*Updated: 5/31/2024
If you’re a Creative in charge of your client’s social media accounts, one of the questions you’ve probably asked yourself before is “How can I make it easier to manage all of this?”
You’ve probably also found yourself in need of some good time-saving templates to make your life easier and give you inspiration when you need it most.
We hear you, busy Creative!
We hear you and we’re here to help!
Today’s blog is listing the best and most effective social media marketing tools to manage your client’s accounts, help them drive their business, and free up some much-needed time in your day!
What do you mean by social media marketing tools?
When we say social media marketing tools, we’re talking about any software or web-based applications that are designed to help businesses or individuals (i.e., a busy Creative like you) to manage either their or their client’s social media presence more effectively.
These social media management tools make your job more convenient by allowing you to put content on a posting schedule, automate tasks, analyze data to see if your posts are hitting their marks, and help you to more easily engage with your customers and target audience.
Sound good?
Here is a list of our favorite tools to manage your client’s social media channels and enhance their marketing strategies.
Agorapulse
Agorapulse is a social media management platform that aims to help you stay organized, save time, and manage your client’s social media accounts.
With Agorapulse, you can schedule and publish posts, monitor mentions and comments, collaborate with other team members, and keep track of your metrics with the platform’s analytics and reporting features.
With everything you need centrally located in your Agorapulse Inbox, you can keep track of whatever you’d like with ease.
Cost: There are four plans available, but the least expensive Standard Plan is probably all you need. It’s $49 per user, per month and with it, you can manage up to 10 social profiles.
Buffer
Billed as an all-you-need social media toolkit for small businesses, Buffer allows users to publish and schedule any type of content you wish on up to 10 different social channels (depending on what monthly plan you choose).
Its AI Assistant is also available to help you whip up some captions to go along with ads for your products and services.
Cost: This could be a cost-effective option for you. Buffer offers a completely free plan to manage up to 3 social channels.
If you want features like publishing, analytics, and engagement tools, the next step up is their Essentials plan. At 6 dollars a month for each channel you run, it’s more affordable than many other tools out there.
Canva
Canva is a graphic design platform that lets users create graphics, presentations, posters, documents, and other visual content to use for social media marketing strategies.
It also offers a variety of templates, graphics, fonts, and other design elements that Creatives like you can customize, using Canva’s drag-and-drop editor.
Cost: Canva offers three plans. The least expensive, of course, is Canva Free.
If you’d like additional features, however, you can always opt for Canva Pro, which will run you $120 a year. That’s $10 a month if you’re keeping score.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a great social media management platform that lets you manage and schedule content across various social media platforms using one single dashboard.
It supports all of the major social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and more.
In addition to helping you create, publish, and schedule your content, you can also use Hootsuite’s tools to analyze performance and to collaborate with other team members.
Cost: Hootsuite has a total of 4 plans for you to choose from. The least expensive is their Professional plan, which will run you $99 a month, for 1 user and up to 10 social accounts.
HubSpot
If you’re looking for an all-in-one marketing, sales, and customer service platform, then HubSpot might be for you.
It offers a whole suite of software and services for inbound marketing, sales, customer service, and, of course, social media management.
Schedule posts on all of the social media channels of your choice and keep track of your analytics, such as engagement, clicks, brand mentions, and more. You can also use HubSpot’s social media monitoring tool to help identify trends and insights to keep your posts more relevant.
Cost: While HubSpot does have pretty pricey plans for their CRM Suite, those are mostly aimed at businesses. For individuals, they offer a free plan that gives you marketing, sales, CMS, and Operational tools to work with.
Loomly
Marketed as a brand success platform for teams, Loomly lets you streamline your social media management across multiple platforms.
With its easy-to-use dashboard for creating, reviewing, scheduling, and tracking the analytics of all of your social media content, Loomly is an all-in-one tool that saves you time, streamlines collaboration, and helps you create better content for better engagement!
Cost: Loomly has 4 plans available for your social media management needs!
- The Basic plan is 32 dollars a month and gives access to 2 users, up to 10 social media accounts, and basic features
- The Standard plan is 60 dollars a month and gives access to 6 users, 20 social media accounts, and more advanced analytics and features.
- The Advanced plan is 131 dollars a month and gives access to 14 users, up to 35 social media accounts, and custom features.
- The Premium plan is $277 a month and gives access to 30 users, up to 50 social media accounts, and custom features.
- Custom plans are also available. Contact Loomly for a quote!
Each plan starts with a 15-day trial and lets you save 25% by paying annually, so pick which works best for you
Meta Creator Business Suite
If your client’s social media profiles are only on Instagram and Facebook, you might be interested in Meta Creator Business Suite
This platform can simplify the process of building and managing your client’s presence on both Facebook and Instagram.
Schedule and post with ease, track your content’s performance to better understand your audience and refine your content, and manage the monetization of that content to keep yourself in compliance with policies at all times.
Additionally, Meta Creator Business Suite allows you to access an Inspiration Hub so you can take a peek at content from creators who have similar goals. Or, if you like, use Facebook Collabs to collaborate with another content creator and publish to both of your feeds simultaneously.
Cost: Totally free!
Sprout Social
Sprout Social is another social media management and optimization platform that lets you manage all of your social media accounts from a single platform.
Schedule posts and use its internal tools to monitor engagement, analytics, and team collaboration to make it easier to manage your social media presence and optimize your strategy.
Cost: A little on the pricier side, but full of features. There are three different options, plus a customized Enterprise plan you’d have to contact their team for pricing on. The lowest-priced option is their Standard plan.
That will cost you $199 a month for 1 user and up to 5 social profiles.
Synup
Synup is an AI-enhanced social media publishing platform that “simplifies social post creating, publishing, and engagement tracking for all marketers to boost their brand presence.”
With features such as an intuitive content calendar, multi-network posting, and AI writing assistance, Synup offers a one-stop shop for you and your team to create and manage your social posts!
Cost: Synup has three plans to choose from; a Basic plan for $14.99 a month, a Standard plan for $34.99 a month, and a Premium plan for $89.99 a month.
Each plan comes with increasingly more advanced features so have a look at what they offer and pick the one that best fits your social media needs and budget. They all come with a free 14-day trial too, so you can be sure you’ve got the right plan for you!
Zoho Social
Part of the Zoho suite, Zoho Social is a comprehensive social media management solution designed for businesses and agencies that want to elevate their online presence.
Zoho Social offers a single, easy-to-use dashboard for you and your team to schedule posts, monitor keywords, analyze audience insight, and collaborate together for seamless management of your socials.
Cost: Zoho comes with quite a few plans to choose from, depending on your needs and if you’re running the socials for a large company:
- Standard — Provides access for up to 9 channels and 1 team member for $10/mo
- Professional — Provides access for up to 9 channels, 1 team member, and advanced features for $30/mo.
- Premium — Provides access for up to 10 channels, 3 team members, and professional features for $40/mo.
- Agency — Gives access to 10 brands, up to 100 channels, and 5 team members for $230/mo.
- Agency Plus — Gives access for up to 20 brands, 200 channels, 5 team members, and agency features for $330/mo.
Each plan comes with a 15-day free trial to make sure you’ve got the perfect plan for you and your team!
Additional Resources for Busy Creatives
Any tool that saves you time is a good tool to have. In addition to the social media management tools we’ve discussed above, here are some additional resources to help you cut back on the time you spend on sourcing images or for some design inspiration when you need it most.
Free images
- Pexel — Enjoy free stock photos and videos, royalty and copyright free.
- Unsplash — Huge library of free images for you to download and use where you like!
- Pixabay — High-quality stock photos, images, videos, and music, shared by the Pixabay community.
- FreePik — Download free videos, vectors, photos, videos, and mockups! Use its trending categories feature to keep yourself up to the minute.
Design Templates and Inspiration
- Pinterest — Check out this social media platform where users can share and save images and videos for a quick dash of inspiration when they need it most.
- Abdz — Abduzeedo is a design inspiration blog that features articles and resources for everything from graphic design, web design, photography, and other visual art forms.
- Canva — As we mentioned earlier in this article, Canva is chock-full of design templates for you to use and customize as you please. You can also check out Canva’s Design School for educational resources, such as tutorials, design tips, and case studies.
- Adobe Creative Cloud Template — Check out Adobe’s Template Library if you’re looking to either find a starting point in your design or get the inspiration you need to start one from scratch. With thousands of templates to choose from, you’re sure to find one that meets both your and your client’s needs.
- Hashtag Expert — Hashtag Expert is a downloadable app that can help you generate the right hashtags for your client’s products or services. It works by using an algorithm, which searches through a database to find the most popular and trending hashtags. Generate what you need and paste it in your post!
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What’s in Your Creative Toolbox?
Due to the rise in social media in the last ten years or so, tools like the ones highlighted here have become a necessary aspect of any Creative’s strategy.
The ability to schedule, automate, analyze, and create valuable and engaging content across various platforms has never been easier with the availability of these tools.
With so many options, you’re bound to find something that can help you streamline your client’s (or your own!) social media management, improve the quality and value of their content, and analyze their performance to fine-tune your strategies as you go.
What’s your favorite social media marketing tool?
