Essential Tools for Social Media Managers

By Cam Velasco

CEO & Co-Founder

Published: March 26, 2024

Equip yourself with essential social media management tools: Hootsuite, Buffer, Google Analytics, and Canva. Streamline your strategy effectively!
A cheerful social media manager with curly hair and glasses is seated at a desk with her laptop, radiating confidence and preparedness.

If you’re diving into the world of social media management, having the right tools at your disposal is crucial. This guide covers essential tools across scheduling, analytics, ad management, and design to keep your social media strategy on track. Here’s a quick rundown:

Each tool offers unique features tailored to different aspects of social media management, from scheduling and analytics to design and engagement. 

Scheduling and Publishing

Key tools like Hootsuite and Sprout Social let you plan and set up your social media posts ahead of time. This means you can decide when your posts go live, making sure your messages are consistent and timed just right.

Analytics and Reporting

These tools for social media managers give you the numbers to show how well your social media is doing. You can see how many people your posts are reaching, how many are interacting with them, and what kind of action they’re taking. This info helps you figure out what your audience likes and how to give them more of it.

Monitoring and Engagement

These tools also keep an eye on what people are saying about your brand and let you jump into conversations when needed. This can be anything from saying thanks to a compliment, solving a problem, or joining in on a trending topic. Staying active and responsive makes people more likely to notice and stick with your brand.

Ad Management

If you’re putting money into ads on social media, tools like Facebook Business Manager make it easier to get your ads in front of the right people, manage your budget, and see how your ads are performing. This helps your paid and unpaid efforts work together better, reaching more people.

With the right tools, managing social media becomes a lot less overwhelming. You can get more done and show clearly how your work is helping your brand grow online.

Essential Tools for Social Media Managers: A Brief Explanation

A person's hand holding a smartphone with a gallery of images on the screen, blurred laptop keyboard in the background.

1. Hootsuite

Platform Integrations

Hootsuite works with more than 250 different platforms, including big social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. It also connects with tools that help teams work together, like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Adobe Creative Cloud. This means you can handle many accounts and work with your team all from one place.

Some important connections include tools for planning and sharing posts, like Buffer and Sprout Social, to help you reach more people, and support for understanding your results, like Google Analytics and Sprout Social

Scheduling Capabilities

With Hootsuite, you can plan your posts ahead of time. Plan as many posts as you want for all your connected accounts, and use a calendar to see all your planned posts

Analytics and Reporting

Hootsuite lets you see how your posts and campaigns are doing by keeping track of likes, shares, clicks, and more for each post. It also allows us to find out which posts are doing the best.

Pricing and Scalability

At the moment, it has four plans that range from $99/month for one person to custom pricing for big teams. You can pick a plan that fits how much you’re doing on social media and grow from there.

User Interface and Ease of Use

This tool has a clear dashboard where you can do everything you need to. Key features include a place to handle messages, a spot to keep and organize your posts, and different roles and permissions for team members.

2. Sendible

Platform Integrations

Sendible lets you work with big social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile, YouTube, WordPress, and more. This means you can handle all your social media in one spot.

Scheduling Capabilities

With Sendible, you can pick times to post when more of your followers are online, put posts in a line-up to go out at the best times automatically and answer comments and messages on places like Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Analytics and Reporting

Gives you a basic look at how your posts are doing. It includes quick reports on how well your posts are working. It Works with Google Analytics to show how social media helps bring people to your website

Pricing and Scalability

Sendible’s prices start at $29/month and go up depending on how many users and social accounts you need.

User Interface and Ease of Use

It is easy for beginners since it offers simple ways to schedule posts and set them up to post automatically.

Sendible is a good choice if you want to keep social media management simple and affordable.

3. SocialPilot

Platform Integrations

SocialPilot works with popular sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Business Profile, and TikTok. This means you can handle all your important social media accounts in one spot.

Scheduling Capabilities

With SocialPilot, you can schedule as many posts as you want ahead of time, pick the best times to post based on when your audience is usually online, easily change the order of your planned posts in the calendar, and set rules to share new stuff on its own.

Analytics and Reporting

SocialPilot is one of the tools for social media managers that help you understand how many people see and interact with your posts, who your audience is and what they like, and how your number of followers is changing.

Pricing and Scalability

SocialPilot has four plans you can choose from:

  • Starter ($25/month) – 1 user, 5 social profiles
  • Small Team ($42/month) – 3 users, 20 social profiles
  • Agency ($125/month) – 10 users, 50 social profiles
  • Enterprise (custom pricing)

You can also try it for free for 14 days.

User Interface and Ease of Use

SocialPilot is made to be easy to use, it offers a straightforward dashboard for all the tools, a simple way to schedule posts by dragging and dropping, and an option to reuse posts you’ve made before.

4. Canva

Platform Integrations

Canva works well with big social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. This means you can make your own pictures and designs for your posts right inside Canva, making things easier.

Scheduling Capabilities

Canva itself doesn’t let you schedule when your posts go live. But, you can save your designs from Canva and then use other tools to schedule those posts. This makes it easy to use the pictures you create.

Analytics and Reporting

It doesn’t tell you how well your designs are doing on social media. For that, you’ll need to look at the numbers from the social media sites themselves to see how people are reacting.

Pricing and Scalability

Canva offers different plans:

  • Free – Gives you basic features and templates
  • Pro ($9.99/month) – Offers more features and content
  • Enterprise (Custom pricing) – For even more features and options for your brand

The Pro plan is good for most small teams because it lets everyone use a lot of content.

User Interface and Ease of Use

Canva is known for being easy to use. It lets you use simple drag-and-drop tools, and lots of ready-to-use templates and work on designs with your team.

Canva makes it simple for anyone to start making good-looking graphics without needing a lot of experience, that’s what makes it one of the most user-friendly tools for social media managers.

5. Zoho Social

Platform Integrations

Zoho Social connects with big social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Google Business Profile. This means you can handle all your important social media accounts in one place.

Scheduling Capabilities

With Zoho Social, you can plan lots of posts ahead of time, choose the best times to post when more of your followers are online and stop scheduled posts if something unexpected happens.

Analytics and Reporting

Zoho Social shows you how many people saw and interacted with your posts, what your audience likes, and how you’re getting new leads from social media.

Pricing and Scalability

Zoho Social has different prices starting from free to $40/month:

  • Free – 1 user, 7 social profiles
  • Standard – $10/month for 3 users, 15 profiles
  • Professional – $20/month for 5 users, 25 profiles
  • Enterprise – $40/month for 10+ users

User Interface and Ease of Use

Zoho Social offers a clear dashboard to manage everything, an easy-to-use calendar for planning posts, and mobile apps so you can post on the go.

This is a good choice for people working alone, small teams, and those who make content, because it’s easy to use and doesn’t cost a lot.

Criteria for Choosing the Right Tool for Social Media Managers

A neon sign of a message bubble with a heart and a zero, glowing in blue and red, against a dark background.

When you’re picking a social media management tool, here’s what to keep in mind:

Platform Integrations

Make sure the tool works with all the big social media sites you use, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. This lets you handle everything from one place.

Scheduling Capabilities

It’s important to find a tool that lets you plan your posts ahead of time. This way, you can organize your social media posts in advance and have more time for other stuff.

Analytics and Reporting

Good tools show you how your posts are doing with details like how many people saw them and how many clicked. This info helps you understand what’s working.

Pricing and Scalability

Think about how much the tool costs and if it fits with how big your team is or how much you plan to grow. It’s great if there’s a free trial so you can try it out first.

User Interface and Ease of Use

Look for a tool that’s easy to use with a clear setup. It should help you do your daily tasks without a lot of hassle and work well on phones too.

Keeping these points in mind will help you find the social media tools that fit what you need and help you succeed. Try out a few to see which one works best for you.

Conclusion

Mastering social media management requires leveraging the right tools to streamline scheduling, analytics, engagement, and design. From industry giants like Hootsuite and Canva to emerging platforms like Sendible and SocialPilot, each tool offers a unique set of features tailored to different facets of social media strategy.

 By embracing these tools, social media managers can enhance efficiency, optimize performance, and propel their brands to digital success, ensuring a seamless and impactful online presence.

A professional woman with glasses holding a tablet, next to text 'WORK FULL-TIME 100% REMOTE FOR US COMPANIES' with the Floowi logo

Related Posts:

Cam Velasco

CEO & Co-Founder

Unlock your marketing potential with Floowi