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The 9 best social media management tools for entrepreneurs

Social media management can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Check out these 9 best social media management tools so you can save time and energy.

You’re brainstorming pieces of content to drop into your social media posts. 

After coming up with ideas, writing copy, and scheduling out each post, you’re off to the races.

But there’s only one problem -- racing is exhausting

Even after you publish your scheduled posts, you still need to manage the engagement, analyze your audience’s responses, and somehow work more ideas into your content calendar. 

While using social media to sell your digital products is a wise move, when does it get easier?

If you read and implement our tips here, the answer is today.

We’ve done the research and share with you details on what makes a great social media management tool, plus nine of the best tools to choose from. 

But first, let’s start by quickly explaining why you should use social media management tools instead of trying to DIY.

Why should you use social media management tools?

The first (and most obvious) reason why you should use a social media management tool is that it saves you time and energy -- two vital resources if you’re an entrepreneur or solopreneur

While it’s not outright outsourcing your tasks , social media management tools come pretty darn close and can help you streamline your posting process.

For instance, some tools let you automate your social posting. In the same way that email marketing tools help you automate your process for deploying messages, a social media management tool that has a smart publishing feature can automate pre-queued posts for you. 

What’s more, most social media management tools come with a bulk calendaring system, so you can schedule your posts in bulk ahead of time. This is a huge win because it saves you from multi-tasking -- a culprit for dropping your productivity as much as 40% .

Plus, if you’ve got multiple social channels to manage, using one dashboard to organize your social media calendar will simplify your efforts.

(Speaking of simplifying, if you want an all-in-one platform that makes managing your site a cinch, get this 2-week free trial . You’ll also have access to a great support team.)

In addition to shaving minutes off your scheduling process, social media management tools also help you increase engagement.

With reporting features, you can easily track your engagement on each platform and use the collected data to guide the direction of your future posts. 

For example, if you discover that certain types of content resonate with your audience, you can publish similar content, like this Facebook post by Tiffany Williams with 278 likes and 34 comments, where she describes overcoming her personal struggles through entrepreneurship. 

Could you track your highest performing posts -- like the above -- without a special tool? For sure. But social media management tools provide analytics that help you spot those popular posts more easily so you can plan and curate similar content without getting overwhelmed.

Another benefit of using a social media management tool is staying on top of your customer service inquiries, something that’s becoming more common these days. 90% of businesses anticipate using social media for customer service in 2020.

What’s more, 80% of customers expect you to respond to their social media posts within 24 hours, so it’s best to find a way to keep up.

In a nutshell:

You should use social media management tools because they save you time and energy, streamline your posting process, and allow you to more efficiently manage your audience engagement.

Now that you’re (hopefully) convinced you need a social media management tool in your life, let’s quickly walk through what makes up a great one before you peruse the best options. 

What makes a great social media management tool?

In researching the various choices, we compared a set of parameters to compile our list of nine top social media management tools, including:

  • Features - This is where the tools vary the most, so we’ve included details about features such as auto-posting evergreen content, smart scheduling, smart composing, social inboxes, reporting, analyzing, monitoring, social listening, and reviewing.

  • Social networks supported - Each business uses different social channels, so we’ve included the networks each tool supports, to make sure your platforms are covered.

  • Pricing - Self-explanatory, we’ve included pricing plans for each tool so you can easily compare how it’ll impact your budget. Monthly pricing is noted.

To make your shopping even easier, we’ve included a “best for” section for each summarized tool, so you can find the social media management tool that’s best for your business.

Ready to check out your options? Great, let’s get started.

9 best social media management tools

#1. Agorapulse

Agorapulse is a robust tool that allows you to manage multiple facets of your social media channels all in one platform. 

Features: Features include social listening, scheduling and publishing, and reporting and analytics. There’s also a “social inbox” feature that allows you to manage your incoming messages. Plus, Agorapulse offers a built-in CRM system, which makes the tool all-inclusive.

Additionally, you can queue up evergreen posts and use labels to analyze categories of your content.

Social networks supported: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.

Best for: Small and large teams that manage multiple social channels. It’s ideal for people who want to collaborate with other team members and manage everything using an all-in-one dashboard. 

Pricing: Prices range from $79 per month (billed annually) for the “Medium” package, which includes 10 social profiles and two users, to $239 per month for the “X-Large” plan designed for larger organizations with 40 social profiles and eight users.

#2. Buffer

Serving more than 75,000 customers, Buffer allows you to publish, reply to, and analyze social posts.

Features: Buffer’s publishing feature allows you to schedule and publish unlimited posts while collaborating with other team members. You can also monitor your incoming messages and measure your performance across all channels with their analytics features.

Social networks supported: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter.

Best for: Ideal for people who want to focus on scheduling and publishing posts, managing inquiries, and gathering insights. Buffer offers a straightforward social media scheduling solution.

Pricing: $12 per month (billed annually) for the “Pro” plan, which includes eight social accounts and one user. The “Business” plan goes for $85 per month, which includes 25 social accounts and six users.

#3. CoSchedule

Known for its calendar feature, CoSchedule is a marketing tool that allows you to organize your editorial calendar and marketing needs on a central dashboard. Its “Social Organizer” tool, in particular, allows you to manage your social channels.

Features: The social organizer tool allows you to plan, publish, and automate your social postings. You can also engage with your audience and measure your performance using the social inbox and analytics features. 

CoSchedule also proves social campaign templates. Additionally, its “ReQueue” feature lets you schedule top posts only from your history.

Social networks supported: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Twitter.

Best for: Marketers who want to organize all of their editorial calendar needs, including their blog and social accounts, in one place. 

Pricing: Pricing starts at $100 per month for the “Growth” plan, which includes 10 social profiles and three users. The “Professional” plan goes for $300 a month and allows for five users to manage 15 social profiles.

#4. eClincher

eClincher is an all-inclusive social media management tool that allows you to schedule, publish, engage, monitor, analyze, and optimize your social posts and conversations.  

Features: You can auto-post your content, including RSS feeds, across all major social platforms using the dashboard’s smart queue feature, which organizes your content into categories. It also suggests hashtags and content with keywords. 

The social inbox allows you to monitor your conversations in real-time. Analytics and customized reports are also available, and the platform integrates with Google Analytics. There’s additionally a CRM tool included.

Social networks supported: Facebook, Google My Business, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube.

Best for: eClincher is ideal for businesses that have a modest budget, and want an all-inclusive way to manage several social accounts, using smart scheduling, and collaborate with team members.

Pricing: The price is $59 per month for the “Basic” plan, which includes 10 profiles and one user, and $119 per month for the “Premier” plan, which covers 20 profiles and three users.

#5. Hootsuite

Founded in 2008, Hootsuite is a robust social media platform used by over 10 million users. It’s one of the most well-known tools available and lets users simply curate and schedule social posts.

Features: Features include content curation, organization, scheduling, and RSS integration. The tool allows you to find and share content by creating search streams based on hashtags, location, or keywords. While it doesn’t include a social inbox, you can bulk schedule posts.

Social networks supported: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube.

Best for: Businesses looking for a standard platform for their team members to curate content and manage, schedule, monitor, and analyze their social posts. Not ideal for managing or engaging in conversations. Also, it doesn’t include auto-posting for recycling evergreen posts.

Pricing: The “Professional” plan goes for $29 per month (billed annually) or 10 social profiles and one user. The “Business” plan runs $599 per month and includes 35 social profiles and up to 10 users.

#6. MavSocial

MavSocial is a comprehensive social media management tool that allows users to curate, schedule, publish, and analyze content while tapping into social listening and engaging with contacts on each platform. 

Features: This tool allows you to automate your posts across all major channels and group them into campaigns. Its social inbox enables quick responses to your incoming social messages.

Plus, MavSocial focuses on visual content and supplies a stock image library filled with free images for you to use. You can also bulk upload multiple posts and creative assets at once.

Social networks supported: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Twitter, WeChat, and YouTube.

Best for: MavSocial is ideal for businesses that want an all-in-one solution for managing several social accounts and who focus on posting visually appealing content.

Pricing: Prices range from $15.83 per month (billed annually) for the “Advanced” plan, which allows for 10 social profiles and one user, to $165.83 per month for the “Business” plan, which includes 50 social profiles and five users.

#7. Edgar

Known for its automation, Edgar is a social media management tool that helps businesses run their social media on autopilot. You can automatically curate, schedule, publish content using its dashboard. 

Features: Features include grouping your content into categories and posting accordingly using a smart scheduling queue. Once your queue runs out, Edgar continues to publish and reshare even if content variations are required.

Social networks supported: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Their browser extension allows you to auto-generate pre-written social posts directly from articles and RSS feeds. You can also A/B test variations of your messages, and weekly analytics reports are emailed to you. 

Best for: Ideal for people who want to post and reshare evergreen content. Also great for those looking to curate content outside of their own publishing.

Pricing: Pricing plans run from $19 per month to $49 per month, depending on your needs. The main plan includes 25 social profiles.

#8. Sendible

Sendible is a social media management tool that allows users to plan, schedule, approve, and analyze social posts while sharing the process with team members.  

Features: Users can create content individually, in bulk, or using a queue to publish evergreen content. Content posts can be reviewed in draft mode and approved before publishing. There’s also a preview feature that allows you to see what your posts will look like before going live.

Social networks supported: Facebook, Google My Business, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter.

Best for: Teams who collaborate on posting social content and want to use a draft approval process. Ideal for social listening and analytics as well as those who want an included CRM tool.

Pricing: Pricing plans start at $24 per month (billed annually) for 12 services and one user. The “Large” plan goes for $254 per month and covers 192 services and 12 users.

#9. Sprout Social 

With over 20,000 users, Sprout Social offers a social media marketing platform that allows teams to create content and manage campaigns, engagement, and reporting goals for social media. 

Features: Sprout Social allows you to publish, schedule, draft, and queue your social posts using their dashboard that provides a holistic view of your editorial calendar. Team members can also review posts before going live. 

Tracking, monitoring, reporting, and analyzing features also enable users to optimize their social engagement and more clearly reach their social media goals. The platform also integrates with Google Analytics. 

Social networks supported: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube.

Best for: Sprout Social is best for larger teams who want to use the review management tool and CRM. Also ideal for those interested in an all-inclusive suite to handle scheduling, monitoring, and analytics with great reporting.

Pricing: The “Standard” plan starts at $99 per month for five social profiles and one user. The “Advanced” plan goes for $249 per month per user for 10 social profiles.

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Find your best social media management tool match

You don’t have to spread yourself thin trying to keep up with the demands of running your online business -- especially when it comes to social media. 

Social media management tools are here to save you from entrepreneurial burnout .

Here’s a bird’s-eye view:

  • Leverage social media management tools to save time and energy, simplify and automate your posting process, and more easily engage with your audience.

  • For a robust all-inclusive social media management tool that allows team members to collaborate across several channels, check out Agorapulse. It’s priced on the higher end.

  • If you want a straightforward scheduling and publishing tool that’s cost-effective, try Buffer. 

  • If you want to organize the nuances of your complex editorial calendar across multiple channels, including your blog, try CoSchedule. It’s also great for reposting your top-performing posts. CoSchedule is also priced on the higher end.

  • For a moderately-priced all-in-one solution that includes a social inbox and CRM, it’s worth exploring eClincher.

  • If you’re looking for a mid-priced standard tool that helps you curate and schedule posts, look into Hootsuite.

  • For a cost-effective solution that focuses on visual content, try MavSocial.

  • If you want a cost-effective tool that specializes in curating smart content and reposts evergreen content, check out Edgar.

  • If you want a cost-effective tool that allows teams to collaborate easily, try using Sendible. It also includes CRM, analytics, and social listening tools.

  • For a robust solution that includes CRM, collaboration features, and great reporting, give Sprout Social a whirl. Pricing is on the higher end.

The choice is yours. Here’s to finding the right match and making your social media management a cinch.

About the author

Cyn Meyer was a content writer for Podia, an all-in-one platform where online courses, digital downloads, and communities scale with their creators. Cyn also enjoys playing music, helping retirees live active, healthy, engaged lifestyles, and hopping into the ocean.