You might think your social media marketing is on point, but your customers might not agree. 4/5 online brands think their social media customer service is good, but 92% of customers disagree. (Source)
It might be time to level up your social game.
In this article we cover:
- 30 of the BEST tools you must have to dominate social media marketing.
Social Media Marketing Tools
You only have so many minutes in a day, you can’t do everything yourself. Your business has a million different things that require attention — naturally social media might be left behind.
But that would be a fatal mistake — social media is the key to reaching an audience and growing fast.
In this instance, you need some help…
You need a social media marketing tool.
They allow you to do things that you couldn’t do yourself. They save time, and optimize your campaigns. They can even grow your brand and increase your sales. All the top brands in the world use them, and you should too. Heck, your competitors probably do.
Now it needs to be said — not all tools on the market are worth your money. Some might even do more harm than good.
You need to know the bad from the good.
That’s why we’ve compiled a list of the 30 best social media marketing tools for you.
Types of Social Media Tools
- Content Curation/Scheduling Tools
- Content Creation Tools
- Analytics Tools
- Security Tools
- Lead Generation Tools
- Graphics Creation Tools
- Audience/Customer/Persona Tools
- Monitoring/Sharing Tools
- Other Tools
Content Curation/Scheduling Tools
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a “freemium” social media tool that allows you to schedule content to be posted in advance. It works for a number of different social platforms, and includes a robust analytics suite. It’s an all-round great tool for running data-driven, large scale campaigns.
It’s also one of the best free tools, as it offers post scheduling of up to 30 future posts.
Buffer
Buffer is an extremely popular social media marketing tool that allows you to schedule and automate content. You can plan, collaborate and publish high quality content, at bulk, effortlessly. The tool works with Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitter.
There are also great team collaboration features — draft posts, approvals, account management. And there are even third party tools like Bulkly that can automate the process of adding content to your Buffer account.
NOTE: Analytics is sold separately as a different software.
SocialFlow
SocialFlow is another tool that schedules social media content, but there’s a twist. Analytic, real-time data is used to optimize when your content is published live. It’s based on the activity of your audience, ensuring your “social distribution” is data-driven.
Content Creation Tools
BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is arguably the best social media tool for uncovering new content ideas. It works by analyzing top ranking content for a keyword. The results come from SERPs and social media. It also includes social media content. You get a bunch of different metrics, such as backlinks and social shares.
There are other features, such as an “influencer finder” function.
Tailwind
Tailwind is a social media tool specifically designed for Instagram and Pinterest. Although it’s technically a scheduling and analytics tool, it’s also great for content creation. For Instagram, you are given hashtag suggestions, which help your content reach the right audience. For Pinterest, you get a endless supply of relevant content, from people in your niche.
Revive Old Posts
Revive Old Posts is a WordPress plugin for social media marketers that’s used by over 82,000 people. The plugin works by finding old posts on your website, and publishing them on social media. When you create new posts, they can also be automatically posted. It’s a really great tool for those who are inactive on social media.
Tagboard
Tagboard is a tool that gives you valuable insight into your audience. By simply entering a keyword or hashtag, you’ll get a full report about how it’s talked about online. This information is extremely helpful when it comes to coming up with new content ideas.
Analytics Tools
- Facebook Analytics (FREE)
- Agora Pulse
- Twitter Analytics (FREE)
- Followerwonk
- Instagram Insights (FREE)
- Publer
- Analisa.io
Facebook Analytics (FREE)
Facebook Analytics is the platform’s own onsite analytics tool — it’s got everything you need to analyze your Facebook campaigns. You get an extensive breakdown, including audience activity and demographics, among other things.
Agora Pulse
Agora Pulse is an all-round social media marketing tool that covers most of the basics. You can schedule content, find social mentions, get analytic data reports, and even setup a team collaboration on the tool. The analytics feature is quite good — you can compare your results with your competitors.
Twitter Analytics (FREE)
Twitter Analytics is the onsite analytics suite for Twitter, which is completely free. This tool will give you valuable insights into your tweets, as well as follower demographics. Simply put, there is no better analytics tool to use for Twitter.
Followerwonk
Followerwonk is a social media tool designed solely for Twitter. It’s mainly an analytics tool, as it gives you demographics on your audience, and data on your campaigns. There’s also an influencer finder function, as well as some competitor comparison ones.
Instagram Insights (FREE)
Instagram Insights is the onsite analytics suite for those with a “Instagram Business Account.” The tool gives you an insightful breakdown of your audience, including age, gender and location demographics. You also get some activity and content data.
Publer
If you’re looking for an affordable social media tool that does everything, Publer might be your best bet. You can schedule future posts in advance, customize your content, and get analytic reports. The tool works for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google My Business.
Analisa.io
Analisa.io is an Instagram and TikTok analytics tool that uses artificial intelligence to give you valuable insights. Some of the features include…
- Profile/Competitor Analysis
- Follower Demographics
- Social Campaign Reports
- Historical Data Reports
- Influencer/Content Optimization
The great thing is a lot of these features can be used for free. Definitely one of the best tools for those on Instagram and Tiktok.
Security Tools
ZeroFOX
ZeroFOX — a security tool — gives your social media accounts added protection. You are safeguarded from a variety of different threats; phishing, account takeovers, impersonations, information leakage… ZeroFOX has got you covered. In this modern internet age, cyber security has never been more important.
LastPass
Now, LastPass isn’t a tool specific for social media use, but it’s one that’ll bulletproof your digital identity. It’s a password security software that manages all your passwords — you can set and save extremely strong, complex passwords. You can have a unique password for every social platform, all of which are stored in an encrypted vault.
Lead Generation Tools
Tweepi
If you’re looking to get more Twitter followers, you should have Tweepi. Over 1,750,000 people use this tool to find people for your brand to interact with. These people are discovered, thanks to an artificial intelligence algorithm.
OptinMonster
Although OptinMonster is mainly for websites, it has a new feature which makes it valuable for social media. The “ChatBot” feature can be combined with a software like ManyChat. This allows you to feed your best converting opt in forms to your social followers, via messenger/chat.
Audiense
Audiense is social media marketing tool that will help you find new people to target. Not only does this tool find new audiences for your business, but it also gives you great insights. You can uncover demographics like age, gender, location and interests. This is a powerful tool, supercharged by “machine learning.”
Graphics Creation Tools
Canva
Canva is one of the best free tools to create graphics for your social campaigns. Custom graphics can be the difference between your content getting likes, shares or not at all. Usually you’d need a graphic designer, which doesn’t come cheap. With Canva, you can do it all yourself, completely free.
There’s also a premium service that gives you even more tools and templates.
Visage
Another great graphic tool on the market is Visage. There are a number of templates you can use, all of which will be consistent across your brand. Your social graphics will look the same as your infographics, eBooks, blog images, and your website. Consistency is really important — Visage will give you high quality graphics that are always on point.
Animoto
Animoto is the tool of choice for video content for your social profiles. They have various different templates that’ll help your social content go viral. There are ones for Instagram, Facebook and even YouTube. You can create advertisements, how-to guides, slideshows, promo videos… You can even make birthday videos.
Audience/Customer/Persona Tools
Socialbakers
If you’re looking for a tool that’ll give your insights into your audience, Socialbakers might be for you. An artificial intelligence powered algorithm uncovers you optimal target personas. You can then run targeted campaigns, which are analyzed, giving you feedback.
With this tool you can drive your social growth, through effective audience research.
Brandwatch
Brandwatch is a powerful consumer research tool that’ll make sure you target the right people. Supercharged with market insights and social listening features, you can begin to map out your ideal customer. There’s also a host of other functions — post scheduling, analytics, influencer identification — it’s an all round tool.
Monitoring/Sharing Tools
Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a social media marketing tool that can just about do everything. Some of the features include; post scheduling, social listening, and an in-depth analytics suite. This tool makes it easy to create data-driven social campaigns.
Brand24
Brand24 is a tool that allows you to track all the “mentions” of your brand. Whenever someone mentions your brand online, you’ll be notified. This includes all forms of social media on the internet; forums, blogs and news sites included.
The tool also tracks your mentions, giving you valuable analytic data.
SocialOomph
SocialOomph is an awesome tool that allows you “bulk upload” which is basically publishing lots of posts at once. Each post can then be scheduled to go live at a different time. The tool gives you complete and total control of your social posts, across multiple platforms.
There are also features that allow you to analyze your followers, as well as improve engagement.
Other Tools
Influential
Influential is an AI tool that uses transparent data and machine learning to connect brands with audiences. More specifically, the tool looks at who engages with you on social media, as well as how they engage. It goes beyond basic measures, like impressions or engagement — you get metrics like sales lift, and return on ad spend.
Bitly
Bitly is a URL tool that allows you to shorten URLs so they fit on social media. You’ve probably seen Bitly links before, here’s an example.
The tool also allows you to track each URL and get analytic data.
Feedly
Feedly is a content aggregator tool, which is basically a juiced up RSS feed. It rounds up content sources based on your input, and spits it out, giving you a really customized newsfeed.
It’s kind of similar to BuzzSumo, but it’s not nearly going to have as many bells and whistles. You’re not going to get hard data on social metrics, for example. Still, it’s quite effective as a “stripped-down” content discovery tool.
Final Thoughts
Using a social media tool is a surefire way to supercharge and “juice up” your marketing efforts. With so many other aspects of your marketing and business to attend to, why waste time doing things manually? Automate and scale up.
If you have any questions, leave a comment below.
