Top 5 Social Media Management Tools
By 
Updated for 2017
Are you looking for the best social media management tool?
Do you want to increase your productivity and efficiency when managing your business' social media?
How do you choose the best tool for your situation from the thousands of tools that exist?
I’m excited to say I’ve partnered once again with G2Crowd to provide a really helpful infographic on the top 5 Rated Social Media Management Tools.
The results come from detailed customer reviews from business software review platform, G2Crowd.
The infographic covers a variety of information including user satisfaction, product direction, how easy it is to learn to use the platform, level of support, usability and more. In this article, I'll discuss the findings below as well as introducing the tools and alternative tools.
The 5 Best Social Media
Management Tools of 2017
Infographic brought to you by Seriously Social and G2 Crowd Data correct as of February 2017
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The Top Rated Social Media Management Tools
#1 Agora Pulse
Agora Pulse may not be as well known as Hootsuite, but recently, it has grown hugely in popularity. It scored top in almost all the points in the infographic.
It was founded back in 2011 and originally integrated only with Facebook. Since then, its feature set has grown and it now integrates with Twitter, Facebook pages, Instagram, LinkedIn (profiles and pages) and Google+ pages.
Agora Pulse shines when it comes to managing engagement, as it clearly displays which mentions and comments require a response.
It gives you access to in-depth reports (with Powerpoint export) and competitor comparisons. It also allows you to build Facebook apps and displays Facebook and Instagram dark posts with their comments which you can respond to.
Agora Pulse scored...
- Top for user satisfaction (99/100),
product direction (9.5/10),
support (9.4/10) - Joint top (with Buffer) for the G2 Crowd Rating (4.5/5)
- Second for Ease of set up (9.3/10)
Ease of use (9.3/10)
Meet requirements (8.6/10)
Ian's thoughts...
It took me a little while to settle into Agora Pulse, but it's now my main Social Media Management Tool.
Is it perfect?
Of course not! No tool is perfect.
But, it's social inbox workflow helps me get through all my social mentions & messages fast.
When you reply to a message, it gets marked as read and disappears from view. You can also delegate messages to team members. As well as that, you can set up automations for messages that contain certain keywords.
Most other tools don't adopt the social inbox workflow - only Sprout Social has a similar workflow.
Agora Pulse's reports are impressive and are are among the best I've seen from a tool. At the moment, reports are per network and you can't produce a report for a combination of social networks. That's something Sprout Social does a better job with.
I plan on using Facebook ads more this year. Agora Pulse links with my Facebook ads account. It displays unpublished (or "dark") posts with their comments.
I love the "automated moderation rules" feature in Agora Pulse. This allows me to filter out spammy direct messages and mentions. This makes a massive difference to my social inbox!
Since the mobile app launched I can now respond on the move, and it syncs with the web app.
Agora Pulse offers a social scheduling queue, like Buffer.
There are a few features that I wish Agora Pulse did offer. I wish Agora Pulse would integrate with Facebook profiles and groups. The good news is that this is coming soon.
I'm not being a fan of the clunky multi-column layout in Hootsuite and Tweetdeck. But, I do miss being able to view many streams with filters and particularly Twitter lists.
Agora Pulse can seem expensive compared to some of the other tools. But when you compare like with like, you do get a lot for your money. You get unlimited access to reports with all plans. From $99/mth upwards, you get team members, competitor comparison, Facebook ad monitoring.
I've found Agora Pulse a joy to work with and it's helped me become significantly more productive.
Details:
| Founded: | 2010 |
| Mobile App: | Android & iOS |
| bit.ly Support: | Yes |
| Social Scheduling Queue: | Yes |
| Social Inbox Workflow: | Yes |
| Stream View: | Per Network View |
| Competitor Comparison: | Facebook & Twitter (Medium Plan and above) |
| Automated Moderation Rules: | Yes |
| Twitter List Support: | No |
| Instagram Publishing: | No |
Prices:
| Small Plan | $49/month | 3 networks, 2 users & reporting |
| Medium Plan | $99/month | 10 profiles, 5 team members, reporting and Facebook ad monitoring, apps and competitors |
| Large Plan | $199/month | 20 profiles, 10 team members, reporting & Facebook ad monitoring, apps & competitors |
- Extra team members $19/user/month
- Extra networks for $10/month/network.
- Social Networks:
#2 Buffer
In last year's top rated infographic, Buffer wasn't included. A number of people asked why. I excluded Buffer, because technically it isn't a full social media management tool. Buffer does one thing very well - publishing. It allows you to schedule your social media posts across a wide range of networks including Twitter, Facebook (profiles, pages and groups), Instagram, LinkedIn (profiles and pages), Pinterest and Google+ pages. It also offers limited reports on its free and awesome plans and more detailed ones in the business plans. Buffer doesn't offer streams or the ability to engage, so you'll need to use another tool for this.
However, in December 2015, Buffer acquired social media customer service tool, Respondly. The tool is a standalone engagement and customer service tool, now called Respond, and run by Buffer. Although Buffer does not integrate Respond with the main Buffer tool, Buffer are making a slight transition towards being a social media management tool, albeit a disjointed one. This, together with the popularity of Buffer as a social media tool, was the decision in including it in the infographic.
Buffer works for teams if you opt for the business plan.
Buffer scored...
- Top for ease of setup (9.5/10),
Ease of use 9.4/10)
Meeting requirements (8.7/10) - Joint top for the G2 Crowd Rating (4.5/5).
- Third for user satisfaction (96/100)
- Joint third (with Sendible) for Support (8.5).
- Forth for product direction (8.8/10).
Ian's thoughts...
I've been a loyal Buffer user since 2011 and I love it.
When Buffer launched, it only integrated with Twitter. Now it integrates with all almost major social networks. That includes Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google+. There is a generous free plan, but the Awesome plan only costs $10/month (and that includes Pinterest).
I love the way Buffer integrates with so many tools and services. This includes IFTTT, Zapier, Feedly and Evernote. That's enabled me to come up with some cool systems and workflows.
The mobile app isn't perfect, but it's very usable and great to work with when you're on the move.
If you only need to post and schedule, Buffer is my top tool. But it can get tricky if you're an agency or a business with a large number of social networks.
Their business plans only have basic user role management and can get expensive. The Awesome plan comes with 10 social networks and one user for $10/month. The basic business plan costs almost 10 times as much ($99/month) but only gives you 25 networks and up to 6 team members. It would be much cheaper to buy 6 Awesome plans, and then you'd have 60 networks!
The reports in the Awesome plan are very basic and they're not much better in the Business Plan. The reports contain quite basic graphs.
The main issue with Buffer, is that it only offers publishing and basic reports. You will need to use an extra tool, if you need to manage engagement, competitor analysis and have more detailed reports.
If you need a full social media management tool, then combining Buffer with their engagement tool, Respond may be an option. This will cost an extra $149/mth.
I do love Buffer and I use it every day. But I wish they would integrate it with their Respond tool. They could also improve their analytics and make their Business Plans less expensive.
Details:
| Founded: | 2010 |
| Mobile App: | Android & iOS |
| bit.ly Support: | Yes |
| Social Scheduling Queue: | Yes |
| Social Inbox Workflow: | N/A |
| Stream View: | N/A |
| Competitor Comparison: | No |
| Automated Moderation Rules: | N/A |
| Twitter List Support: | N/A |
| Instagram Publishing: | No |
Prices:
| Free Plan | $0/month | 1 user (maximum), 4 networks (1 each of network except Pinterest) |
| Awesome Plan | $10/month | 1 user (maximum), 10 networks (any combination including Pinterest) & 100 scheduled posts per network |
| Small Business Plan | $99/month | 6 team members (maximum), 25 networks and 2,000 scheduled posts per network |
| Medium Business Plan | $199/month | 11 team members (maximum), 50 networks and 2,000 scheduled posts per network |
| Large Business Plan | $399/month | 26 team members (maximum), 100 networks and 2,000 scheduled posts per network |
| Enterprise Plan | $899+/month | 26+ team members, 100+ networks |
| Buffer Respond | $149+/month |
(Buffer's social engagement tool, Respond, or other engagement tool will be required for a proper social media management tool.)
- Social Networks:
#3 Sprout Social
Sprout Social was founded back in 2010 and has a popular user base. It integrates with Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Instagram. All users get full access to the reports and analytics. Sprout works well for teams where you can delegate groups of accounts to different team members. Additional team members are charged the same amount per month. Sprout Social includes powerful and visual reports with all their plans.
Sprout came...
- Second for user satisfaction (98/100),
product direction (9.0/10),
support (9.1/10). - Second for the G2 Crowd Rating (4.4/5)
- Joint second (with Agora Pulse) for ease of use (9.3/10)
Ease of set up (9.3/10). - Forth for meeting requirements (8.4/10).
Ian's thoughts...
Sprout Social does so many things well.
Their reports are beautiful and are available to all plans without limit.
It may not integrate with as many networks as Hootsuite, but Sprout supports all the main ones. I love the way you can group collections of networks, which is perfect for agencies.
Sprout supports bit.ly and Twitter list support. It has a social inbox workflow (like Agora Pulse) and a mobile app. I am a big fan of Sprout Social and still recommend it today.
There are a few issues, and the main one is the cost.
The base price of $59 per month - and that is per user. If you have a team of 5, that's going to cost $295 per month. That's expensive if you compare that to Agora Pulse's Medium Plan of $99/month (which includes 5 users). Or you compare with Buffer's Small Business Plan of $99/month.
There's also Sprout's unified inbox which divides many. Some love it, some, well... don't! A unified inbox combines all mentions and comments from all your social networks in one stream. The unified inbox can help you focus more, and Sprout do allow you to filter by network. But I would prefer Tweets and Facebook messages not to be in the same inbox.
If you can justify the cost, Sprout is a robust and powerful social media management tool.
Details:
| Founded: | 2010 |
| Mobile App: | Android & iOS |
| Bit.ly Support: | Yes |
| Social Scheduling Queue: | Yes |
| Social Inbox Workflow: | Yes |
| Stream View: | Unified Feed |
| Competitors Comparison: | No |
| Automated Moderation Rules: | No |
| Twitter List Support: | Yes |
| Instagram Publishing: | No |
Prices:
| Deluxe plan | $59/user/month | 5 networks |
| Premium plan | $99/user/month | 10 networks |
| Team plan | $149/user/month | from 1 user and up to 30 networks |
| Enterprise Plan | $249/user//mth | up to 50 networks |
Extra batches of 5 social networks can be purchased for $25/month.
- Social Networks:
#4 Sendible
Sendible was founded back in 2009 by Gavin Hammar. It integrates with a large number of networks. This includes Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Tumblr, Flickr, WordPress, Blogspot and more.
Plans include a number of “services” instead of social networks. So publishing to Twitter is a separate service to monitoring a Twitter list or your mentions.
The basic plan includes 1 user, but you add extra users or upgrade to a higher plan. Sendible has some advanced features such as geo-targeting (to reach specific segments of your audience). It also integrates with Google Drive, Dropbox and Canva.
Sendible came...
- 3rd for product direction (8.8/10) and support (8.5/10).
- 4th for user satisfaction (95/100) and G2 Crowd Rating (4.2/5). It was fifth for ease of set up (8.2./10), ease of use (8.4/10) and meeting requirements (8.3/10)
Ian's thoughts...
I really want to like Sendible. There's so much to like about the tool.
For a start, it integrates with a large number of social & content networks. This includes Slideshare, WordPress and Tumblr, Dropbox, Google Drive and Canva.
Larger agencies can white label Sendible. Then they can offer it to their clients as their own social media management tool. Other features include social scheduling queues, a CRM, a mobile app and much more.
I know Sendible have been working hard to improve their tool. Yet, there are many other areas that need work or changing. For example, they charge per "service". Most tools out there tell you how many social networks you get for each plan. With Sendible, they tell you how many "services" you get with each plan. This is confusing. If you want to add your Twitter account to Sendible, you could end up using 2 or 3 services for this. One for publishing, another for monitoring and another one for a Twitter list. You can run out of services quickly and need to upgrade.
Sendible has a similar "unified" inbox to Sprout Social. It has is a "priority" view, meaning that the most important messages (according to Sendible) are at the top. You'll either love this or not, I haven't quite decided.
My biggest complaint is that it's not as intuitive to use as other tools. I find Agora Pulse, Sprout Social, Buffer, Jollor or Zaapt much easier to use. Sendible feels a bit clunky. Sendible have updated their interface, and I know they will improve things over time.
Details:
| Founded: | 2009 |
| Mobile App: | Android & iOS |
| bit.ly Support: | Yes |
| Social Scheduling Queue: | Yes |
| Social Inbox Workflow: | No |
| Stream View: | Priority Unified View |
| Competitors Comparison: | No |
| Automated Moderation Rules: | No |
| Twitter List Support: | Yes (counts as a separate service) |
| Instagram Publishing: | Via email |
Prices:
| Taster Plan | $9/month | 5 services & 1 branded report. No team members. |
| Marketer plan | $39/month | 15 services & 2 branded report. No team members. |
| Startup Plan | $59/month | 30 services & 4 branded reports. Extra users $29.50/month (max 2 users) |
| Business Plan | $99/month | 60 services & 8 branded reports. Extra users $24.75/month (max 4 users) |
| Corporate Plan | $139/month | 90 services & 18 branded reports. Extra users $23.17/month (max 6 users) |
| Premium plan | $499/month | 360 services. Extra users $24.95/month (max 20 users) |
| Enterprise | ||
| White label Plan |
- Social Networks:
#5 Hootsuite
Hootsuite was founded by Ryan Holmes, back in 2008. Originally, HootSuite integrated with Twitter only and was called BrightKit. It now integrates with all the popular social networks including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Instagram. They also have an app directory which extends the number of social networks you can manage within Hootsuite.
Hootsuite has a free plan as well as paid pro, team and businesss plans and an enterprise plan. For reports, you get 3 basic ones for the free plan, and 3 basic ones and 1 enhanced report for the pro plan. You can pay extra for more reports.
Hootsuite updated their plans in late 2016, and the pro plan no longer supports team members. You'll only get team integration if you opt for their Team, Business or Enterprise plans.
Hootsuite came...
- 3rd for meeting requirements (8.5/10).
- 4th for ease of setup (8.5)
ease of use (8.4/10). - 5th for user satisfaction (93/100),
product direction (7.7/10),
support (8/10)
G2 Crowd Rating (4.1).
Ian's thoughts...
Without question, Hootsuite is the biggest and most popular social media management tool. They have the most users, the biggest number of employees and generate the most revenue.
Hootsuite integrates with a large number of networks. This is particularly the case when you include their app directory.
I'm comfortable and feel even nostalgic with Hootsuite's multi-column layout. I like the way you can filter each column if you need to (that's the inner geek speaking again!)
Hootsuite, like Sprout Social and Agora Pulse allows you to "kind of" publish to Instagram. It's still a manual process (due to the restrictions of the Instagram API). You schedule your Instagram post on Hootsuite. Then the Hootsuite mobile app reminds you when it's time to post your Instragram post. You then send the image and text to the official Instagram app for you to publish there.
Despite the positives, there are a lot of big issues with Hootsuite. The interface is buggy, clunky and not very intuitive. I mentioned kind of liking the multi-column layout. But in reality, it's too distracting and I find myself becoming less productive.
The included reports are very basic and you end up having to spend $50 or $60 per month for extra reports. Even those are basic looking.
Hootsuite doesn't integrate with bitly. If you want to use a branded short domain (with their owly service) it will cost you over $580 per year.
They don't offer a social inbox workflow (like Sprout Social or Agora Pulse). They offer no competitor comparison or automated moderation rules either. They do, however, offer good team role management. But most of these features are available only in their $22,000+ per year Enterprise plan or $6,000+ business plan.
The Pro plan no longer supports teams, and you only get up to 10 users on their expensive business plan. If you need more than 10 users, you'll need to upgrade to Enterprise.
Hootsuite is one of the only tools to offer a limited free plan which may be good for those with limited budgets.
If you don't mind basic reports, are happy with the interface and don't need team members, then the Hootsuite Pro plan is worth checking out.
Details:
| Founded: | 2008 |
| Mobile App: | Android & iOS |
| bit.ly Support: | No |
| Social Scheduling Queue: | Yes |
| Social Inbox Workflow: | No |
| Stream View: | Multiple Columns |
| Competitors Comparison: | No |
| Automated Moderation Rules: | No |
| Twitter List Support: | Yes |
| Instagram Publishing: | Yes, via app |
Prices:
| Free Plan | $0/month | 1 user, 3 networks & 1 basic report |
| Pro Plan | $14.99/month | 1 users, 10 networks & 1 basic report |
| Team Plan | $49.99/user/month | up to 3 users, 20 networks & unlimited basic or advanced reports |
| Business Plan | $7,000 per year (for 4 users) | 4-10 users, 50 networks & unlimited basic or advanced report |
| Enterprise Plan | Possibly $1,500/month+ |
* Hootsuite Reports:
Old Reports - although there are some limited free reports, some reports are available to pro and enterprise users only. Pro users get 50 points a month which gives one report. Extra reports use 30 to 50 points. 50 points cost $50 per month. New beta reports - only Twitter and Facebook pages are available. Deeper reports and the ability to export are only available for an extra $60/month.
- Social Networks:
Alternatives
SocialReport
Social Report launched back in 2011, but I've only recently come across it. It's cost effective and cheaper for teams when compared to Hootsuite, Sprout Social and Buffer. All their plans come with multi-user access. Their entry-level standard plan comes with 5 users, 5 projects and social media channel management, 15 automations, business reviews, reports (export in Powerpoint & Excel) and contact management - all for an incredibly reasonable $49/mth. That's more expensive than the basic plans from Buffer and Hootsuite but amazing for what you get. It integrates with Facebook (profiles, pages & groups), Twitter, Instagram (including direct publishing), Google+ (pages & events), Pinterest, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Vimeo, YouTube, Yelp, Reddit and more! That's a huge number of social networks to manage from one dashboard. It's also important to mention they are a Facebook and Instagram Marketing Partner.
eClincher
A relative newcomer to the social media management scene, eClincher offers an incredibly powerful array of features and integrations. They were founded in 2012, but moved over to being a social media management tool in 2014.
eClincher integrates with Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube as well as Feedly, Canva and Pocket. It has the ability to publish, schedule, auto post and cycle content, an image library, monitoring and analytics. eclincher has a powerful bulk upload feature and is one of the only tools I've discovered that extracts images from the posts you upload (either as a CSV file or RSS feed). Prices start from $49/mth.
MavSocial
MavSocial was founded in 2012 by Matthew Holden. MavSocial has a very generous free plan and an enterprise plan which works very well for agencies and larger teams. MavSocial integrates with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and YouTube with the Enterprise plan adding Japanese and Chinese networks. It has a digital assets library where you can store your images and videos and you can even licence stock images through various stock libraries including free ones (there are over 50 million to choose from).
Jollor
Jollor was founded in 2014 by Jakub Hrabovský. It integrates with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube as well as the Russian networks VK and Odnoklassniki.
They have some enterprise features such as team and role management and delegation. They have a transparent pricing scheme starting from $5 per network, and you can add extra team members for $5 per month as well as other features.
Commun.it
Commun.it is a social media relationship tool as well as a social media management tool that integrates with Twitter and Facebook. As well as being able to manage multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts, you can find out who is relevant in your social networks' communities. Examples include your influencers or people who support you. You can also find out who is talking about you or your business or who is linking to your website and interact with them straight away. Prices start from $19.99 per month.
Rignite
Rignite was founded back in 2011 by Glen Kosaka. Rignite puts managing social media campaigns at the heart and integrates with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Instagram. Rignite is campaign-focussed where you can create multiple social media management campaigns across your networks. Prices start from $28/user/mth.
TweetDeck
TweetDeck hasn't changed much in recent years, but it still remains a powerful Twitter social media management tools. It now allows teams to manage multiple accounts and has some powerful features including advanced filtering of streams, Twitter list management and more. TweetDeck is free.
Do You Struggle with Social Media Management?
If so, you’re not alone! Many of us struggle to keep on top of all the tasks required to be effective in marketing our businesses on social media. When it comes to social media marketing, there are many jobs including...
- Publishing and schedule quality content
- Engagement - responding to all the mentions and comments
- Monitoring - keeping on top of all the mentions of certain hashtags and keywords for you and/or your competitors
- Analytics and Reporting- to check how effective you’re doing with your social media efforts, digging deep into the data and making decisions on improving your strategy and systems.
- The ability to delegate engagement and tasks to team members.
Tools to the Rescue?
So, maybe social media tools can come to the rescue here? Well, kind of… They’re certainly not going to solve all your problems. They’re not a replacement for planning and implementing a social media strategy. However, the right tool or series of tools can help you become much more effective and productive. It can also help you make smarter decisions and be quicker at reacting to opportunities, events and situations. Make sure you have a plan and a strategy first, but having the right tool or series of tools at the heart of your work is going to be vital - particularly as you scale things upwards.
What is a Social Media Management Tool?
There are so many social media tools out there. Many of us feel overwhelmed and confused by the choice. Many tools promise to solve all your problems without really explaining how they actually work. The “Social Media Management Tool” is a particular type of tool that tries to do it all. It aims to be “The One Tool that Rules them all”.
Such social media management tools will allow you to publish and schedule content and help you engage with your mentions and comments across all your social networks. They aim to help you monitor important keywords and hashtags, whether that be your business, brand or product name or perhaps a certain hashtag or even words to do with your competitors. Social Media Management Tools also aim to help you analyse how you are doing by providing analytics and reports for you to study. This can also communicate the effectiveness of your social media use to your team.
In Search of the “One Tool”
I’ve mentioned quite a few jobs and features there! Does this “One Tool” actually exist? A tool that will integrate with all your social networks and fulfil all the jobs you want it to. Well, no… there is no perfect tool out there. I think you expected me to say that, but there are many tools that try, and there are some that do a pretty good job. The problem is, that it’s a tricky job to find the best tool for your business. It’s a topic I spoke about at the New Media Europe Conference last year on “How to Find the Best Social Media Management Tool for Your Business”. I hope that the infographic will help you in your journey to find your One Tool.
What is G2Crowd?
On their about page, G2 Crowd, describes themselves as “the world’s leading business software review platform, leveraging its 70,000+ user reviews read by nearly 600,000 software buyers each month to help them make better purchasing decisions”. All the various B2B software technologies are listed by industry (email marketing, CRM, Social Media, etc.) and reviewed by their own users.
Is It Reliable?
G2Crowd have a strict authentication system for their reviewing system. This makes sure each review actually comes from a real user of the respective software. It definitely takes quite a bit of effort to leave a review on G2Crowd. However, this means that the review can be trusted as from a real user. Business buyers now have transparency when evaluating their next B2B software subscription.
How did we choose the tools to create this infographic?
We used information from this quadrant published by G2Crowd. I might be a little pedantic, but not all the tools listed in the quadrant are true Social Media Management Tools. As I mentioned above, Social Media Management Tools have to offer the following features:
- Publishing
- Monitoring / Responding to Social Media fans & followers
- Measuring / Reporting
- Team Management and Workflow
- Available for several Social Networks
As a consequence, in producing the infographic, we eliminated the tools that only helped managed one Social Network (Tweetdeck or Facebook Pages Manager, for example). There is an exception to this, however. When I produced a similar infographic last year, I excluded tools that only focussed on publishing such as Buffer. Although, as I mentioned above, Buffer isn't technically a social media management tool, it is one of the most popular social media tools and its exclusion was felt. Therefore, I have decided to include in the top 5 this year, with the caveat that it only focuses on publishing with some analytics. In addition, we have only included tools that offered self-service access and transparent pricing. Enterprise tools such as ViralHeat, that require a demo and do not provide public pricing (enterprise tools usually above $1,000 per month) have not been included.
About Ian Anderson Gray
Ian is a Confident Live Marketing Coach and founder of Seriously Social. He’s an international speaker, trainer, teacher, web developer and consultant. He has a passion for making the techno-babble of live video and social media marketing easy to understand. Ian is co-founder of Select Performers – a family run web agency. As well as being a geek, husband, and dad to two kids, Ian is also a professional singer and lives near Manchester in the UK. Find out more
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What do you think? Join the fun & Let me know below...
Great list of social media tools in your article. This would be a great help in Social Media Management. Thanks for sharing!
My pleasure, Nadine. Did you decide on which tools you were going to try?
I am using Zapier for a long time and fully satisfied with it. This automated tool will help to share posts automatically on your different social media accounts as well it will give you lots of opportunities to set up automatic calls, emails and manage contact details. It is easy to use that allows you to incorporate the all things together.
Thanks, I use Zapier all the time myself. It’s an amazing tool and saves me
eClincher is already a great tool but has been made even greater now that they have the ability to link GMB. While it’s true that they have increased prices, I think it still is worth its price given all the amazing features that they have right now. 🙂
eClincher is a very comprehensive tool, as it integrates with so many platforms and has so many powerful features. Glad you like it!
Great summary of different options. It appears the eClincher has increased price- all I can find is 49.00 per month plan.
Still looks interesting. Have any updated opinions on it?
Thanks for the heads up on the eClincher price increase, Suze. I’ve updated the article. I’ve not used it for a while, but I liked the fact that it had so many geeky and power-tool features. It was a little clunky, though, and I personally prefer the interface of Sprout Social, Agora Pulse and Smarter Queue.
I am surprised that you didn’t add CrowdFireApp. Although not as powerful as Hootsuite, but i think to grow any social media crowdfire is a great tool. I you had it like a top 10 list i am sure Crowdfire would have managed to book a slot.
The reason I didn’t include it was purely because it wasn’t in the top 5 rated tools from G2Crowd. Also, I am not sure I’d define it as a social media management tool.
One more tool for social media management is Viralpep. By using this tool you can manage your profiles. This tool provides main features like Scheduling, Bulk image posting, Url Shorten, Gif Support, Hashtag Support, Twitter character count etc. With this tools, you can easily manage your profiles. It has a rare feature for past scheduling where you can schedule your post on the back date. Posting limit is unlimited so the fear of limited posting will end here & also unlimited scheduling which really helps you to manage your profile.
Hi Jacqueline. So many tools out there! Thanks for letting me know about Viralpep. Can you give me some use cases for past scheduling dates?
[…] If you are a social media manager or a blogger or a business owner that does their own marketing, you have probably already heard of Buffer. It is one of the best management tools. It is easy to use and very affordable. It’s actually one of the top 5 social media tools. […]
I agree that eClincher it’s a great tool, but I wouldn’t call it an alternative! For me, it’s the most powerful tool out there, it actually integrates all features from the top five into one. They have been improving a lot this year, and their pricing is still great. I’m really happy with them!
Thanks. eClincher is great. Although it didn’t make the top 5 from the G2Crowd review list, it’s still a great tool and one of the alternatives.
There is no perfect tool out there. But I hope that this article can help people find their next to perfect tool!
Loved it!! Bookmarking it!
Wow. You deserve an award for this blog post. I have been trying different tools for so long and could not find one to my suit. Thanks to you, I decided to try eClincher and I must say, I have finally found what I am looking for. Thank you oh so very much.
Thanks. I must say, it did take a lot of work to produce this article. But it was worth it – especially when I receive such a lovely message like the one from you.
Glad I was able to help. How are you getting on with eClincher? They have a lot of very good features.
[…] out the infographic below from Seriously Social. I was not familiar with their number-one pick, AgoraPulse, but they […]
[…] Ian's Top 5 Social Media Tools […]
Great compilation Ian. I would also include DrumUp https://drumup.io/ to this impressive ensemble. Some of its features include multiple account management and scheduling, scheduled content calendar view, a content library to store custom drafted posts and interesting recommendations for future use, group scheduling – can create a group, add a bunch of accounts and schedule to them at once, analytics – see which post got the most engagement, emojis and gifs for posts, and a chrome extension which picks up the page you’re viewing and lets you share it to your social accounts.
Such a great article! SO much of this is absolutely ON-POINT! One thing I see that is missing from the “list” of attributes, is content aggregation. Creating a few hundred posts for a client, and scheduling them into the future would take tons of time. Aggregating QUALITY content that applies to that industry, or will attract their customers, is hard. Can you suggest/mention any *good* aggregates, or curators? I work for a Charity which focuses on helping other 501c3 charities find tech products (& services) which meet their needs. We “focus on free” (focusonfree.com), but also recommend resources with exceptionally low prices as well. Additionally we have a for-profit company which serves to foster the growth of freeforcharity.org & focusonfree.com. Places like G2 and techsoup help us extensively. Article’s like yours (here) also help a great deal!
[…] here for other social media management tools […]
[…] can check out this infographic to check out the top social media management tools on the market (including Agorapulse, Hootsuite […]
[…] resulting infographic provides some very interesting […]
Try allsnapi.com they use neural network and big data to get bigger and impressive reports.
I am currently looking for a social media management portal and as we speak, I am testing Sprout Social. I am impressed with it so far, especially the quality of the reports it presents. I am happy to see that Agora Pulse has such high ratings so I will have to take a good look before deciding whether to stay with Sprout Social. Thank Ian.
Thanks, Yahjam. Sprout Social is an awesome tool and you may well find it suits you really well. I love their reports too and it’s a robust tool overall. Do check out Agora Pulse out too. I prefer their social inbox over Sprout’s, but it is very much a personal thing. Also, Agora Pulse have got some big updates coming, so you may want to keep an eye out for them. Let
Social Media plays the major role to get traffic or visitors to your blog or if you want some leads you can use Social Media. Thanks for sharing this list it will surely decrease my efforts and increase my productivity.
Nice post. Huge list of perfect media management tools.
Thanks, Rahul. Glad you found it useful! There are so many tools out there,
Hi Ian, this article is very helpful, I am doing a business paper that analysis the best customer support among these companies, how do you think customer support of Hootsuite, Sprout Social and Agorapulse respectively as a customer?
Great question. It’s tricky to say for sure. I have first hand experience of both Hootsuite and Agora Pulse. From my experience Hootsuite’s customer service was slow and quite poor. Agora Pulse has amazing response- particularly in their response time, usually getting back to me within minutes or within a couple of hours at the most. I’ve not had to deal with Sprout’s customer service, but I am fairly sure they have a good response time.
Hi Ian, Thank you so much for your article. I really love your personal insights and thoughts to each of those tools you mentioned here. However, I missed some tools for social media content collaboration and creation. One of the really great ones for this particular purpose is called, Kontentino. I might be biased because I work at Kontentino, but I really wanted to share this with you, since every day, we go step by step to make this tool greater and greater for social media managers around the globe.
If you’d like to check out more about Kontentino, please visit https://www.kontentino.com/ 🙂
Hi Juraj, thanks for your comment. I am sure you are very biased! 😉 I’ve not come across Kontentino before. In this article, I am really focused on social media management tools – ones that help with posting, scheduling, engaging and reporting. How do you feel Kontentino fits into this space?
I’d love to see an enterprise comparison set between the major marketing clouds (SFDC, Oracle, Adobe) and the focused enterprise Social Relationship Platform’s (Spredfast & Sprinklr)
The above write up is great, but it seems more geared to the SMB market.
Thanks!
Thanks, David. Yes, you’re right. This article isn’t so much geared towards the enterprise market, although I don’t think I meant for it to be entirely focussed towards SMBs. Most of these platforms (Hootsuite, Sprout and Agora Pulse) do have enterprise plans and they are very robust and scaleable.
But, they’re not totally focussed on the enterprise market, unlike Sprinklr. I personally think the big enterprise tools try and do too much and can end up being very clunky. It depends on the setup, but using an SMMT like Agora Pulse or Sprout to manage the social, a separate CRM to manage relationships and customers, and an analytics and reporting tool such as Brandwatch can be even more powerful than one tool that tries to do everything.
When it comes to the right up and comparison of these tools, it is almost impossible to do a decent comparison of the enterprise level tools. That’s because they hide their prices and are very secritive about their products unless you are serious about trying them out. That makes it pretty much
Hey, Ian. You know I’ve been following this thread (and your blog) for quite some time. You’ve mentioned it a few times that this post is about tools that aren’t enterprise-y, have an upfront pricing, offer a good user experience and help small/mid business do most of what they’d like to, as part of social media management. This is not a list of tools in the league of Radian6, Lithium, TrackMaven, or BrandWatch (they’re built for specific enterprise requirements). You said, “using an SMMT like Agora Pulse or Sprout to manage the social, a separate CRM to manage relationships and customers, and an analytics and reporting tool such as Brandwatch can be even more powerful than one tool that tries to do everything.” I have a slightly different thought on this as I don’t think investing in multiple social media tools is something that small/med business would do. Not just from the money/expense POV, but also looking at the value they’d get from subscribing to different tools. I know you can measure reach and engagement (and those are important metrics), but the way social media marketing is evolving, more marketers want to know the number of leads, and the amount… Read more »
Thanks, Praval. I really appreciate your thoughts on this and I think we’re ending up having a very helpful debate here. I think all businesses are different, but most are looking for the “holy grail” or “the one tool that rules them all”. Most businesses don’t want to mess around learning lots of different tools and getting them to talk to each other. It would be amazing if there was a tool that had a CRM and an amazing social media management tool all baked into one. Of course, there are a few enterprise level tools that do that, and there is Zoho which is very affordable. I totally get that! Other than Zoho there are very few tools (if any) that do the whole thing – and even tools like Hootsuite that try and do everything don’t do a good job at everything. That’s why, I do recommend businesses use separate tools for different tasks – basically because each tool has been built to do that feature well. Anyway, I was really impressed with your response. It wasn’t salesy – but you’ve put forward the case for Zoho extremely well. I really do need to spend some time with… Read more »
Thanks, Ian. I’m glad you’re open to discussing this when we meet. Look forward. Safe travels!
Hi, I’m using Socialbakers. We manage about 20 pages. The interface is very useful for us but very expensive. They think we can not give up. Go back to comments and messages, and do simple analysis by publishing the content we want to do. Is there an alternative you can offer? Money is not a problem for us, but we want to teach socialbakers a lesson.
Hi Yalçın, so I take it you’re not happy with SocialBakers. Is it more your experience with them from a customer service point of view, or is it the interface you’re not happy with? The tools I mention in this article aren’t specifically reporting/analytics tools- they’re social media management tools. They do a bit of everything. None of them will go into quite as much depth analytics-wise as SocialBakers. But maybe that is ok for you. I think more data isn’t always useful – it’s what you do with the data you have that is important. With the tools above I think SproutSocial and Agora Pulse offer the best reporting. Currently, I believe Sprout Social has a bit of an edge on Agora Pulse, basically because they offer unified reports across all the networks. Agora Pulse, however, is working hard to improve things and I am sure it won’t be long before they do that. Both these tools are excellent at publishing and engagement. If you want a really powerful, advanced and top notch analytics, listening and reporting tool, one of the best I have ever used is Brandwatch. It’s very expensive and not always easy to use. But they… Read more »
Hi Ian, thanks for this list – it’s really helpful. I would like to ask if you have used NapoleonCat.com (https://napoleoncat.com/?lang=en )?
It has social media inbox for Facebook, Instagram (comments), Twitter as well as a publication module to post on Facebook, Twitter, Google+. There is also in-depth analytics on any page or profile on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram (with hashtags monitoring and ability to react to post containing them in RT), YouTube, Google+ and Pinterest.
Is it possible you test it and drop a comment? I’m really curious about your feedback.
Hi Kate, thanks for your comment. I’ve not come across NapoleonCat. Interesting name! How did that name come to be?
How would you say this compares to the likes of Hootsuite? What value would people get in using your tool over the others listed above?
Hi Ian!
Great collaboration with G2 Crowd to develop this article and infographic.
My comment is similar to Nate. I know you test many tools but I would love to have your feedback about our tool https://www.webzunder.com
It is organized around presences, offers customized scheduling and publishing to each social media network, monitors what’s going on with partners, gives you the possibility to moderate conversations, allows team collaboration, and more. Perfect for MSBs and their partners incl. agencies!
Would love for you to test it and give us your feedback. Thanks! 🙂
Thanks, Sofie. Glad you liked the article and infographic.
I’ve not come across your tool before, it looks interesting. Thanks for the description. How would you say it compares with some of the main tools above, for example, with Hootsuite?
Ian
Hi Ian! We are based in Germany and that is why you might not have heard of us yet. 😉 Here are a few ways we are different than some of our competitors (e.g. Hootsuite) and explained a bit more than in my previous comment: 1) webZunder is organized by presence instead of by stream. This means that if you manage various clients, brands or languages, you can easily switch from one to the other and it consolidates all the information. And for each presence, you can connect one profile per social media network (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn (personal), XING (personal) and WordPress; more to come soon!) 2) webZunder allows you to customize your message for each social platform instead of posting the same message to all platforms like Hootsuite. This way, you can write a longer message on Facebook and a shorter one for Twitter (with as many hashtags as you wish! ;-)) 3) webZunder gives you the opportunity to monitor what your partners and competitors are posting on social media (through Facebook, Twitter and RSS) to stay in the know – and be part of your partners’ success too. There are more differentiators but I like the magical number… Read more »
Thanks, Sofie, yes 3 is a good number! Thanks for listing all of the features. Very helpful. I can see how that distinguishes you from Hootsuite. Some of those features are built into Sprout Social and Agora Pulse, but I think a lot of it comes down to the UI, ease of use and reliability. That only comes from using the tool!
The best one I ever found is https://hootsuite.com/. I am using this Tool to manage my social media platforms for every project I work.
Hi Gagan, thanks for that. Hootsuite is definitely one of the most well-known social media management tools out there. I’d be interested to know which others you’ve tried. Ian
The best one I found so far is http://PinPinterest.com..no need to download anything to your PC..simply configure it once n hit the start button once and it does the rest.
Free to use, mobile optimised, Pin Scheduler, Speed control, Intelligent content detection algorithms..the features’ list goes on and on… definitely worth a mention in the list 🙂
Hi Susan, Not heard of them before. Unfortunately, using this technique goes against Pinterest’s terms. It might get people banned and so it’s not something I would recommend.
Awesome sir, I think you forget to mention Onlywire. Actually i am planning to use this because many blogger recommend this.
But personally i want to ask Is this best for social bookmarking in their price ?? please recommend me any other if…
Hi, thanks for your comment. I’ve not come across Onlywire before. There are just so many social media tools out there! From looking at it, it really isn’t a social media management tool – more of a social media posting and scheduling tool. But the number of networks it supports is impressive. If cost is a big consideration, you might want to look at opting for a couple of tools instead of the all in one solution. If you are happy with Onlywire stick with that (or try Buffer), then use other tools such as Hootsuite for the engagement part.
Hi Ian!
I know you’ve tried a ton of those tools already, but I want to ask if you could trial another one and share your thoughts.
Take a look at https://amplifr.com. It’s scheduling and analytics tools focused on businesses and agencies. It works with pretty much every relevant media (Instagram and Facebook groups + profiles included, also with Pinterest, Google+, etc).
It has a very strong emphasis on analytics: traffic analysis, and even per-post conversion analysis, which makes the tool so good for small (online) business.
Can you test this one and drop a comment?
Hi Nate, thanks for that, looks interesting. Is it just for scheduling or can you engage and keep track of comments and mentions? I’ve wanted to keep this article on full social media management tools, and the only reason I included Buffer we because of their separate engagement tool. Ian
I appreciate your blogs, I’ve read a lot of them trying to figure out which SM tool to use. I’ve also started more free trials than I care to count lol. I think anyone is making what I really want, at least at a price I can afford. My problem is making sure I see every post comment and direct message and a way to make sure it’s been replied too. BUT the biggest problem is I need this for FB page, profile, and group, in addition to Instagram. Owning a small local shop as well as website, my profile actually gets used for local business more than my business page. I’m getting comments on old posts that I never notice….I just need everything funneled into one place. But most of the programs don’t support full engagement with a profile page and group page. If I have to pull up FB for one area, I may as well continue managing it all directly through FB. Do you have any suggestions?
Hi, Stephen. As I am sure you are aware, there is no such thing as a perfect tool. Although most tool companies think they are!
I’ve been on my fair share of free trials too, and it can get rather confusing!
I understand wanting integration with your Facebook profile and group – I want that too. However, you have to remember there are restrictions in what tools can do when it comes to profiles and groups. Not all functions are possible.
Hootsuite has very poor integration with Facebook groups and pages. Sprout is the same, and they don’t integrate with groups. Buffer integrates with all – but they only publish posts – not help with engagement.
Agora Pulse currently only integrates with Facebook pages, but I’d say watch this space – groups and profiles are coming.
I tend to share some business related things on my Facebook profile, but you do need to be careful. Technically Facebook’s terms state that personal profiles should not be used for business. I know that’s a difficult one to wrestle with, but just wanted to say.
Ian
Hi Ian, have you tested Sprinklr before? What are your thoughts?
Hi Thys, no I haven’t used Sprinklr before. It’s a high-end enterprise social media management tool with (from what I gather) a very high price tag.
Why are you considering it? What features are you looking for?
How can you forget ZOHO SOCIAL……Its even been marked great by G2 CROWD in 2016 magic quad….
I don’t forget Zoho Social, it’s a great social media management tool! It is definitely in the quad now with a great score.
You missed out Statusbrew knowing it gives me all the features at lesser rate. I’ve used all of the tools above and I think Statusbrew is worth a mention. btw I really like your articles (y) keep up the good job
I haven’t heard of Statusbrew, but more to the point, the review was of the top 5 social media management tools based on reviews on G2Crowd. I am sure Statusbrew is worth a mention, I’ll look into it. But I really can’t mention every single social media management tool that exists. It would be a rather long post! Ian
Nice article! Great and useful! thanks for sharing.
My pleasure, Abegail.
Great List! But guys you should try out on SocialPilot (https://socialpilot.co) an amazing tool which you should not miss out on. It has such nice features and the best part is its user-friendly interface which could be used by just anyone. Once you start SocialPiloting you will never feel like using any other tool.
Yes, I have tried social pilot, but it is a different tool to the ones on this list. Ian
Hi
Thanks for the useful article. We used Hootsuite but didn’t find it user friendly. Now we’re trying Agora. So far it looks nice really. What is your opinion? Did you try it?
I’ve tried all tools in this article. There are quite a few things I like about Hootsuite, but it isn’t particularly user-friendly and I find it a bit clunky. Agora Pulse doesn’t do everything Hootsuite does, but it does offer a lot of other features – much more, in fact. It’s very robust and it is my go-to tool now.
Hey Ian, check out DrumUp – https://drumup.io/ ! It is a social media manager and content marketing app that mines web content in real time to recommend fresh and relevant to your audience, reducing your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter management time. It also provides you with relevant content based on keywords provided by you. You also have the option of setting up RSS feeds or manually save links to your library. Once this is done, you can schedule your favorite posts across your social media channels easily with their 1 Click Add feature. This process can be automated by RSS feeds of your favorite blogs. Give it a look, and if you like it, please include it in any future lists. Thanks!
Hi, yes, I have used Drump Up before and it’s a nice tool. However, for me, I like to have more control, and I don’t just want to add more noise to the over crowded social web. I prefer to find my own content and be more semi-automatic than fully automatic if that makes sense. However, if used well, Drump Up might work well for some businesses.
Do you have another list for social media management online that is FREE but limited, FREE and open source, or just plain FREE because companies love everyone and are generous before the holiday season kicks off. Think, Christmas gift! 🙂
Thanks, John. There aren’t many tools out there. Tools cost a lot to develop and maintain. However, you can get some pretty decent features with the free version of Buffer, Hootsuite and MavSocial. They’re worth checking out.
Hey Ian,
It is a great list that gives us to decide which tool is best for any situation. Thanks for your effort.
I just wanna say something about Buffer 🙂 You need to update the data about Instagram integration on Buffer. You can see what Buffer offers for Instagram via the link https://buffer.com/instagram
Thanks, Murat. I’ve looked and I am pretty sure my section on Buffer is all up to date when it comes to Instagram. Was there anything specifically you feel I missed?
what about ifittt ??
it is the best
Thanks, Neil. I LOVE IFTTT. It’s one of my favourite automation tools out there. However, it’s not a social media management tool and so I didn’t include it in this post. You could definitely use it as well as a social media management tool though.
That’s actually what I was just looking into… tools/apps to use along side a main social media managing tool like hootsuite (which I’m currently in a trial to upgrade to pro poss but not sold on). I also have ifttt app but haven’t figured out how/if can add multiple profiles and looking for better reports analytics tool to share with clients I manage?
Just starting out & only have 3 diff profiles (businesses I’m managing) & only 12 different accts across FB, Twitter, Instagram, linkedin.
Great info BTW! Thanks for breaking these down & sharing. Any tips for a newbie would be much appreciated, thanks!
Sorry for late reply, Veronica. The pro version of Hootsuite only works with one user and has a limited number of networks you can integrate with. I love IFTTT, but you can only add one of each channel – so only one Twitter account or Facebook page. The alternative is Zapier which allows multiple Facebook and Twitter accounts. However, for analytics and reporting, I really love Agora Pulse. If you are going to use a social media management tool, and need decent analytics, Agora Pulse is a no-brainer, because its reports are beautiful and it is much cheaper than Sprout (and much much better than Hootsuite).
Does this help? Ian
Hello there Ian, thanks for this wonderful post. Between Buffer and Hootsuite, i think i’ll rather go with the Hootsuite platform, because i seems to understand it more thn buffer. But this new tool you shared here, Agora plus and Socialpilot seems to be a viable option for me.
Going to check this app and compare the prices.
Thanks! Interesting to hear you find Hootsuite easier to understand than Buffer. Personally I find Buffer a little more intuitive – particularly because it’s focussed on posting and basic analytics. Do check out my latest article which compare Hootsuite, Sproutsocial and Agorapulse features and prices – http://iag.me/socialmedia/the-hidden-pricing-of-social-media-tools-revealed/
Hi Ian – I would have given my right arm for this post last week when I was flipping back and forth between Buffer and Hootsuite and feeling pretty frustrated by the limitations of each.
I finally settled on SocialPilot and have been super impressed with it so far – especially the bulk uploader which just works so much better than either Hootsuite or Buffer.
Keeping this article on file just in case I have to go through this process again.
Hi Nicola, I seem to be getting quite a few comments on my blog about Social Pilot at the moment!
I have tried it in the past and I think it’s an interesting tool. Lots to like about it. However, it isn’t a social media management tool – it only helps with scheduling. A little like Buffer actually. However, we included Buffer in this article this year because they do offer a tool for engagement now. Businesses will need a tool or selection of tools which will help with all aspects of social media marketing such as posting, scheduling, engagement, monitoring, analytics, reports, team management and more. So, if a business uses Social Pilot instead of Buffer they will need to use other tools as well.
As for bulk upload, I don’t think Hootsuite does a particularly good job.
Edgar is a little better and you can use a 3rd party tool such as Bulk Buffer with Buffer for CSV upload. Probably the best bulk uploader I’ve tried is eClincher which goes to the trouble of extracting the image from each article you upload. I will give Social Pilot another go in the future
Hi Anderson this is amazing thanx for sharing.
Hi Akansha, no problem. Did you have a favourite from the list? Ian
[…] gives plenty of his own thoughts around these ratings on his blog — be sure to check it […]
Hey Ian – Glad to see your in-depth analysis of social media management tools.
I was wondering if you got a chance to try out Zoho Social – a social media management tool for growing businesses.
We’re relatively new in the market, but have tried to fill the gaps. For example, you’ll find the column layout for monitoring, and can see all your direct messages in a central Brand Inbox.
After having tried out a bunch of tools to manage our own social media (@Zoho), we set out to build one that fits the needs of a growing business.
Happy to get your onboard for an unbiased evaluation. Plus, would love to share some of our upcoming integrations and roadmap. Let me know.
We’ll appreciate your feedback!
Cheers,
Praval
Product Manager – Zoho Social
Thanks, Praval. I’ve heard of Zoho, but not actually tried and tested it yet. Would be interested to know more about the tool. Ian
[…] infographic shared by Ian Anderson, the founder of the seriously Social blog discusses about the 5 best social media management tools of 2016 that you should consider for your […]