Most Effective Social Media Tools

Social media is arguably one of the most powerful tools in any marketer’s arsenal. It can be used to reach a massive audience, and it can be used to reach a very targeted audience. But what’s the best way to use social media? The answer is: it depends.

With that in mind, we’ve created this blog post. We’ll cover the types of content you can share on social media, how to choose the right platforms for your business, and how to measure your results.

Most Effective Social Media Tools

1. Instagram

Ann Handley, chief content officer, MarketingProfs

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“Instagram is my favorite social network because of its social storytelling simplicity. From fun personal accounts – like Small Chalk and Adam Padilla – to corporate brands, it connects more immediately and deeply with people than any other platform. I still haven’t forgiven them for introducing an algorithm. (Chronological was so much more in line with the ethos of the platform.) But I can’t quit you, Insta.”

An image showing a screenshot of Ann Handley's Instagram account.

.@Instagram is my favorite social network because of its social #storytelling simplicity, says @annhandley via @CMIContent.CLICK TO TWEETHANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Instagram Marketing: Social Media Experts Share Top Tips

2. Twitter

Joe Pulizzi, founder, Content Marketing Institute

“I use social media as almost a pure response vehicle. And I won’t start any new social media app, platform, or tool until I’m 100% committed to it. My goal with Twitter is to keep in touch and communicate my appreciation to those people that support me. Once I built an audience on those platforms, my goals and execution changed.”

An image of Joe Pulizzi's Killing Marketing Twitter account.

3. Buffer

Joanna Wiebe, creator, Copyhackers

“Buffer. Three reasons. (1) You can install a browser widget that lets you Buffer any page or image you come across to be sent immediately or later. (2) Its Content Inbox: I can enter the URL of a favorite blog and Buffer instantly creates a huge list of tweets from that blog. (3) The company is transparent. I don’t expect every company to publish what they earn vs. what they pay people the way Buffer does, but it’s a warm-and-fuzzy approach to helping disconnected folks like moi see the humans behind a software company.”

An image showing Buffer's website.

4. BuzzSumo

Neil Patel, entrepreneur and influencer, NeilPatel.com

“With BuzzSumo you can see what is hot in your space on social media and what isn’t. From there you can craft ideas on the type of blog posts you should write to generate traffic and leads. The best part about BuzzSumo is it shows who has shared the content so you can reach out to those influencers and ask them to share your content as well.”

An image showing a screenshot of Most Shared blog posts via BuzzSumo.

Use @BuzzSumo so you can see what’s hot in your space on #SocialMedia & what isn’t, says @neilpatel via @CMIContent.CLICK TO TWEET

5. Animoto

Mari Smith, Facebook marketing expert

“Native video is the top-reaching post type on Facebook and gets three times the engagement of link posts and two times that of photo posts. I love using Animoto’s gorgeous templates, themes, and stock music. Its marketing builder tool also makes it super-duper easy to add text overlays – vital for sound-off autoplay videos in the Facebook newsfeed because 80% of video ads on Facebook are watched with sound off.”

80% of video ads on #Facebook are watched with sound off. Use text overlays, says @MariSmith via @CMIContent.CLICK TO TWEETHANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Video Marketing Strategy: What Marketers Need to Know

6. Moz’s Fresh Web Explorer

Rand Fishkin, founder, SparkToro

“Next to BuzzSumo – and without sounding biased – my favorite tool is Moz’s Keyword Explorer brand mention feature. It’s great for setting up mention alerts as well as finding content to share socially through keyword notifications. The mention authority feature works directly with Moz’s page and domain authority metrics and helps sort through all the noise you normally get with catch-all monitoring tools.”

An image showing a screenshot showing the results of Moz's Fresh Web Explorer Mention Authority Feature.

7. Tweeps Map

Brian D. Evans, founder, Influencive 

“The problem with a lot of marketing these days is that it’s not laser targeted and is far too broad. I use Tweeps Map because it gives me a visual representation of where my followers are geographically. I can then run targeting to followers from specific areas and make sure that the content is relevant and valuable for those followers.”

An image showing a map of Brian Evans followers using the Tweet Maps tool.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Data-Driven Creative: How to Use Twitter Data to Inform Your Marketing

8. Sumo

Jeff Bullas, CEO, JeffBullas.com 

“Sumo is a hybrid tool that’s a bit like a Swiss Army knife. It’s helped me thrive and survive in the wilds of the digital world by creating social-sharing buttons – onsite, SMS, Flipboard, and WhatsApp – and tracking my social counts on blog posts. The feature I really love is its Welcome Mat: a pop-up that captures emails. In less than 12 months, it’s collected over 40,000 email subscribers.”

I love @SumoMe’s Welcome Mat pop-up feature that captures emails, says @jeffbullas via @CMIContent.CLICK TO TWEET

9. Tailwind

Candice Galek, founder, Karma Honey Project 

“Tailwind has been a lifesaver over the years, allowing my team to work more quickly and efficiently when posting to Pinterest. It’s a scheduling app on steroids, helping you to choose not only when to post for maximum engagement but also what might go viral thanks to their pixel-matching technology and image recognition capabilities. You can seamlessly measure pin virality and repost that content to continue to grow your following on the platform.

Don’t sleep on Pinterest. Their introverted user base is keen on consuming online content, and Tailwind helps you to get it in front of more potential customers faster.”Don’t sleep on #Pinterest. Their introverted user base is keen on consuming online #content, and @tailwindapp helps you get it in front of more potentials customers faster, says @bikinigeek via @CMIContent.CLICK TO TWEET

10. Elevate

Jason Miller, head of brand, ActiveCampaign

“I like to keep things simple and streamlined: Less is more. The tool I use religiously is Elevate: LinkedIn’s employee advocacy tool. I use it to share, organize, and measure all the content I post across my main three social accounts: LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. I share daily from Elevate and track engagements.”

elevate-tool

social media tools for business

1. Buffer

The platform for successful social media management

Prices: Forever free plan, $5, $10, add $10 per month per social channel connected (with a 14-day free trial).

Description: Buffer is an intuitive, streamlined social media management platform trusted by small businesses and individuals to help drive meaningful engagement and results on social media.

We have a suite of products for publishing, engagement, analytics, simple landing pages, and team collaboration. Our products are carefully considered and highly refined in order to help social media marketers and teams work more efficiently and effectively.

Unique value: What we’ve heard from our customers is that they love how clean and intuitive our tools are, how friendly and timely our customer support is, and how helpful our content is.

Want an independent Buffer review? Check out this post.

Once you’ve researched all your options and if you think Buffer might suit your needs, we would love for you to give it a try and see the difference it can make for your social media management.

2. Hootsuite

Manage all your social media in one place

Hootsuite

Prices: Free plan, $29, $129, $599 per month, and enterprise pricing (with a 30-day free trial)

Description: Hootsuite, probably the biggest social media management tool, is used by over 15 million people and more than 800 of the Fortune 1000 companies.

There’s a good reason for their success: it’s an all-in-one platform that allows you to curate and schedule content, measure your social ROI, run social media ads, and more.

Unique value: Being such a comprehensive platform, there are several things that people love about Hootsuite: being able to monitor multiple accounts and keywords, connect with over 35 social networks, and bulk-schedule social media posts.

3. Sprout Social

Real people. Real brands. Real connection.

Sprout Social

Prices: $99, $149, and $249 per user per month (with a 30-day free trial)

Description: Similar to Hootsuite, Sprout Social combines several social media tools into one platform — from social media scheduling to monitoring, to reporting.

Sprout Social is one of the few social media management tools that provides customer relationship management (CRM) features. Having a complete profile of your customers help you serve them better and build stronger relationships with them.

Unique value: The most common praise I’ve heard about Sprout Social is its amazing reports. Many social media managers found the reports so great and beautiful that they would download and send them to their managers or clients without editing them.

4. Agora Pulse

Social media management simplified

Prices: Free, $79 per month, $159 per month, plus enterprise options

Description: Like the social media management platforms mentioned above, Agora Pulse is also an all-in-one social media platform with scheduling, responding, and reporting features.

Unique value: Unlike the rest, Agora Pulse has several unique features such as competitor analysis and Facebook contest apps at a very affordable price point.

5. Sendible

The #1 social media management tool for agencies

Sendible

Prices: $29, $99, $199, $299 per month, and enterprise pricing (with a 30-day free trial)

Description: Sendible is a social media management tool built specifically for agencies with several clients. On top of most features that social media management tools provide, Sendible allows you to customize your dashboard according to your branding to attract new clients.

Unique value: Sendible has some impressive integrations such as the Canva graphics editor, royalty-free image search, and YouTube search. It also provides some automation for those who want to save time on repetitive tasks.

6. eClincher

Best in class social media management tool

eClincher

Prices: $49, $99, $199 per month, and enterprise pricing (with a 14-day free trial)

Description: Like most social media management tools, eClincher allows you to schedule and publish posts, respond to social messages, and analyze your social media performance.

Unique value: What makes eClincher different from other tools is that it enables you to auto-post with smart queues and RSS feeds, has a media library for your images, and lets you search for social media influencers.

7. Social Pilot

Simple & cost-effective social media management tool for teams and agencies

Social Pilot

Prices: $10, $24, $40, $80 per month, and enterprise pricing (with a 14-day free trial)

Description: I like how Social Pilot fit many of the social media management tools (such as scheduling and analytics but not monitoring) into a simple dashboard and offer it at very affordable prices. With its client management feature, I believe it’s great for agencies that work with several clients.

Unique value: Social Pilot curates and suggests content from several industries (such as tech, education, and health and fitness), which is great if you want to find relevant content easily.

Another valuable feature is its white label reports, which are especially handy for agencies.

8. CoSchedule

#1 marketing calendar

CoSchedule

Prices: Starting at $0 – 20, $40, $60, $210, $300, $1,200 per month (with a 14-day free trial)

Description: CoSchedule is more than a social media management tool; it’s a powerful calendar to manage many aspects of your marketing. With CoSchedule, you can manage and collaborate with your team to create your social media posts, content, events, and tasks.

Unique value: CoSchedule is great for marketers who want to organize all their projects (social media, content, events, emails, etc.) in one place.

Their ReQueue feature helps you automatically find optimal posting times and fill gaps in your social media schedule with your best posts.

9. MavSocial

Streamlined social media management

MavSocial

Prices: Free, $19, $78, $199, $499 per month (with 7-day free trial)

Description: MavSocial is a social media management tool with a focus on visual content. For the higher-priced plans, it seems that you can also manage your Facebook ads with MavSocial.BROUGHT TO YOU BY

Publish Flawlessly. Analyze Effortlessly. Engage Authentically.

Buffer is the all-you-need social media toolkit that lets you focus on doing what you love for your business.Get started for free now

Unique value: On top of the common features (such as scheduling, monitoring, and reporting), MavSocial has a digital library where you can manage, use, and edit your multimedia for your social media posts and a search engine where you can browse through millions of stock photos.

If you wish, MavSocial can also help you repeat your social media posts for a specified duration.

10. Friends+Me

Share to anywhere

Friends+Me

Prices: Free, $9, $29, $59, $259 per month (with a 15-day free trial)

Description: Friends+Me has a strong focus on Google+ but also allows you to schedule your content to the other major social platforms (except Instagram).

Unique value: Friends+Me supports scheduling for Google+ profiles, collections, communities, pages, and even GSuite Google+ and allows you to set up automations to re-post your Google+ posts onto your other social media accounts, which is great for marketers who focus on Google+.

Conclusion

Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

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