI technology.
- Generate meaningful engagements – set (and stick to) your marketing objectives with daily to-do action lists, strategies and insights that are relevant to your goals.
- One-step multiple network updates – you can preview your social media posts and content over multiple social network platforms.
- AI that processes and learns from your analytics – you can see in the dashboard that it tracks your engagement, reach, growth metrics, competitor’s performance, and learns from every interaction.
- Content planning and scheduling – get recommendations on how often you should publish, when to share, and what networks you need to be active on to reach your audience and objectives.
- Paid social media advertising – you can boost posts and keep up with your ad campaigns directly in your calendar.
- Custom automated social analytics dashboard – their advanced system is constantly improving and learning to suggest trending topics and post types.
Pricing
- Free trial
- Pro – $25/month
- Team – $149/month
- Business – $499/month
- Agencies – $500/month
- Enterprise – By quote
Analisa.io
This tool is designed to monitor your marketing campaigns on Instagram and TikTok by reporting follower demographics, content engagement, influencer mapping, historical data, competitive analysis, and so much more.
Cost: Analisa.io’s basic version is completely free. However, you can invest in the premium version for $59.35/month, the plus version for $109.55/month, or the pro version for $199.35/month.
Notable customers: Amazon and Warner Media.
Tailwind
This social media tool is used for creating Instagram and Pinterest content. Tailwind allows you to create eye-catching social media posts, schedule them with their auto-publishing system, and then optimize them.
Cost: You can join Tailwind’s 1,000,000 members for free, or you can upgrade to the pro version for $9.99/month, the advanced version for $19.99/month, or the max for $39.99/month.
Revive Old Posts
Revive Old Posts is a unique content creation plugin that lets you repost old content onto your social media accounts. It works across a multitude of platforms, and it automatically adds relevant hashtags by sorting through old tags and categories.
This is an awesome tool for businesses because it provides your audience with an opportunity to rediscover and engage with your older content, and it helps keep your social media accounts active.
Cost: Plans cost $75/year for the personal version, $149/year for the business version, and $299/year for the marketer.
Notable customers: HubSpot, Buffer, and Mashable.
BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is a Chrome extension that helps businesses discover well-performing content through their content discovery, content research, influencer search, monitoring, chrome extension, and API features.
Cost: There is a free version, or you can upgrade to pro for $99/month, plus for $179/month, or large for $299/month.
Notable customers: Expedia, HubSpot, BuzzFeed, and The Telegraph.
Tagboard
This is another listening tool that helps businesses research social media content by surveying things like brand and product mentions. All social media managers have to do is search a specific term or topic, and the program will tell you how that term is discussed online.
Cost: Contact Tagboard about their product packages and pricing.
Notable customers: The Discovery Channel, Hershey’s, and FOX.
Ubercircle
Ubercircle will help to streamline your social media processes and deliver content to your audience effectively. You can save hours of planning, scheduling, analyzing, and reporting on social media networks. It takes only 10-20 minutes a day to get all tasks on set and ready to go live.
Ubercircle allows you to work straight from the web without having to download the app and install anything. That makes things more convenient!
Another noteworthy feature is the ability to organize photos and videos. All your photos and videos will be stored in one place accessible on any device. It’s easy to sync photos and videos from the phone, desktop, Google Drive, or Dropbox. From here, you can also edit your media with a few drag-and-drop operations.
Visage
This is a great social media tool for businesses because it helps to optimize your images to best fit individual platforms. Through a variety of graphics and templates, Visage makes it easy to reflect an authentic and consistent brand voice and tone throughout your social media posts. Visit their website to receive a free demo.
Canva
Canva is a remarkably user-friendly social media tool that lets you build images and graphics for your marketing campaigns. This tool is loaded with already-made templates and graphics, making it a great tool for beginners and graphic designers alike.
Cost: Canva offers a free version, or you can upgrade to a premium version for just $12.99/month.
Notable customers: American Airlines and Bloomingdales.
Animoto
This social media tool is designed to make professional-quality videos to use in your marketing campaigns. Equipped with storyboard templates and drag-and-drop designs, Animoto is a user-friendly way to create engaging (and even viral!) content.
Cost: You can get started for free, or you can upgrade to its basic plan for $8/month, its professional plan for $15/month, or its professional plus plan for $39/month.
Notable customers: American Heart Association and Nest Homeware.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a terrific, all-in-one tool for social media managers to use to schedule posts, review post analytics, and delegate tasks to other team members. It’s even equipped with a social listening tool that is great for optimizing content.
Cost: Sprout Social offers a 30-day free trial, and its plans include $89/month for the standard version, $149/month for the professional version, and $249/month for the advanced version.
Notable customers: Glassdoor, Edelman, and Columbia.
Socialoomph
This social media tool allows users to upload posts in bulk and schedule when they should be published. It’s great for social media managers because it offers complete control over when and where one’s content will be posted. Socialoomph has follower analysis features that are designed to improve engagement, and it works with multiple social media platforms.
Cost: There is a free version available, or you can invest in the advanced suite for $15/month, the professional suite for $25/month, or the business suite for $55/month.
Brand24
This online reputation management tool gives you instant access to brand mentions across various social, news, and video platforms (to name a few). Brand24 is equipped with hashtag tracking, measures your marketing efforts, helps improve customer satisfaction, and helps protect your online reputation.
Cost: Subscriptions include a plus plan for $49/month, a premium plan for $99/month, a business plan for $149/month, and a max plan for $249/month.
Notable customers: Ikea, Panasonic, and Intel.
Buffer
Buffer is a great social media tool for scheduling posts on many platforms, automating posts, and evaluating the posts’ analytics.
Cost: Buffer offers a free version with basic publishing tools, or you could upgrade to the essentials plan for $5/month.
Notable customers: Huckberry, Food52, and Happy Socks.
MeetEdgar
MeetEdgar is a social media scheduling tool that schedules your posts for you. All you have to do is to categorize your posts and schedule them. Then, MeetEdgar will go through your posts and upload content from each category.
Cost: You can invest in the Edgar Lite version for $19/month, or you could opt for the complete version for $49/month.
Notable customers: Accessally and Everyday Bright.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is an easy-to-use tool for social media marketers to schedule content on various platforms, and its analytics tool allows you to measure your posts’ success.
Cost: In addition to the free 30-day trial, Hootsuite offers a professional plan for $49/month, a team plan for $129/month, a business plan for $599/month, and a customizable plan.
Notable customers: Marketo and Meliã Hotels International.
SocialPilot
SocialPilot is a terrific, user-friendly platform for scheduling social media posts. It’s equipped with a calendar and cross-posting features that are made to boost engagement with minimal effort.
Cost: The professional plan costs $22.50/month, the small team plan costs $37.50/month, the studio plan costs $75/month, and the agency plan costs $112.50/month.
Sendible
Sendible is another social media planning tool that uses its calendar feature to help businesses easily organize their content. Some of its other features include a professional dashboard, social media content calendar, team collaboration options, and more.
Cost: The creator plan starts at $29/month, the traction plan costs $89/month, the scale plan costs $199/month, and the expansion plan costs $399/month.
Notable customers: Texas A&M University and Expedia.
Loomly
Loomly is another great content calendar for content managers. Some of its top features include a collaboration setting that is great for agencies and teamwork. Loomly can also help businesses manage multiple clients.
Cost: The base plan is $26/month, the standard plan is $59/month, the advanced plan is $129/month, the premium plan is $269/month, and you can even request a quote for a customized plan.
Notable customers: L’Oréal Paris, Porsche, and BMW.
Find the right tool for your business
Ultimately, choosing the right marketing and social media management platform depends on the specific needs of your business. The key is to choose a tool that covers not only your present needs, but what your business requires to grow.
As a business owner, what are your social media marketing priorities? Are you looking for affordability? Do you want to run cross-channel campaigns and social ads? Are you ready to take advantage of advanced analytics and audience segmentation?
Conclusion
Social media management tools help marketers to schedule posts, manage working teams, monitor their target audience and even run comprehensive advertising campaigns. We’ve made a list of free social media management tools that excel in particular features or have a distinguished feature set.
Social media has become a juggernaut in the marketing world with many brands relying on the likes of Instagram and Twitter to spread their message. The end result is those following your brand online are now turning over more of their time to Instagram to look at pictures, interact with friends and family, as well as double their fun with more stuff like playing games.