Revised May 22, 2023
Revised December 1, 2022
Revised December 6, 2021
Revised December 14, 2020
Revised May 31, 2019
Monitoring and managing even a moderately active business social media presence can be time-consuming. The number of people using social media continues to grow, usage is increasing, and more networks require attention.
Add multiple accounts on each platform (for example, monitoring accounts for specific product lines or key executives) and the time challenge becomes even more significant. Add multiple companies (as an agency or social media consultant may manage) and it borders on overwhelming.
Fortunately, social media management tools are increasing in number and sophistication as well. The tools here can help marketers and social media managers monitor brand mentions, schedule posts across multiple social networks, manage multiple social media accounts, redirect posts for customer service followup, track performance metrics, and more.
As a reminder, in all posts in this series, tools are shown with the number of results returned by Google on Boolean searches for each tool name in conjunction with “review,” “tool” and other related words. This doesn’t perfectly capture the actual number of reviews, but it does provide a reasonably accurate reflection of relative popularity, as well as a uniform standard of measurement.
Other sources and methodologies will, of course, produce different ranking results. For example: one of the sources used for this post was Ian Anderson Gray’s 5 Best Social Media Management Tools. He recently updated that post for 2017. Based on more than 1,000 user ratings, his top five tools are, in order:
- Agorapulse
- Sprout Social
- Sendible
- Buffer
- HootSuite
So there’s that. Now, on to the results of my research.
1) HootSuite
Google Review Count: 437
Sample review: “Mobile networks or Utility companies love Hootsuite as it allows them to delegate customer messages to different team members and these can be managed overall by an administrator. Another useful feature is that Hootsuite allows you to store draft messages that you can post when you receive a frequently asked question for example open hours or directions to your business.” — iag.Me
Pricing: $10/$35/$100 per user per month; enterprise pricing by quote
Showcase reviews: B2B PR Sense Blog, Blogging Wizard, BuzzBlogger, Catherine Pham/SlideShare, Express Writers, iag.Me (HootSuite), iag.Me (Social), iMedia Connection, MarketingLand, Mention, RazorSocial (Technology), Robbie Richards, Shift Communications, SnapApp, SteamFeed, StoreYa Blog, ViralBlog, Visually
2) Buffer
Google Review Count: 426
Schedule posts and updates across social networks, from multiple accounts. Create image posts with graphics pre-sized for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
Sample review: “Buffer is a great automation tool. You set at what times of the day you want Buffer to post to your connected networks. You can add to your Buffer with one click from Feedly, or the Chrome extension.” — Anders Orsander
Pricing: free or four levels from $10 to $400 per month
Showcase reviews: Anders Orsander, ArCompany, Blogging Wizard, BuzzBlogger, Catherine Pham/SlideShare, Cent Muruganandam, Entrepreneur, Express Writers, iag.Me (Social), Katie Lance, Marketing Insider Group, Online Marketing Institute, PR Daily, RazorSocial (Technology), Rebekah Radice, Shift Communications, SnapApp, SteamFeed, StoreYa Blog, TNW News, ViralBlog, Visually
3) Radian6 (aka Social Studio)
Google Review Count: 331
Publish posts across social networks and accounts; analyze trends and sentiment with analytics; monitor brand mentions; and automatically trigger customer service cases and tech support tickets. Now part of Salesforce.com Marketing Cloud.
Sample review: “Known as the industry’s social pioneer, Radian6 says it lets marketers quickly and efficiently track, monitor, and react to comments, questions, and complaints in real-time. Listen and engage more than 650 million sources, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.” — MarketingLand
Pricing: contact vendor for pricing
Showcase reviews: MarketingLand
4) Sprout Social
Google Review Count: 324
Sample review: “Sprout Social…allows marketers to publish to Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, while engaging their audience right from their desktop or mobile device. Integrated analytics allow users to monitor their social media efforts with in-depth reports.” — MarketingLand
Pricing: four levels from $59 to $1,500 per month
Showcase reviews: ArCompany, Blogging Wizard, BuzzBlogger, Catherine Pham/SlideShare, Express Writers, iag.Me (Social), Katie Lance, MarketingLand, Rebekah Radice, SnapApp, Visually
5) SocialFlow
Google Review Count: 306
Enter your content into a queue and SocialFlow uses real-time data, along with your business rules, to determine what and when to publish through your social media accounts. Supports Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and social media advertising.
Sample review: “Awesome posting and social management platforms that allow you to scale all your social promotion by scheduling, analyzing, listening, and collaborating across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, among others, include SocialFlow.” — SnapApp
Pricing: contact vendor for pricing
Showcase reviews: Catherine Pham/SlideShare, SnapApp
6) SocialOomph
Google Review Count: 300
Sample review: “Schedule your tweets, Facebook posts, LinkedIn updates, and more. Track keywords. Monitor your social media activity and find key influencers in your market. Social Oomph allows you to be more efficient and effective on all of your social media platforms.” — BuzzBlogger
Pricing: free, $14 or $36 per month
Showcase reviews: BuzzBlogger, Catherine Pham/SlideShare
7) Edgar
Google Review Count: 255
Add content manually, in bulk, or through an RSS feed to Edgar. Organizes posts into categories and create a schedule for each category. The tool automatically reshares older posts, keeping your content and accounts active.
Sample review: “Edgar, like Buffer and Hootsuite, is a great solution to manage what you share. Edgar though takes scheduling a step forward by enabling the system to choose what content to share (with your help).” — StoreYa Blog
Pricing: $49 per month
Showcase reviews: Entrepreneur, StoreYa Blog
8) Commun.it
Google Review Count: 242
Sample review: “If you’re looking to better manage your Twitter stream, Commun.it is the tool for you. Commun.it is a true relationship-building tool that takes Twitter from noisy to nurturing. Log in and you will quickly find data, analysis and insights that allow you to quickly engage with those engaging with you. Build better relationships by listening in on conversations happening around your industry, business or niche.” — Katie Lance
Pricing: four levels from $20 to $118 per month
Showcase reviews: ArCompany, BuzzBlogger, Express Writers, Katie Lance, Rebekah Radice, StoreYa Blog, ViralBlog
9) DrumUp
Google Review Count: 183
Sample review: “I have found (DrumUp) to be the easiest way to co-promote my content on multiple social media channels. Easy scheduling and re-sharing options!” — Robbie Richards
Pricing: four levels from $15 to $159 per month
Showcase reviews: Moz, Robbie Richards
10) Post Planner
Google Review Count: 180
Sample review: “(Post Planner is) an app that helps you manage and enhance your marketing strategy. In other words, it does all the heavy lifting so you can focus on what matters – building relationships, driving traffic and making sales. But what really makes Post Planner stand out is that it also helps marketers find the perfect content to post. ” — Rebekah Radice
Pricing: $9/$19/$49 per month
Showcase reviews: BuzzBlogger, RazorSocial (World), Rebekah Radice, SnapApp
11) Oktopost
Google Review Count: 174
Schedule content for posting across social platforms, measure clicks and engagement, discover and curate relevant industry content, monitor brand mentions, collaborate with social media team members, and tap employee advocacy for amplification.
Sample review: “Underscoring their focus on B2B engagement, Oktopost integrates with Marketo, Salesforce, Act-On and others, directly linking social media actions to the impact on sales. One thing that places Oktopost above other tools is its ability to monitor LinkedIn Groups as well as company pages. As a whole package, Oktopost qualifies and quantifies better leads for you and your business.” — Visually
Pricing: contact vendor for pricing
Showcase reviews: Blogging Wizard, Catherine Pham/SlideShare, RazorSocial (Technology), SteamFeed, Visually
12) Sendible
Google Review Count: 173
Sample review: “(Sendible) is a powerful social-media tool that brings together all aspects of your social-media management responsibilities. This includes pulling all posts and comments into one dashboard for analysis, measurement and engagement. Other features include publishing, collaboration, customer relationship management and mobile tools.” — Entrepreneur
“There’s so much to like about the tool. A huge number of social integrations for a start, including ones that many other tools don’t support, such as Flickr, Slideshare, WordPress and Tumblr. I love the integrations with Dropbox, Google Drive and Canva. Larger agencies will love the ability to white label Sendible and offer it as their own social media management tool as one of their services.” — iag.Me (Social)
Pricing: $59/$139/$499 per month
Showcase reviews: Catherine Pham/SlideShare, Entrepreneur, iag.Me (Social)
13) Everypost
Google Review Count: 173
Curate visual content from a variety of sources, customize and schedule posts, collaborate among team members, and measure results with social analytics. Share multimedia content across multiple social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linkedin, Pinterest and tumblr.
Sample review: “One of the most popular mobile apps for publishing your content to Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Tumblr. Used by Guy Kawasaki, Ian Cleary, and many other social media superstars.” — BuzzBlogger
Pricing: free or four levels from $10 to $100 per month
Showcase reviews: BuzzBlogger
14) Agorapulse
Google Review Count: 169
Sample reviews: “Agorapulse, unlike other scheduling platforms, offers a cool unique feature whereby you can spy on your competitors so that you can see how well (or not so well) their social media campaigns are performing. You’re able to view a breakdown of their following, fans, people talking about them, fan posts, page posts, interactions and engagement.” — Lilach Bullock
“Agora Pulse (is) now my main social media management tool…The social inbox workflow helps me get through all my social mentions, comments and messages every day very quickly.” — iag.Me (Social)
Pricing: four levels from $49 to $299 per month
Showcase reviews: Lilach Bullock, Entrepreneur, Express Writers, iag.Me (Social), RazorSocial (Technology), RazorSocial (World), Rebekah Radice, StoreYa Blog
15) BundlePost
Google Review Count: 152
A social content management system that lets you curate posts from RSS feeds, Google Alerts, or other sources. The most recent and unique posts are preformatted and ready to be selected, edited and merged with a schedule. Designed to work with, rather than alternative to, social management tools like HootSuite, Sendible or SocialOomph.
Sample review: “This social-media tool is another option for scheduling your posts but one that comes with features that improve upon other options. One highlight is Bundlepost will replace common niche keywords with hashtags, vastly improving your engagement results.” — Entrepreneur
Pricing: $20/$50/$100 per month
Showcase reviews: Entrepreneur
16) Babbly
Google Review Count: 131
Share content from other Babbly users to get your content shared. Post to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn with one click. Schedule posts or use “autospread” to automatically post social updates at timed intervals.
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: Entrepreneur
17) HubSpot Social Inbox
Google Review Count: 78
Post content directly to multiple social networks manually, automatically, or based on a schedule you create. Monitor social mentions, keywords, or hashtags, set up alerts, and collaborate with team members.
Pricing: a component of HubSpot inbound marketing software
Showcase reviews: Catherine Pham/SlideShare
More Tools
Lithium
Google Review Count: 180
Lithium Social Media Management combines publishing and response feature sets for marketing and customer service. On the publishing (marketing) side, the platform includes functionality for post auto-scheduling, team collaboration, campaign workflow and tracking, content discovery, and analytics. Lithium also offer capabilities for customer engagement and community building.
Pricing: contact vendor
Later
Google Review Count: 177
Pricing: $18/$40/$80 per month
MissingLettr
Google Review Count: 144
Pricing: $15/$47/$147 per month
eClincher
Google Review Count: 122
Schedule and publish updates on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest; manage posts as one-time, “recycled,” or campaigns; auto-post from RSS feeds; monitor keywords and hashtags; track analytics via dashboards or reports; and collaborate among team members.
Pricing: four levels from $15 to $199 per month, plus enterprise pricing by quote
Planable
Google Review Count: 120
For in-house social media teams that need management review or agencies and consultants who need client approval for social media posts, Planable is a social media review and management platform that enables you to preview Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram posts as they will appear. Team members can edit posts based on feedback then schedule them for publishing.
Pricing: three levels: free; $49 per month; enterprise pricing by quote
Loomly
Capture post ideas (from RSS feeds, Twitter trends, and other sources), store content in a centralied library, optimize posts, create and manage an editing and approval workflow (with version history), schedule posts, and analyze results.
Pricing: five levels from $12 to $320 per month
Statusbrew
Google Review Count: 120
Create, schedule, and publish multiple social media posts across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google My Business at once. Bring all your social conversations in a single inbox to collaborate and provide real-time, personal, and automated support at scale. Measure engagement, audience demographics, and paid campaign performance.
Pricing: $69/$129/$229 per month; enterprise pricing by quote
MavSocial
Google Review Count: 120
Schedule and publish content across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and Tumblr. Create and schedule social media campaigns; reschedule posts; track audience engagement by network; source images for social updates; and collaborate among team members.
Pricing: $59 plus $24 per additional user per month; enterprise pricing starting at $599 per month
Kontentino
Google Review Count: 114
A social media management tool for agencies that lets agency teams and client preview posts as they will appear on social networks, schedule content using a drag-and-drop calendar, and approve posts with one click. Schedule content for posting on several top platforms including Instagram and boost Facebook posts within the Kontentino tool.
Pricing: $89/$180/$340 per month, plus enterprise pricing by quote
SocialPilot
Google Review Count: 110
Pricing: $25/$42/$83 per month, plus enterprise pricing by quote
HeyOrca
Google Review Count: 110
An online social media planner built for marketing agencies, HeyOrca lets agency social media and client managers preview social media posts as they will appear to provide feedback and approval. Maintain social post calendars by client. Plan content, coordinate with internal team members, post directly to popular social networks, and monitor performance analytics.
Pricing: starts at $99 per month
Repost by Elokenz
Google Review Count: 105
Store social media content and RSS feeds in your library, then repost across popular social networks with a click, based on a schedule you create, or let the tool automatically and intelligently share content based on different audience variables.
Pricing: free or $10/$26 per month
Social Champ
Google Review Count: 102
Schedule posting of content across the top social networks and track clicks. Set time gaps for repeated content. Get suggestions for content to share based on topically filtered RSS feeds.
Pricing: free or $10/$50/$100 per month
Plann
Google Review Count: 98
An all-in-one auto-scheduler, social strategist, designer, and content calendar for Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, TikTok, and LinkedIn. Get access to social media post templates plus editable stock photos and videos, plus imaging editing tools and analytics.
Pricing: $8/$16/$45 per month
VistaSocial
Google Review Count: 92
Pricing: free or $3 per month per profile
ContentStudio
Google Review Count: 90
Pricing: free or $10/$50/$100 per month
RecurPost
Google Review Count: 88
Pricing: free or $25/$50 per month
ZoomSphere
Google Review Count: 70
A comprehensive social media management tool suite that lets you collaborate with clients or team members using notes, direct messages, and group chats; create customized approval workflows; schedule social media posts; and manage project workflow through task assignment and tracking.
Pricing: individual apps priced from $32 to $163 per month
Lately
Google Review Count: 64
Lately positions its offering as “end-to-end social media marketing powered by humans and AI.” It creates social media posts, provides a planning calendar and content library, auto-posts updates to multiple social media accounts and networks, and displays engagement analytics. The tool can automatically repurpose blog posts, press releases, white papers, and other content into pre-hashtagged and pre-shortlinked social media posts. Not to be confused with Later.
Pricing: contact vendor for pricing
Chirp Media
Google Review Count: 61
Chirp’s social media post scheduler runs all your social media accounts from one simple dashboard. Upload media files to the Chirp File Manager for use across networks and posts. Schedule publishing with text, images, video, and hashtags to any of your accounts. Get detailed analytics on followers and post performance. Supports Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google My Business, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
Pricing: $23/month or $119/year
Falcon.io
Google Review Count: 58
Social media management platform incorporating social listening (based on product, category or popular topics, with sentiment analysis and influencer identification); content distribution channel planning and scheduling; customer support and engagement; and audience management.
Pricing: contact vendor for pricing
Social Web Suite
Google Review Count: 41
Pricing: $9/$14/$29/$39 per month
Post Maker
Google Review Count: 35
A social media content creator that allows you to quickly create multiple versions of posts. Build up your list of variables (products, CTAs, promotions etc.) across all of your accounts, a client, or a particular campaign, and generate tens or hundreds of posts in seconds. Designed to work with your favorite social media management tools, Post Maker exports compatible CSV files for SocialBee, Agorapulse, Hootsuite, Publer, MeetEdgar, SmarterQueue, SocialChamp, Social Pilot, RecurPost, and Sendible, with more planned.
Pricing: $12/$39/$250 per month
HipSocial
Google Review Count: 35
An all-in-one social media management tool that enables users to create posts with native media editing tools; schedule posts; monitor unlimited custom streams; engage with followers; manage multiple social profiles from a single dashboard; collaborate with a team; and measure the impact of social content through analytics.
Pricing: $8/$50 per user per month
Potomac Social
Google Review Count: 31
Schedule and post updates across the most popular social media platforms, Create and manage social media contests, sweepstakes, and special deals. Monitor and respond to customer comments, and track results with social analytics.
Pricing: $4/$10 per month, plus agency pricing by quote
SocialPull
Google Review Count: 4
Grow the right audience by posting content tailored to your brand. Approve your daily AI-generated suggestions with one click to automatically schedule. Choose your hashtags and the tool searches for the latest relevant news and updates for you to post on social media. AI automatically composes customized daily post suggestions. Approve with one click in the app to schedule.
Pricing: $10/$30/$140 per month
UniClix
Google Review Count: N/A
Currently in beta, UniClix lets you schedule and automate posting across popular social networks, with intelligence about the best times to post. It offers functionality for auto-curation by selecting topic-relevant content, and for growing your social media following on Twitter.
Pricing: starting at $8 per month
Showcase Reviews
Anders Orsander
ArCompany
Blogging Wizard
BuzzBlogger
Catherine Pham/SlideShare
Cent Muruganandam
Lilach Bullock
Entrepreneur
Express Writers
iag.Me (HootSuite)
iag.Me (Social)
iMedia Connection
Katie Lance
Marketing Insider Group
MarketingLand
Moz
Online Marketing Institute
PR Daily
RazorSocial (Technology)
RazorSocial (World)
Rebekah Radice
Robbie Richards
Shift Communications
SnapApp
SteamFeed
StoreYa Blog
TNW News
ViralBlog
Visually
This was the 36th post in the Best Online Business Tools series.
#1: Best Online Business Tools Series Kicks Off Today
#2: The 12 Best Competitive Intelligence and Benchmarking Tools
#3: The Nine Best Facebook Marketing Tools
#4: The 14 Best Content Planning and Research Tools
#5: The 23 Best Content Ideation Tools
#6: The 24 Best Online Writing Tools and Apps
#7: The Six Best Google+ Marketing Tools
#8: The Four Best Online Education Tools For Business Pros
#9: The 14 Best Marketing Automation Tools
#10: The 17 Best Keyword Research Tools for SEO and SEM
#11: The Seven Best File Sharing Tools
#12: The Five Best Infographic Creation Tools and Services
#13: The 28 Best Influencer Marketing Tools
#14: The Five Best Pinterest and Instagram Marketing Tools
#15: The 24 Best Visual Content Creation Tools
#16: The Six Best Online HR, Payroll, and Employee Scheduling Tools
#17: The 20 Best SEO Rank Tracker Tools
#18: The Six Best Screen Capture Tools
#19: The 15 Best Special-Purpose SEO Tools
#20: The Four Best Online Survey Tools
#21: The 26 Best All-in-One SEO Tool Suites
#22: The 32 Best Twitter Marketing Tools
#23: The 29 Best Web Analytics Tools
#24: The 24 Best Email Marketing Tools
#25: The 28 Best Web Design Tools
#26: The 29 Best Social Media Monitoring Tools
#27: The 17 Best Project Management Tools
#28: The 21 Best Content Curation Tools
#29: The 26 Best WordPress Plugins
#30: The 14 Best Personal Productivity Tools
#31: The 11 Best Social Media Campaign Builders and Ad Monitoring Tools
#32: The 12 Best Landing Page and Form Builders for Conversion Rate Optimization
#33: The 17 Best Photo Editing Tools
#34: The Six Best Accounting and Finance Tools for Small Business
#35: The 15 Best Content Distribution and Amplification Tools
#36: The 17 Best Social Media Management Tools