Social media tools are applications that can help businesses and creators solidify their online presence on social networking sites. With features to streamline repetitive tasks, simplify content creation, and manage accounts across different sites, these tools make it easier for you to succeed on social media.
If you’re already on social media and want to improve your current performance, keep reading. In this article, we will discuss the important features you should look for when choosing the best software and share our list of the top social media tools you need in your strategy.
Let’s start!
What Are Social Media Tools?
Social media tools are a category of programs that can amplify your efforts on social networking sites. These platforms often come with features that track analytics, automate tasks, and schedule content to help businesses and marketers supercharge their efforts and boost results.
Succeeding in social media provides several crucial advantages for business owners. Research by Jones et al. (2015) in the Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development found that social media use can greatly benefit small businesses. Being on these platforms helps boost brand awareness, generate new leads, and enhance brand-customer relationships.
To keep your strategy optimized, it’s important to stay on top of social media changes and trends. However, this can be difficult to do when running a business. By using tools to manage your social media workflow, you can significantly improve efficiency and performance while still focusing on the more technical aspects of your business.
5 Key Features Social Media Tools Should Boast
Social media tools are designed to help you maximize results with minimal effort, so they should come with features like:
#1. Task Automation
Most social media tools are used for streamlining workflows, so it’s important to choose an app with automation features that can help you achieve this. Using these tools will help you easily accomplish repetitive tasks in social media campaigns, such as posting content multiple times a week and responding to comments.
Instead of hiring someone for these responsibilities, you can simply automate them using social media scheduling tools. This will help you save time and money, ensure consistency, and boost overall efficiency.
#2. Comprehensive Analytics
Choosing social media tools with a comprehensive analytics feature will help you refine your social media marketing strategy. Look for tools that allow you to monitor social media KPIs, learn about audience demographics, and monitor the competition.
#3. User-Friendly Interface
Social media tools are meant to make your life easier, so choose one with a user-friendly interface that can quickly be integrated into your existing workflows. Complicated applications with a steep learning curve will only take up time and effort that could’ve been spent on other important tasks.
While you can also hire a social media manager to manage your accounts, this is an additional cost that can be avoided simply by selecting an intuitive and easy-to-use application.
#4. Third-Party Integrations
Third-party integrations can increase the functionality of social media tools, meaning you will get the most benefit from a tool that offers this feature.
Rather than switching between different apps during content creation, social media tools can provide a centralized hub for all the applications you use. This will help you speed up workflows and achieve better productivity.
#5. Other Features That Boost ROI
Social media tools for businesses should come with features that can optimize your return on investment (ROI). These can include:
- Social media listening capabilities
- Built-in content creation tools
- Shared workspaces
These features can help you gain an advantage over the competition, ultimately leading to more leads and sales and a positive ROI.
13+ Top Social Media Tools You Should Consider Using
When deciding which social media tools and platforms to use in your strategy, consider how they can simplify your current workflows to support your objectives. For instance, if your goal on social media is to build brand awareness, then look for tools with features that help you post more often or can improve your discoverability.
Without further ado, here is our list of social media tools essential for your success on social networking platforms:
#1. Publer
Publer is a powerful, all-around social media management tool that can help you manage multiple social media accounts. From scheduling social media posts to collaborating with teams on content creation, Publer has the key features you need to achieve your goals on social media sites.
Our AI assist tool and third-party integrations make it easier to create quality content that delivers results. Meanwhile, Publer’s comprehensive analytics feature monitors all your performance metrics across social media platforms so you can adjust your strategy as needed.
You can even find your best times to post on different sites with our analytics tool, ensuring that your content always reaches your target audience.
Publer has a great free plan and two paid pricing plans, including:
- Professional plan: $12/month
- Business plan: $21/month
Best Features
- Unified workspace
- VistaCreate and Canva integration
- Bulk scheduling
- Competitor analysis tool
#2. SproutSocial
Another social media tool for post-scheduling, Sprout Social, comes with great content creation and organizational features. It boasts a user-friendly interface and a unified inbox that can help you manage all your social media engagement in one place.
While the platform has great customer support and campaign management capabilities, Sprout Social has no free plan, and all its paid plans are quite expensive.
Here are the four paid pricing plans you can choose from:
- Standard plan: $249/month per seat
- Professional plan: $399/month per seat
- Advanced plan: $499/month per seat
- Enterprise plan: Custom pricing
Best Features
- Social listening tool
- Premium analytics
- Discovery tool
#3. Buffer
Buffer is a popular social media tool for planning and scheduling content and driving business growth. In addition to content scheduling, the platform also features a robust analytics tool, a content inbox, and an AI assistant that can help with overall efficiency.
If you’re looking for a tool to help you post content more consistently, Buffer may be a good option to consider. However, the app has an initial learning curve and isn’t a scalable platform, so its features may be limited for larger organizations or those that need more functionality from their tools.
Buffer has a free plan and three paid subscription plans:
- Essentials plan: $6/month per channel
- Team plan: $12/month per channel
- Agency plan: $120/month
Best Features
- Built-in image editor
- Browser extensions
- Project management
#4. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is one of the most used social media tools for managing and scheduling posts on various social networking sites. With its wide range of features, users can easily schedule and track content, monitor important KPIs for each social media platform, and engage their community all on one dashboard.
The platform also supports multiple third-party integrations with popular tools, including Canva, Microsoft Dynamics, and Shopify. Additionally, Hootsuite has built-in AI tools that can streamline workflows and boost productivity.
Unfortunately, the platform doesn’t support integration with Google Business Profile, which can be a disadvantage for businesses looking to improve their local SEO.
Hootsuite doesn’t offer a free plan, but they have three paid plans, including:
- Professional plan: $99/month
- Team plan: $249/month
- Enterprise plan: Custom pricing
Best Features
- Brand mention tracking
- Unified dashboard
- Excellent analytics
#5. Social Pilot
Social Pilot is a simple yet effective social media scheduling tool ideal for small and medium businesses. This app is an example of a social media tool that may seem basic but can rival other software options on this list.
It has a great free plan that allows you to connect to five different social media accounts and excellent customer support. However, the platform lacks a built-in image generator or content creator, which can be a huge disadvantage for businesses that want to focus on visual content. Plus, its pricing plans can be quite expensive for its features.
You can access the Social Pilot’s full set of features by subscribing to one of its four paid plans:
- Professional plan: $30/month
- Small team plan: $50/month
- Agency plan: $100/month
- Agency+ plan: $200/month
Best Features
- Inbox monitoring
- Detailed analytics
- Content curation
#6. Canva
Used by businesses and marketers alike, Canva is arguably one of the most popular social media tools on this list. This simple yet powerful tool allows users to create stunning images in seconds using ready-made templates.
According to research by Harst and Angelopoulos (2024) in the Journal of Business Research, social media content with pictures can result in higher engagement rates. This is why tools like Canva, which focuses on visual content, are becoming a necessity.
On Canva, you can also edit photos, resize images for different social media sites, and create designs from scratch. Most of these wonderful features, however, are only available on their paid plans, so you would need to subscribe to get full use of the platform. Plus, you can’t make custom assets on the platform and can only utilize what’s already available.
Canva has a free plan and three paid plans:
- Canva Pro plan: $14.99/month
- Canva Teams plan: $29.99/month
- Canva Enterprise plan: Custom pricing
Best Features
- Pre-made templates
- User-friendly interface
- Wide range of design capabilities
#7. CapCut
While Canva focuses on images, CapCut is a social media tool that specializes in video content. The app boasts extensive editing features, including video trimming and merging, text-to-speech conversions, and background removals.
According to Statista, social media users spend 19 hours per week watching videos. So, if you are planning to focus on video content, CapCut is an excellent tool to use.
However, videos edited on the platform always feature the brand’s watermark. Additionally, CapCut is mostly a mobile app and not a full-scale desktop editing tool, which means it won’t be ideal for bigger organizations.
The app is free, but if you want to access more advanced video-editing features, you can subscribe to their paid plan:
- Starter plan: $25.99/month
Best Features
- Collaborative editing
- Ready-made templates
- User-friendly interface
#8. Wistia
If you found CapCut lacking, consider trying Wistia, a video hosting platform with more advanced video editing features. With this tool, you can access in-depth video analytics, add interactive elements to your content, and create quality video content that converts.
While it may be confusing to have an analytics feature on a video platform, this built-in feature can provide insights into your target audience’s engagement and interests so you can optimize your content strategy.
Despite its excellent video-focused features, Wistia’s free plan is extremely limited, and its paid plans are quite expensive.
Wistia has a free plan and three paid plans:
- Plus plan: $24/month
- Pro plan: $99/month
- Advanced plan: $399/month
Best Features
- Custom CTA
- Unlimited video galleries
- Marketing integrations
#9. Google Analytics
While most social media management platforms, like Publer, already come with a powerful analytics feature, you can use Google Analytics if you want a more comprehensive view of your metrics.
This is a marketing- and social media analytics-focused tool that tracks website traffic, performance, and conversions. Google Analytics can help you determine which platforms are driving the most traffic, how well your content is performing, and how effective your current strategy is at achieving your goals.
Google Analytics is completely free, making it a perfect supplementary tool for marketers who want to refine their social media strategies. However, the platform can be confusing and presents a steep learning curve for first-time users.
Best Features
- Real-time data collection
- Customizable dashboards
- Complete integration with other Google tools
#10. RivalIQ
The cleverly named RivalIQ is another excellent social media tool for analytics tracking and competitor analysis. With this tool, you can easily monitor your competitors’ online presence and social media engagement to see how your own strategies compare.
RivalIQ also offers automated custom reporting, social content analysis, and in-depth comparisons that include information about your competition’s social media profiles. Unfortunately, its pricing plans are extremely expensive, which means it won’t be ideal for smaller businesses.
The platform has three paid plans:
- Drive plan: $239/month
- Engage plan: $349/month
- Engage Pro plan: $559/month
Best Features
- Private data analysis
- Social listening tool
- Estimated impressions
#11. Audiense
Audiense is a social media tool that specializes in customer intelligence and analytics. It provides in-depth insights into your performance metrics and provides suggestions to improve engagement rates.
Moreover, Audiense can provide you with detailed information about your target audience, including their interests, personalities, and the brands and influencers they follow. This information can help you create more targeted campaigns and improve ROI.
Due to its unique features, the platform presents a learning curve for users, and its pricing is not transparent, as it is only available upon request.
Audiense has no free plan and four paid subscription plans:
- Audiense Insights plan: Around $1,530/month
- Affinio plan: Custom pricing
- Meta Insights plan: Custom pricing
- Audiense Demand plan: Custom pricing
Best Features
- Social media insights
- Consumer segmentation
- Social listening tool
#12. Google Trends
Google Trends is a free social media tool that can be a valuable resource for fresh content ideas and relevant topics. This easy-to-use platform allows users to identify current trends, compare search terms, and discover the best keywords to use in their content.
Like Google Analytics, Google Trends is free to use, and you don’t need to create an account for it; simply go to their website and start your search. That said, the app isn’t without flaws, and the results you get can sometimes be limited.
Best Features
- Keyword research
- Topic discovery
- Market research
#13. BuzzSumo
With BuzzSumo, you’ll never run out of content ideas, as this powerful social media tool for marketing will help you find trending topics in seconds. It boasts excellent research tools that allow you to discover the top-performing content on various social media sites.
Additionally, the platform has a handy Chrome extension that allows you to research while browsing, improving efficiency. You can even use custom filters to narrow down your search results by language, country, and other metrics.
Due to its range of features, BuzzSumo can be quite overwhelming and can take some time to get used to. Its pricing plans are also on the expensive side, too.
The app has four paid plans:
- Content Creation plan: $199/month
- PR & Comms plan: $299/month
- Suite Plan: $499/month
- Enterprise plan: $999/month
Best Features
- Content analyzer
- RSS feed
- Granular Location search
#14. LinkedIn Campaign Manager
Finally, the LinkedIn Campaign Manager is an excellent social media advertising tool that can help you maximize your ROI. The platform allows you to create and manage ad campaigns on LinkedIn to boost content visibility and discoverability.
Its intuitive interface allows users to monitor campaigns easily, while its advanced targeting options allow businesses to optimize reach and market to a broader audience. To learn about the different types of ads you can run on the platform, check out our LinkedIn ads guide.
The LinkedIn Campaign Manager is free to use, but you need to pay to run an ad campaign on the platform. Unfortunately, ad campaigns on LinkedIn are more expensive than those on other social media sites, and the entire platform is mainly focused on B2B companies. This means it may not be the best tool for businesses just starting out.
Best Features
- Comprehensive analytics tool
- Multiple ad formats
- Audience Insights
Key Takeaways
- Social media tools are platforms that can help optimize your marketing efforts and improve your online presence.
- Task automation, third-party integrations, and a comprehensive analytics tool are important features to look for in social media tools.
- The top social media tools you need are Publer for all-around social media management, Canva for content, Audiense for analytics, and BuzzSumo for content ideas.
Ervin Kalemi
