Top 38 Social Media Management Tools for Small Businesses

upqode | Nov 19th, 2020

Social media management tools have made it easy for businesses to interact and engage with users online. Small businesses have also adapted to the use of social media to grow, market, and increase their online sales.

If you are a small business getting started with social media marketing, then this blog is for you. Also, if you are Small Business Marketing Agency, we have a list of tools that you can use.

These tools will help you with scheduling, monitoring, listening, designing images and even generating reports. 

Let’s get started.

What is social media management?

Social media management is the process of creating, scheduling, publishing, promoting, and managing content online. 

In simpler terms, it’s managing your online presence on social media platforms. Examples of these platforms are Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter, and so on.

Managing these platforms can be difficult especially if you don’t have the right software. For this reason, we are going to have a look at the best social media management tools that guarantee online success. 

This software comes in handy when scheduling, publishing, and monitoring your social media performance. If you’re a small business owner who is just starting, you may be worried about the cost.

There are free social media management tools. It’s worth noting that some of these tools may not be completely free. They have a specific trial period, while others have both free and premium accounts.

Social media management tools are essential as they help in managing the online presence of a business. 

For a small business owner who wants to grow your social media presence, you can choose either of the following software.

Top Social Media Management Tools For Small Businesses.

1. Facebook Creator Studio

Facebook Creator Studio

Facebook Creator Studio is free to use. As the name suggests, this tool is from Facebook. The software allows you to manage Facebook and Instagram social media platforms only.

To start with, you can create, schedule, and publish posts. Also, it has the analytics feature, which gives you the results of how your social media posts are performing. 

It’s worth noting that the creator studio is mobile-friendly. You can install the software on your mobile device and manage your posts from anywhere. 

Creator studio has also introduced a new monetization feature. It helps partners who make money on Facebook to track their performance across their monetization products.

2. Crowdfire

Crowdfire

Unlike creator Studio, Crowdfire allows connecting to multiple social media platforms. You can create, schedule, and publish posts using this tool.

As a small business, having a blog for your business is very important. Crowdfire allows you to connect your blog and share posts with your social media channels. 

Mention is one of Crowdfire’s features that works for Twitter. Receive your messages straight into your inbox with every mention. Crowdfire comes with a free plan, but you can also upgrade to the premium versions.

3. Buffer

Buffer

Social media management tools are not only about posting, scheduling, and publishing posts. With the buffer tool, you can also analyze your social media performance.

As a small business, keeping track of your online performance is very important. Buffer also supports paid advertising, and you can schedule campaigns for multiple channels.

When it comes to pricing, you’re free to choose a free or premium account. Each plan comes with a unique feature. Therefore, you need to use one that works well for you.

4. Hootsuite

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is among the most popular social management tools. With Hootsuite, you can monitor your competitor’s social activities from the dashboard. 

Hootsuite allows you to add social media platforms and arrange them in order on the dashboard. You can only add up to three social media accounts when using the free plan.

With Hootsuite, you have the advantage of monitoring your posts from the dashboard. One of the drawbacks of this tool is that it has a limited free trial plan. For small businesses, Hootsuite allows you to add up to 35 social profiles.

5. Sprout Social

SproutSocial

SproutSocial is an all-in-one platform where you can listen, publish, engage, and analyze your online performance.  

Online is where your audience is. For this reason, SproutSocial helps you to build stronger relationships with your audience. As a listening tool, you will discover the online social trends to help you come up with better management strategies.

6. Social Pilot

SproutSocial

Besides the free trial, SocialPilot also has affordable rates. With this social media management tool, you can limit platform access and also manage your team members. 

As a small business, you may have bulk content that you need to publish. SocialPilot tool helps you manage bulk uploads, content curation, and identifying popular topics to share on your social media platforms.

7. SocialOomph

SocialOomph

SocialOomph is a free social media management software. It allows team collaborations and therefore, you can manage your team members with this tool.

Like other tools, it allows you to schedule your posts to publish at a specific time and day. 

8. Later

Later social media management tool

When it comes to social media posts, you’ve got to be creative and use high-quality visuals. Later is a social media management tool that is free to use. 

Share your videos, photos, and stories on Instagram using Later. Not sure where to get content for your content calendar? Later helps you find the right content and schedule it for your Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and other social platforms.

Want to know what’s working for you? Later has an analytics tool that helps you discover what works for your business and how to improve on it. Increase your online engagement, boost traffic, and attract views using this tool.

9. Sendible

Sendible

Sendible allows you to create a collaborative team and approve posts before sharing them on social media. You can also customize posts for each of these platforms. 

With Sendible, you can publish blogs directly to your website. When working with this tool, all you need to access is just a click away. You can add content from Dropbox or Google Drive straight to this platform.

When it comes to visuals, Sendible integrates with Canva to help you design and use images.

10. Eclincher

Eclincher

Eclincher is an all-in-one platform with so many features to help you manage your social media activities. eclincher social management tool has a solution for small and medium businesses.

One of the features of eclincher is the smart inbox. It collects all your messages and communication from all the channels to one place.

With eclincher, you can boost your return on investment (ROI), increase your reach, and monitor your ad campaigns. To start with, it allows a 14-day trial before proceeding to the premium version.

11. Friends+Me

Friends+Me is another social media management tool that allows the scheduling of content before publishing on various platforms. It comes with a free plan.

Some of the features of this tool are bulk schedule, team support, mobile-friendliness, and draft support. 

Friends+Me allows cross-promotion of content. It helps save time and money since you can promote content across all your social media platforms. 

12. CoSchedule

CoSchedule is more of a calendar than it is for social media management. It has a blog calendar, a marketing calendar, and a marketing suite.

The blog calendar integrates with WordPress and places your blog and social content in one place. The marketing calendar helps you view, schedule, and share your marketing projects in a single calendar.

In case of any changes that require you to modify the calendar, the drag and drop features make it easy and fast to work on the modifications.

13. Tailwind

Tailwind is a social media scheduling tool for Instagram and Pinterest. Schedule your Instagram posts, images, and stories to publish automatically.

When it comes to customization, you can create branded landing pages for free. Also, you can add clickable links that lead users to a specific landing page.

Create personalized pins for your Pinterest. You can also select a template and customize it to match your brand. You can start with the free plan before proceeding to the premium plan.

14. MeetEdgar

Unlike other social media management tools, Edgar automates content for your social media platforms. As you create and schedule your content, Edgar analyzes the content and splits it into different categories. 

In case all content is published and you’ve not prepared another schedule, Edgar recycles the content and reshares it. 

Edgar allows A/B message testing, to help you identify what drives the most traffic to your site. Also, it gives you a weekly report of your social statistics. 

15. AgoraPulse

AgoraPulse lets you schedule posts, engage with followers, and generate reports. Like other social media management tools, AgoraPulse has a shared calendar.

With this feature, clients can view your scheduled posts. Also, as the manager, you can approve or reject posts.

The report feature helps you understand how each of your social media accounts performs. Other report features include Facebook ROI, unlimited reports, and Instagram stories report.

16. Post Planner

postplanner

One of the biggest nightmares for anyone managing social media is running out of content. Post Planner has three features which are find, plan, and post. 

Find helps you discover content for your social profiles. The plan feature allows you to decide when to post, what to post, and time to post. 

Finally, the post feature gives a dashboard to view all your posts from various social media platforms. With the drag & drop feature, you’re free to rearrange your posts as you want. Post planner offers a free trial period. 

17. Zoho Social

Zoho social management tool

Social media management tools should help you build a  strong online brand. Zoho Social is a social management tool that allows you to schedule posts for your social media channels.

Collaborate with your team members and make decisions faster while using  Zoho Social. Receive real-time notifications and reply to each message instantly. 

Integrate your Facebook lead ads accounts and keep track of campaigns. With Zoho CRM integration, generate leads from your social profile to establish the channels that bring in the most revenue. 

18. Canva

Canva

Visuals play a huge role when it comes to attracting users to a page. Canva is a design tool for creating high-quality visuals to represent a brand.

This tool is free to use. With Canva, you can create visuals using the in-built templates. Create designs for your ads, social media posts, and banners.

For beginners, the tool is easy to use with a drag & drop feature. For advanced features, you can always upgrade to a premium plan.

19. Slack

Slack dashboard

Manage communication with your clients, share files, make calls, and collaborate with people using slack. This tool allows users to create different channels where all communication takes place.

Slack has different pricing, and therefore, make sure you use a plan that works within your budget. 

20. Loomly

Loomly

Loomly integrates with various channels like social media channels, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zapier. 

This tool gives you a platform to manage all your social media content from one software. Receive real-time notifications every time someone sends a message or there’s an update.  

Some of the features of this tool are automated scheduling, post & ad mockups, post ideas, and a content library.

21. IFTTT

IFTTT

IFTTT stands for If This Then That. As the name suggests, a single action is dependent on another activity to happen. For instance, if you publish a post on a social media platform, you receive an email notifying you of this action. 

To start with, IFTTT is a mobile responsive tool that is compatible with most apps.This means that you’re free to use the tool from your mobile device. IFTTT has different business plans. 

22. TweetDeck

TweetDeck

TweetDeck is a social management tool that helps you track, monitor, and engage with users on Twitter. The software has a dashboard, which makes it easy for you to manage all your Twitter activities.

23. Trello 

Trello

Trello is a free tool that helps teams to collaborate and work together using boards, lists, and cards.

This tool has no limitation on who should use it. It is suitable for individuals, businesses, etc. For a small business, for instance, it may be hard to manage and monitor projects.

To start with, you need to create a board with the name of the project then invite members. Next, add a list, cards, and then create your content. Integrate your apps and manage your business using Trello.

24. PromoRepublic

PromoRepublic

PromoRepublic is a free tool that automates social media marketing tasks for businesses. To automate the process, PromoRepublic has a social media calendar, content organizer, and a reporting provider.

When it comes to content creation, PromoRepublic has got you covered. The content bundle gives users ready-to-use content. There are also ready templates that users can customize to meet their brand requirements.

25. Falcon.Io

Falcon.Io

Falcon.Io is a tool that allows you to manage all your social media engagement in one inbox. The engagement box has time-saving features to help you manage and reply to the messages.

With the help of a content calendar, create posts for all your social platforms. Both paid and organic content. 

Besides these, you can also track performance, listen, and view your audience data from one place.

26. Revive Old Posts

Revive Old Post

Revive Old Post (ROP) is a WordPress plugin that allows users to share posts from their websites to social media platforms. 

The plugin imports all your social media accounts into the dashboard. Customize the plugin to share the content, then create a posting schedule. The ROP plugin will then automatically publish the posts.

27. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo social management tool

BuzzSumo is a social management tool that helps you with discovering content that works for your social channels. Have trouble coming up with content for your site?

BuzzSumo helps you generate ideas, create content, analyze performance, and identify influencers. 

To use BuzzSumo, enter a keyword in the search bar. The tool will generate a list of ideas and content. From the results, you can create content that is specific to your business.

28. Raven Tools

Raven management tools

Raven tools give you a platform to manage your social media channels, SEO, advertising, and marketing needs. The platform integrates with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube channels.

Schedule your posts, monitor performance, engage the audience, automate reports, and operate multiple accounts with Raven tools.

The tool helps you prepare custom social media reports. Raven tool also allows you to schedule reports and then share them automatically.

For a small business, you can also make use of the white-labeled reports to match your brand.

29. MavSocial 

MavSocial social media management tool

MavSocial social media management tool allows you to curate, schedule, and manage content for your social media platforms. It gives you a trial period to test and try the platform. 

Like other social media management tools, MavSocial has a content calendar. The social inbox feature centralizes communication from all the social media channels.

As a manager, you can also collaborate with your teams using Mavsocial. For example, you can assign tasks, set team roles, customize permissions, and manage approvals.

30. OKtoPost

OKtoPost management platform

OKtoPost is a social media platform for managing B2B businesses. As an all-in-one platform, you can publish, measure, engage and monetize your social media content.

With the monetize feature, you can track and convert people who interact with your brand. OktoPost helps you convert new customers into leads.

OKtoPost integrates with other platforms to give you a smooth flow of data from different channels. 

31. Sked Social

Sked Social

Sked Social allows you to schedule Instagram posts and stories.The drag & drop feature helps you plan your grid and schedule posts. 

Besides Instagram, you can use Sked for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. 

To save time and improve customer experience, Sked Social has editing tools and ready templates to use. You can use the templates to reuse previous content for social media sharing.

32. FollowerWonk

FollowerWonk

FollowerWonk is a free tool that helps you find followers on Twitter. In addition, it allows you to analyze and optimize your Twitter followers. 

To find out more about your audience, FollowerWonk tracks your Twitter activities. The tool makes use of interactive charts and graphs and to display the information.

33. Facebook Ads Manager

Facebook Ads Manager

As the name suggests, Facebook Ads Manager is a tool used to create Instagram and Facebook campaigns. This tool guides you in creating campaigns that have a specific goal. 

Businesses are adapting to using paid advertising as it reaches a bigger audience. Instagram and Facebook ads result in increased website clicks, conversions, apps install, video views, etc.

34. Google Analytics

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a social media management tool that helps you analyze the performance of your website, ads, and social media platforms. 

It helps you measure the Return on Investment (ROI). With Google Analytics, you learn what is working for you and identify areas to improve on.

You can also learn from Google analytics the duration of time your visitors spend on a page. This tool is free to use. It helps you to analyze your traffic and leads.

35. ContentCal 

ContentCal is a visual tool that allows users to create and publish content. It also helps users manage their teams and work remotely. 

ContentCal has a visual calendar with visual tools to help in planning and scheduling content. It also allows you to approve content before publishing.

Other features are sharing capabilities, work plan features, and integration with other tools.

36. PiktoChart

PiktoChart

PiktoChart is a tool for designing visual images for use on social media platforms. With this tool, you can create high-quality visuals like infographics, social media graphics, and other social media images.

This tool comes with a free library of graphics, templates, and design components to help you with the design. Additionally, it helps you represent complex data using graphs.

37. Stencil

Stencil

Stencil is a design tool for designing images and graphics for social media, blogs, and businesses. As a small business, you can use stencil to create logos, banners, and other visuals.

Stencil comes with ready templates and a drag & drop feature to create any type of design.

38. SmartQueue

SmartQueue

SmartQueue is a social management tool that helps with scheduling and publishing content. The software has a content category feature that allows users to categorize and manage different types of content.

With SmartQueue, you can reuse content to increase engagement. The tool also has a central inbox to help you manage communication from all social media platforms. 

39. Colorcinch

Colorinch

Create stunning banners, posters, and graphics for your social media posts with  Colorcinch, an easy-to-use photo editing, and graphic design tool. It comes with a text editor, a drawing tool, and a collection of vector graphics, masks and overlays that you can use to personalize your designs. With hundreds of AI-powered effects, you’ll get ultra-realistic results that will suit your creative ideas – all with just a few clicks. 

Colorcinch is free to use. Just upload your photo or choose from its library of stock images to start designing. You can always upgrade to its premium plan to access all premium effects and features, all graphics and icons. 

Social Media Management Services 

Social media, if well managed, can drive traffic and increase conversion for a business. Building a strong online presence, requires time, efficient strategies, and also have a goal. 

For a small business, it may be hard to run a business, and at the same time, manage your social media. Working with a digital marketing agency will help you manage your online presence as you focus on your business.

As I had earlier defined, social media management is about creating, publishing, promoting, and managing your social media platforms. With these four ideas in mind, let’s now have a look at social media management services.

1. Grow your brand

As a small business, you also want to grow your business online. To start with, you will need to create the proper social media channels that will reach your audience.

Proper social media management, it helps you reach an audience that would otherwise be hard to reach. Remember, when using social media, you are not limited to a specific location.

Growing your brand online is very important as it increases your relationship and attracts traffic, which in turn increases your conversion. 

2. Attract traffic

Social media management helps in attracting the right clients to your business. For example, if you are designing websites for clients, you need to use the right platforms to share helpful content. 

To attract traffic, you need to optimize your business around the proper keywords. That’s where the social media management tools above come in handy. 

3. Engage with your audience

The fastest method of engaging with clients is by using social media. Engaging with your audience does not only mean you respond to complaints, questions, or compliments.

Engagement is about creating meaningful content that adds value to your readers. If your content resonates with your audience, it has a very high chance of generating leads.

As a small business, this is a perfect opportunity for you to know more about customers. Build a relationship with your audience to earn trust as you work on turning them into leads. 

4. Reduce marketing cost

We all know how marketing can be expensive. Traditional marketing efforts like banners and billboards are not as successful. First, they may be slow and costly.

From the definition, there’s the word promotion. Creating ads, like Facebook ads, does not require you to go out of your budget. You can sponsor content at any time while still maintaining your resources.

The reason why it reduces marketing costs is that you do not need to hire marketing professionals. In a few steps, your campaigns will be up and running.

5. Improve social media strategy

A social media strategy is a well-laid-out plan of how you are going to use your social media platforms. Before you come up with a strategy, you need to have a goal.

As a small business, what do you want to achieve with social media management? Which social media platforms will you use? Who is your target audience? Do you have a plan on how you will manage your social media content?

Now, these questions will help you come up with a better social media strategy. Whichever plan works best for you, only then will you proceed to choose a social media management tool.  

6. Check the analysis

Social media management helps you track and analyze the performance of your business. 

With Google Analytics, you can monitor the performance of your ads, learn who your audience is, and what areas need improvement.

Keep track of your return on investment (ROI). Check whether your investment has a positive or negative impact on your business.

7. Improve customer experience

Customer experience is the impression that someone has after interacting with a business or product. 

With proper social media management, you can find out how your customers feel about your business. Get feedback from your clients to help improve your customer experience. 

8. Grow your digital exposure

Have you come across the phrase, online is where your customers are. Having digital exposure for your business is very important. People from different locations are able to interact with your business.

Digital exposure means that people can find you using keywords. They can be related to your business, social media accounts, mentions, or ad campaigns. 

Making use of digital platforms exposes your brand to potential clients who had no idea of the existence of a business.

9. Centralize management

Managing a business, clients, and employees can be very tiring and slow. Let’s look at it with a practical example. 

You have a couple of websites that need designing, social media pages to handle, and clients to update. For this, you will have to distribute the jobs to your employees and come up with a schedule.

Now, this is where social media management comes in. Use a tool that works for you, your employees, and your clients. It helps you centralize your communication and gets the work done faster.

  1. Create platform-specific content

With social media, you can publish videos, images, ads, or even share your blog posts. To schedule and publish this content, you need a content calendar and a social media manager. Social media management helps you create content that is specific to your audience.

Why do you need social media management software?

Social media management is not as easy. It can be tiring and time-consuming. Whether you will work with an agency or your employee, you will need to be in constant communication with your employees.

Besides communication, the software helps you manage your social media and also reach your target audience. As a small business, using social media software is very essential.

For example, it helps you generate a content calendar, understand your target audience, increases your social reach, and monitor your social performance.

As you start your social media management journey, make sure you build a brand that your audience will want to associate with. Have your social media strategy and goals in mind.

Final thoughts

If done right, social media management can attract traffic, generate leads, and maximize conversion. Make sure you are on the proper social media platforms to engage with your clients and publish valuable content.

And there you have it. Make sure that you go over these tools carefully and use the one that works for you. 

Which of the above tools will you try first? Leave a comment below on your experience with social media management tools. 

Filed under: Marketing

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