Social media management tools: your complete guide

If you’re marketing something on social media – whether it’s yourself, your brand, or both – you’ll no doubt be aware that there’s a huge range of social media management tools out there. 

These handy tools can help you with everything from scheduling posts to assessing ad performance. With so many to choose from, it can be tricky to assess which ones will work best for you. Which tools you choose to use will depend on what you’re trying to achieve and how much you want to spend.

What are the best social media management tools? How much do they cost? And what exactly do they do? We’ll answer all these questions (and many more) in this all-in-one guide.

What is a social media management tool?

Social media management tools (also known as social media management software, social media marketing tools, or social media management platforms) can be anything from a simple photo editing app, to a one-stop, do-it-all dashboard for planning, posting, and reporting on your content. 

The best social media management tools help marketers, business owners, and content creators spend more time on creative and strategic work, and less time on the operational aspects of managing social media accounts. 

Some tools focus on very specific functions related to social media marketing. For example, they’re incredible for creating and scheduling posts. Other tools are all-rounders that do everything – creating, scheduling, publishing, monitoring, analysing, engaging, and collaborating. But they may not do all these things equally well.

What are the main types of social media tools?

While there are social media management tools out there to do almost any social media-related job imaginable, generally speaking, the tools fall into five main categories:

1. Content creation – helping you create engaging content
2. Content curation – helping you to find great content to share and talk about
3. Content planning, scheduling, and publishing – helping you plan, schedule, and post your content to different social platforms
4. Analytics and social listening – helping you track your social media performance, brand mentions, and more 
5. Influencer management – helping you manage your relationship with social influencers

What tools do social media managers need?

Managing social media accounts can feel incredibly overwhelming, especially when you’re dealing with multiple accounts across multiple platforms. Having access to at least one or two good social media management tools is vital – not just to ensure your social media marketing is effective, but also to save your own sanity.

If you’re just starting out and trying to grow your presence, then a tool (or tools) with scheduling, publishing, and reporting functionality is the bare minimum you should aim for. Why? Scheduling and publishing because it’ll help you streamline posting and be more efficient. Reporting, because if you don’t know what’s worked and what hasn’t, it’s impossible to improve your feed.

If you’re managing a bigger presence, then having tools to help with all of the functions listed in the section above will bring added efficiencies.

Social media management tool prices

How much do social media management platforms cost? This is the big question. A tool could be all-singing and all-dancing, but if you can’t afford it, then it’s of no use to you. 

We’ve highlighted the prices of individual tools in our rundown of the best social media management tools below. The majority of these tools are available as SaaS (software as a service) platforms. That means if you want to go beyond using the free version available, there’s usually a subscription fee to pay monthly or yearly. The costs will increase depending on the number of users, the number of social media platforms or accounts you want to connect, or both.

Are there any free social media management tools?

You can access some social media management platforms for free in what’s known as a ‘freemium’ model. In other words, it’s a paid-for tool that offers a free version. We’ve highlighted the best one (in our opinion), and it’s worth bearing in mind that using free tools (or free versions of paid-for tools) may limit the functionality you’ll have access to. This might be OK if you’re only managing a small presence.

If you’ve got a large social media presence with multiple accounts on multiple platforms, you may find it’s worth paying to simplify your day-to-day job.

The best social media management tools – from content creation to analytics

So you’re convinced you need the tools, but which ones should you choose? We’ve scoured the web to bring you the best tools across all the main categories:

1. Best all-rounder social media management tools
2. Best free social media management tool
3. Best tools for social media content creation
4. Best tools for social media content curation 
5. Best social media scheduling and posting tools
6. Best social media analytics tools
7. Best social media influencer tool

1. Best all-rounder social media management tools

Want a tool that manages as much of the social media work as possible? These are the ones to try:

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is one of the biggest and most well-established social media management platforms. And with good reason. Its host of tools allows you to work seamlessly across multiple accounts and platforms, making it a good choice for medium-to-large companies and agencies that manage multiple profiles for clients.

Features:

• Publish and schedule social media posts to a variety of platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and more
• Manage incoming messages and mentions, and respond to them in a single inbox
• Monitor online conversations around your brand and industry to gather audience sentiment and stay on top of trending topics
• Access analytics functionality that will help you to keep track of performance
  
  

Price: From £39 per month for their ‘Professional’ subscription. They also offer a 30-day free trial.