Does your team have a time management strategy for handling the demands of running effective social media platforms? Any business today that does not use social media may find itself extinct. Your Social media platforms are the gateway to reaching customers in our digital driven world.
Even mom and pop organizations have stepped their game up, thanks to their grandkids.
Let’s be honest, social media can be a huge time killer. Not to mention getting distracted by your own personal page when you should be focused on business. How do you keep content fresh and engaging, not sterile and robotic?
Not every company can budget for a social media specialist position. Having the right social media automation tools to help you maintain your social media is a big step in the right direction. You will need tools that not only help you maximize your ROI but ensure your online community is staying engaged.
If you are looking for social media tools, continue reading for our choice of the best 15 automation tools available.
1. Social Oomph
Social Oomph is a Canadian based company that offers social media marketing tools to streamline the content process. The application works across a wide array of social media platforms.
Although they have features that work well on various platforms, the best features are aligned with helping companies grow and keep followers on Twitter.
Users can have a maximum of five Twitter accounts. They offer both free and premium services. Their no-cost suite includes keyword tracking, mentions, and retweets.
Their premium accounts include unlimited Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, plus unlimited Pinterest boards. Combined, Social Oomph has almost 50 integrations to help keep your social media platforms active.
2. Hootsuite
With Hootsuite’s 3-level tier of performance packages, businesses can select the social media tools that best fit their needs. They have something for the entrepreneur, small business or large enterprise.
Their key features include bulk scheduling, unlimited RSS feed integrations, and real-time analytics, which are must-haves. Their professional package extends into social media certification for at least one user. You will also benefit from content templates, custom branded URL’s and more.
Their customization platform is geared towards larger clients and will incorporate the best social media management tools to train your personnel on the best practices for your brand.
Hootsuite offers 30-day free trials for their entire professional and team plans. You can request a custom demo if you are looking to invest in their enterprise plan.
3. AgoraPulse
AgoraPulse is one of the latest social media marketing tools. Its initial launch was geared towards Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. As the company has grown, expect its apps to extend to other platforms.
It is an all-in-one app that places solutions at the user’s fingertips. Its analytics tools mirror those of Facebook Insights, which is a great feature to have. It is important that social media campaigns can be fully understood, and companies understand if they are successful.
One of the best features of AgoraPulse is its compatibility with Android and IOS systems. This is an issue users of their app won’t have to worry about because it is fully integrated.
Pricing for AgoraPulse should fit within any budget. Small businesses can expect to pay as little as $39 a month.
4. Crowdfire
If your business uses Instagram as a part of your marketing strategy, Crowdfire is a good option among social media posting tools. Crowdfire offers free accounts if you want to test drive the products basic offerings.
Automation software can be tricky and can cost you your account if you choose the wrong one. With Crowdfire they eliminate risky hacks like follow/unfollow options.
Instead, you get an automation tool that seeks out content similar to yours that can be shared on your platform. It also finds users that you can follow and interact with.
The key with Crowdfire is to free up time you would have spent creating posts that already exist.
5. Socialert
When hashtags first appeared on Twitter, people were a bit confused as to what they did. Today they can be found on most social media sites. With Socialert hashtags can be more meaningful and draw the right traffic.
Socialert offers analytics for top social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. It tracks mentions for your company, hashtags, and keywords.
The importance of this tool is to gauge the reach of your social media posts. It is social media tools like this that help users amplify their brand.
6. Buffer
Each social media app has at least one feature that sets it apart from the rest of the competition. For Buffer it is the ease of scheduling and re-scheduling posts.
The biggest job of the social media specialist is to schedule posts for your company’s social media platforms. Having the ability to pre-schedule those posts is a huge time-saver.
With Buffer you can schedule multiple posts for multiple platforms and those posts will load automatically throughout the day. You can schedule the same posts to appear on each platform or have different posts for each.
Like other social media marketing tools, your business can use their free social media tools and gain advanced features on the premium platform.
7. CoSchedule
CoSchedule is a social media automation tool geared towards businesses that don’t have a lot of employees or maybe a one-man operation. It is a useful tool for bloggers and other entrepreneurs.
It allows them to manage their social media marketing by scheduling posts and updates by using an online calendar. Not only does it help with time management but increases productivity.
CoSchedule helps users eliminate multiple programs and bring aspects of their work into one central location. Users can now plan social media activity by the day and forecast assignments out for months at a time.
It also eliminates the worry of having a virtual assistant and not being up-to-date on what he is working on. The schedule is easily accessible and keeps you abreast of what is getting done.
8. Scoop.it
Scoop.it is a content curation platform helping brands reach their target market via vibrant online magazines.
Users insert keywords geared towards the topic they want to cover. The app helps locate content that can be used to create the magazine.
The next step is to upload the finished product onto your social media platforms, to be shared with your intended audience. It is a unique way to curate content and capture the attention of your followers.
Scoop.it has a free plan and also a 3-tier pricing platform for those looking for more engaging content and increased flexibility.
9. Sprout Social
Sprout Social makes our list of best social media management tools because of its integrated dashboard. If saving time and making life easier is the goal, it helps to have everything you need located in one place.
With this dashboard, not only can you connect multiple social media platforms, but there are different categories for the data collected. The sections include a place for tasks, timelines/newsfeeds, messages, publishing, reports, and connections.
The connections feature, or discovery as it is also known, provides data on followers, mentions and who shared your content. Having this information can help you branch out and build meaningful business relationships.
10. BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo works well for content creators who are looking for topics to write about. With this social media posting tool, you can search to find out what is trending based on the topic or virtually any website.
The app cuts down on wasted hours searching the internet to see what people are engaging in as it pertains to your product or service. It is also useful for bloggers who need to have relevant content to attract site visitors.
In addition to insights on popular content, BuzzSumo also offers information on social media influencers you can use for influencer marketing campaigns on Instagram. You can also set-up alerts and get competitor analysis.
11. MeetEdgar for Social Media Automation Tools
MeetEdgar is a 4-year old company offering the best social media management tools to help professionals. Edgar’s goal is free up time on menial social media tasks, so people can get to the fun stuff they love to do.
Among its product offerings is an unlimited library. This means you can add as much content as you like and then allow the app to pull from the information you have provided.
They also offer native video support. This great feature allows for videos, gifs, and photos to upload directly to various social media platforms, instead of using links. This gives authenticity to your posts, and people believe you have manually loaded the content.
12. Social Pilot
Social Pilot is a one-stop social media shop. They specialize in social media automation tools to assist social media teams and agencies offering social media services.
Their services include scheduling across platforms. They have analytics, which is very important to measure ROI. Other features include engagement, RSS feed automation, client management, and team collaboration.
The one feature that sets them apart is their content curation software. Creating new content is a big part of the job. With this software, you enter keywords and other definers and ideas appear.
Whether you are looking for new content, evergreen articles or information on particular markets, the content creation app can help.
13. KnowEm
When it comes to social media, the first names that come to mind are Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Snapchat. The truth is there are hundreds of social media platforms that may have content impacting your brand.
One of the best social media management tools to track information on social media sites is KnowEm. This social media tool allows users to do a quick search on social media usernames, website addresses, and even trademarks.
Imagine there is a business with a name and brand similar to yours. Businesses are told to create a username that can be used across platforms. With a quick search, you can find out if your username is used on other sites.
What about the web-addresses? KnowEm goes beyond the popular .com, .org and other top-level domains. They can search over a hundred domains worldwide for a duplicate.
14. Sprinklr
Sprinklr touts itself as a customer experience management platform. Its offerings go beyond managing social media. They can also help in other areas of business including advertising, customer service and commerce.
Its key social feature is the Social Cloud. With the social program businesses gain insights and analytics that help drive their marketing strategies. With tools at your disposal-engagement, listening, display and core-companies are able to approach social media from different angles.
Sprnklr social media automation tools take into consideration the habits of the consumer and determine what they need to stay engaged.
Their website provides a guide that can be downloaded and further explains how Social Cloud can be beneficial to your business.
15. Pocket
Seeking out interesting articles, blogs or useful content is always on the mind of those who maintain social media accounts. Oftentimes you will come across content but aren’t in a position to fully explore it. This is where Pocket comes into play.
The social media posting tool, allows you to save and organize items. When you’re ready to create posts for your social media platforms, you have material that you can pull from. Best of all is its search capabilities.
Pocket offers both free and premium packages. It also works well with other social media automation tools like Hootsuite.
Did You Find This List Helpful?
In the ideal world, every company would have money in their budget to hire a social media marketing specialist. Having a dedicated individual to create posts and interact with and build your audience would be amazing.
Until you are able to reach this level, social media automation tools are the best way for you to go. They are easy to set-up and help with time-management, freeing up time for staff to do tasks specific to the roles they were hired for.
If you enjoyed this list of social media tools, you can use for your business. Check out our other digital marketing hacks to help your business remain relevant to the competition.
