According to a 2019 report, 45% of the world’s population are social media users; that is, a whopping 3.5 billion people use social media platforms for their day-to-day interactions. To reach out to this massive audience, you need to supercharge your social media marketing strategies.
But what exactly is social media marketing?
In the simplest words, social media marketing involves publishing great content on your social media profiles, listening to and engaging your followers, analyzing your results, and running social media advertisements.
But you can’t play your social media marketing game without having the right social media marketing tools in your arsenal. Why are they important?
Social media marketing tools help you:
- Increase your brand awareness
- Improve search engine rankings
- Achieve higher conversion rates
- Gain marketplace insights
- Establish your brand as a thought leader
- Elevate your brand loyalty and brand authority
- Increase website traffic and generate leads
- Access instant feedback and much more
Hence, to enhance your social media marketing skills and to revitalize your social media game, we have prepared a list of the top 10 most sought after social media tools. Let’s dive into them one by one.
Buffer:
A tool to buff up your social media strategy!
Buffer is a social media management tool that helps users publish content, engage clients, and analyze their social media performance. It integrates well with different social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest. It allows you to schedule your posts on any or all of these social networks.
Advantages
- Provides advanced analytics to track social media performance
- Automatically publishes social media posts at predetermined times
- Allows you to create and share your social media post from anywhere
- Comes with a minimal learning curve and a great UI/UX
- Extensions are available for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera
Disadvantages
- Using all features together become expensive
- Limited analytics for the free version
- Issues with Instagram integration
- Poor Workflow management
Cost:
Free version available
Pro Plan $15/Month
- Allows you to connect up to 8 social profiles
- You can schedule up to 100 status updates at any given time
- Authorizes you to use one team member and has basic analytics
Premium Plan $65/Month
- Connect up to 8 social profiles
- Schedule up to 2000 status updates
- Use two team members
- Basic analytics
Business Plan at $99/Month
- 25/50/150 social profiles
- 5 / 10 / 25 team members
- Schedule 2000 status updates
- Rich analytics
Buzzsumo:
A must for content marketers!
Founded in 2012, Buzzsumo is a powerful online tool that allows you to find content that is popular by topic or on any website. It also helps you in providing customized content for your targeted audience.
Advantages
- Provides you with curated content for your social media platforms
- Furnishes you with amazing keyword ideas and blog ideas
- Equips you with influencer information
- Allows you to set up keywords alerts
- Gives you valuable content insights
- Assists you with competitor analysis
Disadvantages
- No suggestions based on previous searches
- Pretty Expensive
- Substandard UI
Cost
Free trials available
Pro Plan $99/Month: Good for individuals and small teams
- 10 Trending Feeds and five alerts
- 50 exports per month
- One year of data
- 1-5 users
Plus Plan $179/Month: Good for growing teams
- 20 Trending Feeds and one year of data
- 150 exports per month
- Question Analyzer
- Top Author Search
- 1-10 users
Large Plan $299/Month: Good for Agencies and big in-house teams
- 50 Trending Feeds and two years of data
- Advanced influencer search
- 200 exports per month
- Question Analyzer
- Facebook Analyzer
- 1-15 users
Enterprise Plan $499+ Per Month: Good for global organizations
- In this plan, the sky’s the limit. It includes five years of data, 50+ alerts, and much more
HootSuite:
You will give a hoot about HootSuite; It’s simple, smart, and streamlined!
Founded in 2008, Hootsuite is a SaaS platform that helps you in planning, scheduling, and syndicating your social media posts. It covers almost every aspect of a social media manager’s role by connecting several social media accounts to a centralized social media management system.
Advantages
- Assists you in managing customer service on social media efficiently
- Allows you to manage different social media networks in one place
- Gives you an in-depth analytical view of your social media strategy
- Provides you with real-time automated and weekly reports
- Enables you to schedule your posts in advance
- Lets you publish in bulk
Disadvantages
- No preview options
- Limited metrics
- Substandard UI
- Pretty expensive
- Hard to navigate
Cost: Free version available
Professional Plan Rs. 1260/Month
- Unlimited scheduling
- Ten social profiles
- One user
Team Plan Rs. 6600/Month
- Unlimited scheduling
- 20 social profiles
- Three users
Business Plan Rs. 45000/Month
- Unlimited scheduling
- 35 social profiles
- 5+ users
Enterprise Plan
Gives you customized solutions, you can contact them for pricing.
Tailwind:
Tailwind will blow your social media strategy away!
Founded in 2011, Tailwind is the social media scheduling tool created specifically for Pinterest and Instagram. But, it is more than just that as it is an all-in-one marketing tool. Also, it has something called “Tailwind Tribe” that allows you to interact with other businesses and increase your followers count.
Advantages
- Provides you with appropriate, accessible and relevant hashtags
- Posts all your scheduled ‘pins” on Pinterest as ‘new’ pins
- Monitors Pinterest trend related to your industry
- Allows you to pre-schedule your Instagram posts
Disadvantages
- Doesn’t allow multi-image posts on Instagram
- Price is not competitive
- Substandard UI
Cost
Pinterest Plus Plan $9.99 Per Account Per Month
- 250 Free SmartLoop Posts
- 5 Free Tailwind Tribes
- Unlimited Scheduling
- 1 Pinterest Profile
Instagram Plus Plan $9.99 Per Account Per Month
- 1-Click Hashtag Suggestions
- bio Custom Link
- Unlimited Scheduling
- 1 Instagram Profile
Iconosquare:
The simplest way to your Instagram analytics!
Iconosquare is one of the best analysis and management tools for Facebook and Instagram. It helps you:
- Analyze social media performance using advanced analytics
- Schedule, manage and monitor your posts
- Create your dashboard, and so on
Advantages
- Compiles data into comprehensive reports
- Provides competitor analysis
- Customizes Instagram feeds
- Tracks comments
- User-friendly
Disadvantages
- You can’t separate paid and organic posts
- Only includes Instagram and Facebook
- Not much historical data available
- Pretty expensive
Cost
A free trial is available
Starter Plan $9/Month: For anyone who wants to get a better idea of the platform
- One social profile
- One team member
- 100k followers
- Analytics, comment tracker, email support and much more
Pro Plan $29/Month: For small businesses and professional marketers
- Three social profiles
- Two team members
- Unlimited number of followers
Includes everything in the Starter Plan and also some additional features like advanced search, chat support, comment support and so on.
Advanced Plan $59/Month: For marketing teams
- Five social profiles
- Three team members
- Unlimited number of followers
Includes everything in the Pro Plan and has an additional feature of ads monitoring.
Agency Plan: Contact their sales team for detail
It includes everything in the Advanced Plan and has some additional features like training and dedicated customer success manager.
Sprout Social:
Turn your sprouting social media strategies into a massive oak!
Founded in 2010, Sprout Social is a social media management and optimization platform that streamlines the process of managing and optimizing different social media profiles at once. It has the best mix of social media management and analytics to cater to all social media marketing needs of brands and agencies of all sizes.
Advantages
- Schedule posts across multiple social media platforms
- Paid and organic metrics can be separated
- One of the best customer service support
- Demographic break down in reporting
- Suitable for monitoring and engaging
- Location-based hashtag searches
- Neat and clean UI
- Detailed analytics
- Easy to use
Disadvantages
- The mobile app lacks the full functionality of the browser version
- You can’t get posts approved by multiple people
- Not a great platform for teams
- Pretty expensive
Cost
A free trial is available
Standard Plan $99 Per User Per Month
- Five social profiles
- Review management
- All-in-one social inbox
- Social content calendar
- iOS and Android mobile apps
- Profiles, keywords and location monitoring
- Paid promotion tools to boost Facebook posts and much more
Professional Plan $149 Per User Per Month
- Ten social profiles
- Includes everything in the Standard Plan and also has some additional features like:
- Competitive reports for Facebook, Instagram and Twitter
- Trend analysis for Twitter keywords and hashtags
- Incoming and outgoing message content tagging
- Response rate and time analysis reports
- Scheduling for optimal send times and much more
Advanced Plan $249 Per User Per Month
- Ten social profiles
It Includes everything in the Standard Plan and also has some additional features like:
- Digital asset and content library
- Chatbots with automation tools
- Saved and suggested replies
- Message Spike Alerts for increased message activity
Automated Link Tracking and much more
Audiense:
Your go-to solution for Twitter marketing!
Founded in 2011, Audiense is a social marketing platform with actional tools that allows you to understand your audiences in unmatchable depth and engage with them intelligently.
Advantages
- Automates DM Campaigns
- Provides competitive analysis
- Relevant social listening features
- Tailors content based on audiences
- The best tool to track the community on Twitter
- Tweets analytics reports and much more
Disadvantages
- The User Interface might disappoint you
- Features are limited
Cost
Audiense Insights: It allows you to understand and identify any audience, and helps you make better marketing decisions, adapt your targeting, improve relevancy and drive.
Price: $359/Month or $299/month
Audiense Connect: It allows you to know your Twitter community better. It also helps you to monitor conversations and hashtags relevant to your business.
- Professional: $31.15/Month
- Business: $119/Month
- Business+: $471.20/Month
- Enterprise: $758/Month
Keyhole:
Your perfect hashtag analytics for Twitter, Facebook and Instagram!
Keyhole is a social marketing tool that allows you to measure the impact of your social media campaigns. It helps you track the internet’s most influential influencers and discover how people feel about your brand and competitors online.
Advantages
- API access
- Data reports
- Blogs and forums analytics
- Customized branding options
- Language filtering geolocation
- Influencer management features
- Social media analytics and much more
Disadvantages
- Pricing might irritate you a bit.
Cost
Professional Plan $179/Month
- Data analysis
- Custom alerts
- Historical data
- User-friendly reports
- Influencer dashboard
- Three account trackers
- Data reports and much more
Corporate Plan $539/Month
- Data analysis
- Influencer dashboard
- Ten account trackers
- User-friendly reports
- Custom alerts
- Historical data
- Data reports
- Ability to reanalyse reports
- API access and much more
Enterprise Plan $999/Month
- API access
- Data reports
- Data analysis
- Custom alerts
- Historical data
- User-friendly reports
- Influencer dashboard
- Unlimited account trackers
- Ability to reanalyze reports
- Sentiment alerts and much more
Crowdfire:
Your social media management is simplified!
Crowdfire is one of the most powerful social media tools used by brands, businesses and agencies all over the world to drive social media engagement and growth. It offers many amazing features like scheduling, engagement, in-depth analytics and social listening.
Advantages
- Detailed stats
- Twitter analytics
- Android and iOS apps
- Engagement optimization
- Remove unwanted accounts
- Search by keywords and location
Disadvantages
- Pretty expensive
- Doesn’t connect to Google plus
- Articles recommendation screen can get cluttered sometimes
Cost
Free Plan: For anyone who wants to give it a try
- Hashtag recommendations
- Supports three social networks
- Schedules ten posts per account
- Chrome extension to share articles
- Unlimited articles and image curation and much more
Plus Plan $7.48/Month: For solo-preneurs and small businesses
Includes everything in the Free Plan and has some additional features like:
- Supports five social networks
- Schedules 100 posts per account
- An ad-free experience on mobile
- Supports video posts and multiple image posts and much more
Premium Plan $37.48: For medium businesses
Includes everything in the Plus Plan and has some additional features like:
- Bulk schedule posts
- Add and manage one profile
- Supports ten social networks
- Schedules 100 posts per account
- Add and manage one team members profiles
- Tracks mention for your Twitter and Facebook accounts
- Send replies to all the mentions with images and gifs and much more
VIP Plan $74.98/Month: For agencies and larger businesses
Includes everything in the Premium Plan and has some additional features like:
- Priority email support
- Schedules 800 posts per account
- Supports twenty-five social networks
- Add and manage two team members profiles
Add and manage two profiles and much more
SocialPilot:
Your robust social media marketing tool!
SocialPilot is a SaaS product and a comprehensive social media marketing tool that helps professionals, teams and businesses in increasing their brand awareness and driving more traffic to their websites. It also allows them to automate their social media management and analyze their social media performance.
Advantages
- Browser extensions
- Content suggestions
- Custom Facebook branding
- Bulk scheduling and custom feeds
- Client management and social analytics
- Advanced post scheduler and much more
Disadvantages
- Lack of Instagram analytics
- Substandard interface
Cost
A free trial is available
Small Team Plan $41.66/Month
- RSS Feeds
- Bulk Scheduling
- Fifty Social Media Accounts
- Analytics and Reports (web)
- Five Facebook Ad Accounts
- Five Team Members
- Social Inbox and much more
Professional Plan $25/Month
- RSS Feeds
- Bulk Scheduling
- Ten Team Members
- Analytics and Reports (web)
- Ten Facebook Ad Accounts
- Hundred Social Media Accounts
- Content Curation and Discovery
- Social Inbox and much more
Agency Plan $83.33/Month
- RSS Feeds
- Bulk Scheduling
- Three Team Members
- Analytics and Reports (web)
- Two Facebook Ad Accounts
- Twenty Five Social Media Accounts
- Content Curation and Discovery and much more
Enterprise Plan: Contact their sales team for details
Conclusion:
78% of small businesses leverage social media platforms to attract new customers. 63% of consumers choose brands with an informative social media presence for their products and services.
We can’t deny the fact that investing in a social media tool is like connecting your business with the customers more strongly than ever. With several social media tools available out there, choosing the right one could be difficult. Hence, this article is meant to give you an in-depth insight into the top 10 social media tools and help you make an informed decision. But, like pros, cons are also an integral part of any technology so in case you are still not satisfied and want to explore, even more, you can check out the equally important social media tools given below:
AgoraPulse, CoSchedule and MeetEdgar.
Satish Kumar
Author
Satish Kumar has spent the last decade helping IT, SaaS and Gaming Public Limited Companies From MVP to Full-Scale Product Via SEO & Performance Marketing.