Shopping for social media management tools? Or need to upgrade to a new social media scheduling app? To make an educated decision, take time to get the details on the top tools out there. Finding the right social media management tool is essential for everything from building your brand and driving sales to optimizing your digital strategy and maximizing your budget.

But with dozens of available options, how do you know which is the best social media tool?

The Top 10 Social Media Management Tools

Every business and agency is different. Not one social media tool works best for every organization.

Factors like your publishing schedule, the size of your client roster, your marketing goals, the platforms you use, and your marketing budget all determine the best social media management tool for your team.

Ready to discover the best social media management app for your organization?

Let’s dig in to help you learn more about the different social media management tools. The sooner you find the right social media scheduler for your needs, the sooner you’ll be on your way to successfully manage all your social media from the right dashboard.

1. Agorapulse

social media management tool agorapulse -- screenshot of user interface

If your team needs a full-featured social media management tool, Agorapulse delivers.

In addition to comprehensive publishing, engagement, and reporting features, this tool also has an integrated social customer relationship management (CRM) where you can track conversations with followers and even identify influencers.

Agorapulse also offers extras like saved hashtag groups and unlimited social listening searches, so your team can take its social media strategy to the next level.

Publishing

When you use Agorapulse, you get access to bulk scheduling, queued posts and categories, and labeled content with every plan.

You can also take advantage of Bit.ly integration and create UTM parameters for your shared links.

Engagement

 With Agorapulse’s Inbox Assistant, monitoring engagement is easy.

You can create rules that automatically apply labels or assign items to specific team members.

To avoid typing the same response regularly, you can also create saved replies for your team.

In addition, Agorapulse has great social listening options that help social media managers stay on top of key conversations.

Social CRM

Agorapulse has a powerful social CRM, making it one of the best social media management apps for building relationships.

Within the CRM, social media managers can track all prior interactions with social media users and make use of automated and custom labels.

You can also add notes visible only to your team members to provide context and streamline follow-ups.

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Collaboration 

Agorapulse is packed with features designed for agencies and teams. You can assign roles to each team member and see when people take action—or when they respond to a message.

This tool also lets you delegate inbox items automatically and share internal notes with each other to make sure everyone’s on the same page.

Reporting 

Agorapulse offers full reporting capabilities for all plans, including team performance reports. Using the Power Reports add-on, you can also export custom PDF and CSV reports and add your own agency logo within the tool.

Discover how to create social media reports that impress.

Social Ads

Although Agorapulse doesn’t offer ad management, it does monitor Facebook and Instagram ad comments. That means you can handle all your social engagement in one place.

With Agorapulse’s free AdsReport tool, you can also review your Facebook ads analytics and identify ways to improve ad performance.

Pricing (per month)

$79 for the Pro plan (2 users with 10 profiles), $159 for Premium (4 users with 25 profiles), and the Enterprise plan—all when purchased with an annual plan. Get details on the pricing page.

2. Buffer

social media management tool buffer -- screenshot of user interface

When you want to focus your budget on publishing or reporting—but not necessarily on both at once—Buffer offers a unique solution.

Unlike the other options on this list, Buffer doesn’t combine all of its features into a single tool.

Instead, you can select either its Publish or Analyze tools or invest in both. Buffer also offers more than 60 app integrations to streamline your team’s approach.

Publishing

With Buffer, you can save time by creating posting schedules for each social platform. You can also write draft posts to finish later and build Instagram hashtag groups on select plans.

Engagement

Buffer used to offer an engagement tool, known as Reply. Since Buffer phased out this option in early 2020, the platform no longer offers a social inbox or any built-in engagement tools.

If you want to manage engagement, publishing, and reporting from a single dashboard, you may need to consider another tool.

Social CRM

Buffer doesn’t come with relationship management tools. If you already have a CRM, however, you may be able to integrate it directly with Buffer.

Alternatively, you can use Zapier to connect Buffer to all your marketing automation tools.Social Media Management Tools help with the process of planning out social media

Collaboration

This tool offers plenty of opportunities to work with your team. With Buffer, teams can work together on content creation, and select users can approve posts.

Since the basic plan includes just one user, social media managers will need to upgrade to a higher-paid plan to collaborate with other users.

Reporting

Buffer offers overview reports for all plan levels, which include post analytics, hashtag performance, and audience demographics.

More in-depth engagement and team reports are available for Business plans. You can create custom reports and add notes no matter which plans you have.

Yet only Business plans can add logos to reports, a popular feature for agencies.

Social Ads

Buffer doesn’t offer support for social ads. If you’re planning to run a paid social strategy, you’ll need to use each platform’s native tools.

Pricing (per month)

$56 for Premium with Publish only (1 user with 8 profiles); $85 for Pro with Publish and Analyze (2 users with 8 profiles); or $313 for Business with Publish and Analyze (6 users with 25 profiles)

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3. e-clincher

social media management tool e-clincher -- screenshot of user interface

For efficient social media publishing, simple content curation, and an integrated media library, e-clincher is a solid solution.

This social media management tool makes it easy to find and share content that appeals to your audience. In addition, its suggested content feature includes a scoring system to help you identify the best articles for your followers.

Publishing

When you use e-clincher, you can create post queues, automatically post from RSS feeds, and bulk publish for efficiency. This tool also offers UTM parameters for easier link tracking.

Engagement

With e-clincher’s social inbox, you can view all comments, mentions, tags, interactions, and reviews in one convenient spot.

You can also use the tool’s monitoring options to keep an eye on your brand reputation and to follow important keywords and hashtags.

Social CRM

Although e-clincher doesn’t have a social CRM, the platform integrates with Intercom, Zendesk, and other contact management tools.

In addition, e-inbox features allow for basic lead management. With e-clincher, social media managers can create unlimited tags to help identify potential leads or influencers, and organize testimonials or customer feedback.

Collaboration

e-clincher allows collaboration, but only when you choose a Premier or Agency plan. Both higher-priced plans allow you to assign inbox items and send posts to key team members for approval. You can also define roles for new team members, including clients.

Reporting

It’s easy to customize reports with e-clincher, as the tool offers drag-and-drop analytics and white label reports for every plan type. With a Premier or Agency plan, you can also access competitive intelligence reports for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

picture of latte coffee art and a laptop computer

Social Ads

With e-clincher, you can easily boost Facebook posts. You can target custom and saved Facebook audiences, helping you get as much as possible from your boosted post.

Pricing (per month)

$59 for Basic (1 user with 10 profiles), $119 for Premier (3 users with 20 profiles), or $219 for Agency (6 users with 40 profiles)

4. Hootsuite

social media management tool hootsuite -- screenshot of user interface

If your team has a limited budget for social media scheduling tools, Hootsuite offers an affordable option. This tool offers one of the lowest-priced basic plans with essential publishing, scheduling, and reporting functionality.

Hootsuite also integrates with select apps for content curation and supports boosting. That means you can automatically sponsor posts when you publish them.

What 6,185 Reviews From Real Hootsuite Users Will Teach You

Publishing

With Hootsuite, you can create content and edit images individually, or you can bulk publish to save time. Because Hootsuite has a shared asset library, your whole team can draw from the same group of photos, videos, and graphics.

This tool also integrates with news and photo apps to streamline your social marketing workflow.

Engagement

Hootsuite lets you monitor incoming messages, which it aggregates in your social inbox. When you opt for the Business plan, you can also tag messages.

Hootsuite also has a chatbots feature that helps you respond to engagement quickly.

Social CRM

Hootsuite doesn’t have built-in contact management. However, it does integrate with more than a dozen CRM and marketing automation tools, such as Salesforce and HubSpot.

Collaboration

Like e-clincher, Hootsuite offers some collaboration options, but only with higher-priced plans. With the Team and Business plans, you can assign items to team members.

If you opt for a custom Enterprise plan, you can also access team reports to gauge productivity.

Reporting

Hootsuite offers basic reporting templates for all plans. With a Professional or Business plan, you can also customize reports. Want ROI reporting, competitive benchmarking, or team reports? You have to be an Enterprise customer.

Social Ads

With Hootsuite, social media marketing agencies and digital agencies can create and manage all their PPC ad campaigns in one place, making it a top paid social tool.

In addition to supporting paid social ads on Facebook and Instagram, Hootsuite also has Google Ads management. Social media managers can create and test ad campaigns on all three platforms, monitor performance, and share the results with their team.

With Hootsuite’s Collaboration Hub, you can include clients in the ad approval process.

Pricing (per month)

$29 for Professional (1 user with 10 profiles), $129 for Team (3 users with 20 profiles), or $599 for Business (5 users with 10 profiles), and Enterprise (You have to contact the company for pricing.)

Hootsuite Pricing Revealed: What Does Hootsuite Really Cost?

Also, if you’re deciding between Hootsuite and Sprout Social, Hootsuite vs Sprout Social: Which Should You Pick for Your Social Media Management Needs? is a must-read.

5. Loomly

social media management tool loomly -- screenshot of user interface

When your social media strategy depends on seamless collaboration, Loomly can help.

This affordable social media tool manages your brand’s digital assets and post templates, so you can be sure your team is always working from the same resources.

Loomly integrates with Slack and Microsoft Teams. That means you can ask questions, get answers, and stay on the same page with your team.

Publishing

When you use Loomly, you can schedule for major platforms except for Instagram. (You need to link Zapier and Loomly to publish to Instagram.)

With this tool, you can get ideas for future posts, follow trends, and access tips for optimizing your content. You can also store your brand’s digital assets in the library for quick access.

Engagement

Loomly makes community management surprisingly simple. You can use its engagement interface to respond to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter comments. However, Loomly doesn’t have social listening or hashtag monitoring features.

Social CRM

You won’t find a native CRM in Loomly. Yet, you can link various and marketing automation apps to Loomly via Zapier. In fact, Zapier offers more than 2,000 integrations for Loomly, which can give this tool more functionality.

Collaboration

Loomly is ideal for collaboration, as even its Base plan includes two users. With this tool, you can create approval workflows for your team, assign roles, and add comments. Because you can grant custom permissions for each user, you can easily invite clients to view your social media calendars.

Reporting

This tool offers basic analytics with every plan. Want advanced analytics, which includes comparative data and posts published outside of Loomly? You’ll need a Standard, Advanced, or Premium plan.

Social Ads

Loomly has one of the more advanced third-party social ads managers. With Loomly, social media marketing agencies and digital agencies can create Facebook and Instagram Ads using image, video, and carousel formats. Because you can focus on objectives like brand awareness, reach, traffic, and conversions, you can design campaigns around almost any marketing tool. To help you track ad performance, Loomly also offers analytics and optimization tips.

Pricing (per month)

$25 for Base (2 users with 10 profiles), $57 for Standard (6 users with 20 accounts), $119 for Advanced (16 users with 35 profiles), or $249 for Premium (26 users with 50 accounts) or Enterprise (You have to contact the company for pricing info.)

6. Sendible

social media management tool sendible -- screenshot of user interface

If you want to take your team’s social media publishing and reporting to new heights, Sendible offers a helpful solution.

In addition to its handy rescheduling and bulk publishing features, this tool includes an extra layer of detail in its reporting interface.

Sendible also has a handy Google Analytics integration. That means you can track how your social media campaigns have affected key metrics like page views and conversions.

Publishing

When you use Sendible, you can upload dozens of posts to the bulk publisher at once. Sendible also allows you to recycle evergreen content to ensure that your best posts remain top-of-mind with your audience.

Engagement

With Sendible’s social inbox, you can track and respond to mentions, comments, and messages from all platforms in a single spot. You can rely on the tool’s Priority Inbox to keep an eye on items that need quick action. Sendible’s social listening tools also let you follow keywords and monitor conversations about your brand.

Social CRM

Although Sendible once offered contact management, the platform no longer has this feature. It doesn’t have CRM integrations either, so your team may need an external tool for building relationships.

Collaboration

Sendible allows for easy collaboration, as you can invite others to add to your content library or assign inbox items to specialized team members.

When you opt for a Growth or Large plan, you can also create custom team workflows to streamline your social media approval process.team members working at a table with computers and phones

Reporting

All Sendible plans feature quick reports and optimal posting analyses. With higher-priced plans, you can also create custom reports and export any report as a CSV.

Social Ads

Sendible doesn’t offer boosted posts or Facebook Ads, so you’ll need to use native tools to run paid campaigns. However, you can manage ad comments from Sendible’s social inbox.

Pricing (per month)

$29 for Starter (1 user with 12 profiles ), $99 for Traction (3 users with 48 profiles), $199 for Growth (7 users with 105 profiles), or $299 for Large (12 users with 192 profiles)

7. SocialPilot

social media management tool Socialpilot -- screenshot of user interface

When you need to prioritize identifying new content for your audience or finding influencers to partner with, SocialPilot can help.

This affordably priced social media management tool has a built-in content curation platform that you can use to share trending content and schedule your social media calendar.

You can also use SocialPilot’s analytics to discover top influencers in your brand’s niche.

Publishing

With SocialPilot, you can bulk upload and schedule social media posts to save time. You can also automatically publish content from RSS feeds, such as your company’s blog. Instagram publishing is done via push notifications.

Engagement

SocialPilot’s engagement and monitoring features are more limited than most other tools. Its social inbox is available only for Small Team and Agency plans, and this feature allows you to respond to Facebook comments and messages only. You’ll need an external listening solution, as SocialPilot doesn’t provide listening features.

Social CRM

SocialPilot doesn’t offer a CRM. Because it doesn’t have CRM integrations either, identifying leads and building relationships with influencers may require another solution.

Collaboration

Unlike its engagement and listening features, SocialPilot’s collaboration options are extensive. This tool allows you to delegate tasks and invite clients to collaborate. You can also customize roles and require admin approval before publishing content.

Reporting

SocialPilot offers detailed reports for Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter. (No Instagram reports.) In addition to content analytics, you can access audience insights, comprehensive analytics, and optimal posting times. SocialPilot reports include hashtag analyses to help social media managers reach a wider audience.

Social Ads

With SocialPilot, you can create, publish, and boost posts from a single dashboard. You can schedule boosted posts ahead of time and choose from objectives like reach, traffic, or engagement. SocialPilot also offers Facebook Lead Ads that can help your brand connect with new prospects. With SocialPilot’s ad analytics, you can monitor and optimize ad performance, too.

Pricing (per month)

$25 for Professional (3 users with 25 profiles), $41.66 for Small Team (5 users with 50 profiles), or $83.33 for Agency (10 users with 100 profiles)

8. Sprout Social

social media management tool Sprout social -- screenshot of user interface

Sprout Social offers a robust analytics dashboard with big-picture reporting, ad account tracking, and data that can demonstrate value to your boss or clients.

Sprout Social also has a chatbot feature for Facebook and Twitter that you can use to enhance engagement.

But if you’re looking for the best free social media management tools, you’ll have to keep searching. Of all the top social apps, Sprout Social has the highest base-level price.

Publishing

With Sprout Social, you can queue posts to simplify your scheduling process. You can also develop a social content calendar to map out your marketing strategy for the month or year.

Engagement

Sprout Social has an all-in-one social inbox where you can respond to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter engagement. You can also manage TripAdvisor and Google My Business reviews for your business. As far as monitoring goes, you can track profiles, keywords, and locations.

Social CRM

Sprout Social has an integrated CRM that takes this tool to the next level. The CRM automatically tracks your complete conversation history with Twitter users, so you can assess relationships quickly. you can also add internal notes to any contact to give your team additional context.

Collaboration

When you use Sprout Social’s Smart Inbox, you can see when team members are handling messages in real time and track who’s responded to any message. You can also transform any inbox item into a lead, a support ticket, or other types of tasks. The tool’s team reporting feature helps you optimize your team’s workflow. The team publishing feature ensures that every message is approved before it goes live.

Reporting

Sprout Social’s analytics interface makes it easy to review your brand’s performance and gather important insights. You can compare your brand’s performance to its competitors and determine ROI effectively.

Social Ads

With Sprout Social, you can set up simple Facebook Ads. Once you’ve connected an ad account, you can boost any eligible Facebook post within Sprout Social. You can also create dark Facebook posts and publish them from Ads Manager. In addition, Sprout Social has advanced social ad reports, allowing you to analyze performance from paid campaigns on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Pricing (per month)

$99 per user for Standard (5 profiles), $149 per user for Professional (10 profiles), or $249 per user for Advanced (10 profiles)

Sprout Social Pricing Revealed: How Much Does Sprout Social Really Cost?

9. Traject Social (formerly Social Report)

social media management tool Traject social -- screenshot of user interface

If your team takes a goal-oriented approach to social media marketing, Traject Social might be a smart pick.

Along with standard scheduling and engagement options, this tool invites you to input your team’s objectives—and it predicts whether you’re on track to achieve them.

In regards to collaboration, Traject Social shines. This platform offers everything from custom roles to team workflows to help everyone work together smoothly.

Publishing

When you use Traject Social, you can queue content, shorten links, and schedule posts on multiple platforms simultaneously. Traject Social can also publish content from RSS feeds automatically. As with Traject Social, you need to use push notifications to publish to Instagram.

Engagement

Traject Social’s social inbox serves as your one-stop spot for responding to comments and messages across platforms. You can also use the tool’s keyword search feature to monitor unlimited keywords related to your brand.

Social CRM

Traject Social doesn’t have a built-in CRM. If you need to track leads or if you want to find influencers, you may need an extra tool.

Collaboration

Since all of Traject Social’s plans include access for at least five users, it’s no surprise that this tool is designed for teamwork. With this tool, you can easily create publication workflows, create team member performance reports, and give clients access to your reporting dashboard. You can also keep your clients’ social media accounts secure by giving users only the permissions they need.

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Reporting

With Traject Social, you can download unlimited PDF and Excel reports. If you opt for an Advanced or Pro plan, you can access competitor tracking for Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Traject Social also lets you create audience and engagement goals, which you can use to track progress.

Social Ads

Social advertising capabilities are somewhat limited with Traject Social. Yet social media managers can boost Facebook posts directly from the platform. In addition to setting a budget and a time frame, you can target a specific audience and choose between engagement and web traffic objectives.

Pricing (per month)

$49 for Standard (2 users with 15 profiles), $99 for Advanced (6 users with 30 profiles), or $199 for Pro (12 users with 80 profiles)

10. Zoho Social

social media management tool Zoho social -- screenshot of user interface

When you want a flexible social media scheduling tool that encourages collaboration, Zoho can help. This tool lets you add on extra brands or team members for a monthly rate, so you can customize your plan.

Using Zoho’s in-app communication feature, your team members can chat with each other about anything from publishing content to responding to engagement.

Publishing

When you use Zoho, you can schedule and publish on most major platforms aside from Pinterest. You can repeat posts and add content to your SmartQ, but bulk scheduling is available only with higher-priced plans. Standard plans and above also include CustomQ, which has themed publishing slots to streamline scheduling.

Engagement

With Zoho’s listening dashboard, you can create columns to respond to mentions, monitor reviews, or track selected keywords. You can also respond to Facebook and Twitter messages and address incoming engagement as it happens.

Social CRM

When you adopt Zoho Social, you also get access to the platform’s integrated CRM. With this robust CRM, you can use automated qualifiers to turn social media users into leads. That means users who mention or retweet your brand can stay on your radar so you can turn them into followers, customers, or brand evangelists.

Collaboration

All of Zoho’s plans include at least two team members, making it easy to collaborate.

You can comment on almost anything in Zoho, so your team can discuss everything from a new report to a comment or message.

You can also request feedback on posts by tagging team members and inviting them to join the conversation.

Reporting

Zoho provides summary reports for all plans as well as advanced analytics and custom reports for all plans above Standard. Higher-priced plans also include scheduled reports to help your team save time.

Social Ads

If you want to generate more leads for your company or client, Zoho makes the process easy. you can run Facebook Lead Ads right from Zoho. Since you can link lead form fields with the Zoho CRM, lead data populates automatically, so your team can follow-up efficiently.

Pricing (per month)

$10 for Standard (2 users for 1 brand), $25 for Professional (3 users for 1 brand), $200 for Agency (5 users for 10 brands), or $300 for Agency Plus (5 users for 20 brands)

Conclusion

Still on the fence about which social media scheduling app your team should adopt?

Choose the features you need and compare prices for the top social media tools to find the best option for your organization on Ian Anderson Gray‘s pricing tool.

Brought to you by Seriously Social with Ian Anderson Gray

Make sure to check out our list of FREE social media marketing tools as well.

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Take control of your social media right now. Check out our free trial of Agorapulse to help you schedule, track, and measure all your social media efforts.

10 Best Social Media Management Tools