Social Media Management Tools to Consider for 2024

Effective social media management is no longer a luxury; it’s a necessity. As social media platforms evolve, the challenge of managing multiple channels efficiently and effectively continues to increase. This is where social media management tools step in, offering a lifeline for businesses that want to capitalize on the digital landscape.

These tools come in various shapes and sizes, each boasting unique features tailored to different business needs and goals. From scheduling posts to analyzing data, to boosting customer engagement to streamlining marketing campaigns, these tools are designed to enhance the social media presence of a business while minimizing the effort and time investment required.

In this blog, we will look at the top 11 social media management tools that need to be on your radar in 2024. These tools are not ranked in any specific order, as our aim is not to crown a one-size-fits-all champion but rather to illuminate the strengths and specialties of each tool. We encourage you to delve into the next section with an open mind and consider how each tool might align with your business objectives and social media strategy.

Buffer

Buffer is popularly known for its clean and intuitive interface. This user-friendly design is especially advantageous for those who are new to social media management, ensuring a smooth learning curve and efficient handling of social media tasks. It offers a completely free plan for the first three social media channels, making it a good choice for setting up your Facebook, Instagram, or X(Twitter).

Key Features:

1. Social media publishing tools: Buffer simplifies scheduling and publishing content across your social media channels. Whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, or X, the platform allows you to easily line up your content in advance, ensuring a consistent online presence.
2. Social media engagement dashboard: The engagement dashboard consolidates all mentions and messages from different platforms into one place, making it easy to manage and respond to your audience.
3. Analytics and reporting: With Buffer’s analytics, you can comprehensively view your social media performance and access insights like audience engagement, content reach, and overall impact, which will help you make data-driven decisions.
4. Landing page creation: A unique addition to Buffer’s arsenal is the ability to create landing pages. This feature is particularly useful for lead generation, sales promotions, and other marketing campaigns, adding versatility to your social media strategy.

Ideal for: Buffer is good for small businesses and startups taking their first steps in social media due to its affordability, easy to follow, and comprehensive features.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite stands out as a robust and widely-used social media management tool, trusted by over 18 million users worldwide, including numerous Fortune 1000 companies. Its popularity stems from its comprehensive features and scalability, catering to a range of businesses, from small startups to large corporations. It also has an easy-to-use user interface with a dashboard designed to provide a comprehensive overview of all social media activities. This holistic view is instrumental in tracking progress, analyzing performance, and making informed decisions quickly and efficiently.

Key Features:

1. Multi-platform publishing and scheduling: Hootsuite excels in its ability to publish and schedule posts across a variety of social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, X, YouTube, and Pinterest. This feature allows for seamless management of content across different channels.
2. Unified message management: The tool offers a consolidated inbox to manage incoming messages and mentions. This centralization makes it easier to respond promptly to customer inquiries and interactions across various platforms.
3. Social media monitoring: One of Hootsuite’s standout capabilities is its monitoring feature. It enables businesses to track online conversations about their brand and industry. This helps understand audience sentiment, stay updated with trending topics, and adapt strategies accordingly.

Ideal for: Hootsuite is suitable for businesses of all sizes that require a powerful, all-in-one social media management solution for multiple channels and large volumes of social interactions.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a comprehensive and versatile social media management tool designed for businesses of all sizes. It empowers users to handle every facet of their social media strategy from a single, unified platform. The tool’s extensive integration capabilities with platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and YouTube make it a standout choice for managing a diverse and expansive social media presence.

Sprout Social excels in handling reviews from Google My Business and Facebook while also offering the capability to generate shoppable posts that seamlessly connect with Facebook Shops and Shopify catalogs. This feature is particularly beneficial for businesses looking to leverage social media for e-commerce and reputation management.

Key Features:

1. Comprehensive social media management: Sprout Social offers a full suite of features, including publishing, scheduling, monitoring, analytics, and reporting, all accessible through an easy-to-use dashboard.
2. ViralPost feature: This unique feature analyzes your audience’s engagement patterns and automatically schedules content for optimal visibility and reach.
3. Smart inbox: The smart inbox compiles messages from various social media platforms, giving users a holistic view of their social interactions. This centralization simplifies the process of responding to and managing interactions.
4. Hashtag identification: Sprout Social assists in identifying the most relevant hashtags for your content, enhancing its reach and engagement.
5. Custom URL tracking: The platform offers advanced URL tracking capabilities, providing deeper insights into how posts are driving referral traffic and conversions.

Ideal for: Sprout Social is ideal for businesses that need a powerful, comprehensive tool to manage a multifaceted social media strategy that cuts across multiple social media platforms.

Sendible

Sendible is a social media management tool specifically tailored for agencies managing numerous social media profiles. It stands out in the market for its customizable dashboards, which allow for a custom-styled approach to managing a diverse array of client profiles. This focus on adaptability and client-specific customization makes Sendible a particularly appealing option for agencies.

Sendible integrates seamlessly with various platforms and tools, including the Canva graphics editor, to enhance content creation and design. This integration, along with advanced automation features, streamlines the social media management process, making it more efficient and effective.

Key Features:

1. All-in-one dashboard: The dashboard in Sendible provides an all-encompassing overview of social media performance across multiple accounts. 
2. Collaboration tools: Sendible’s platform includes collaboration tools that enable team members to create content and then forward it to clients or team leaders for approval.
3. Presentation-ready reports: The tool offers the capability to generate detailed, presentation-ready reports. These reports are invaluable for demonstrating the ROI of social media efforts to clients, an essential aspect of agency-client relationships.
4. Mobile app: With the mobile app, you can manage social media accounts on the go. This feature is especially beneficial for teams needing to stay connected and responsive no matter where they are.

Ideal for: Sendible is suitable for agencies that handle multiple social media profiles for different clients. Its customizable dashboards, collaboration tools, and integrative capabilities cater specifically to the needs of agencies, providing them with a versatile and powerful tool to streamline their social media management services.

eClincher

eClincher is a comprehensive social media management tool known for its robust feature set, catering to businesses and agencies seeking to automate and streamline their social media activities. The tool emphasizes efficiency and effectiveness, offering a range of features like auto-posting, smart queues, and RSS feeds, making it a versatile choice for dynamic social media management.

Key Features:

1. Auto-posting and smart queues: eClincher allows for advanced scheduling, auto-posting of content, and smart queues that optimize posting times based on audience engagement patterns.
2. Cross-network social publishing: eClincher features a cross-network publishing tool, enabling users to manage posts across various platforms from a single dashboard. 
3. Dedicated messaging inbox and publishing queue: The tool consolidates messages from different platforms into a single inbox, simplifying engagement with the audience. Additionally, the publishing queue offers an organized way to manage upcoming posts.
4. Brand monitoring and sentiment Analysis: eClincher excels in brand monitoring across social networks, news sites, blogs, and more. Its sentiment analysis feature helps in understanding public perception and audience mood towards the brand.
5. Team collaboration tools: The platform supports team collaboration with features like drafts, comments, notifications, tagging, and assigning messages, making it ideal for team-based operations.

Ideal for: eClincher is good for businesses and agencies looking for a tool that offers advanced social media management capabilities like brand monitoring, sentiment analysis, and robust collaboration tools.

SocialPilot

SocialPilot is a user-friendly social media management solution, good for those who are venturing into using management tools for the first time. It’s designed to simplify the complex landscape of social media management, making it accessible and manageable, especially for beginners or small businesses. The ease of use ensures a smooth learning curve, allowing users to adapt and make the most of its features quickly.

Key Features:

1. Integration with major social media platforms: SocialPilot integrates seamlessly with a variety of platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. This wide range of compatibility makes it a versatile tool for managing a diverse social media presence.
2. Customizable post composer: The platform offers a single post composer that allows users to customize and optimize their content for different social networks.
3. In-depth analytics reports: SocialPilot provides comprehensive analytics reports, offering insights into content performance and audience engagement. 
4. Content curation platform: An added advantage is its content curation platform, which suggests a range of content pieces to spark new ideas and inspire creative content strategies.

Ideal for: SocialPilot is well-suited for individuals and businesses at various levels, including beginners, small businesses, or those in the early stages of exploring social media management tools. Its simplicity, combined with powerful analytics and content curation features, makes it a valuable tool for those who need an easy-to-navigate yet effective solution for managing and growing their social media presence.

CoSchedule

CoSchedule has evolved from its roots as a content marketing company to incorporate social media and calendar management into its repertoire. This integration makes CoSchedule an attractive option for businesses looking to centralize their marketing efforts. It is particularly notable for its organizational capabilities, allowing users to manage various aspects of their marketing strategy in one consolidated platform.

CoSchedule’s standout feature, ReQueue, intelligently reschedules your best content to get more traction without additional work. This feature is particularly useful for maximizing the reach and lifespan of high-performing content.

Key Features:

1. Content calendar: The content calendar is a core feature of CoSchedule, providing a clear and comprehensive view of when each piece of marketing content is scheduled to be published. 
2. Project management tools: CoSchedule includes project management tools that enable users to monitor the progress of their marketing content from creation to publication. This feature ensures that projects stay on track and deadlines are met.
3. Unified dashboard for content creation: The platform offers the ability to manage all content creation from a single dashboard. This centralized approach streamlines the process of content management, making it more efficient and manageable.
4. Headline studio: CoSchedule’s Headline Studio assists in crafting compelling headlines. This tool is good for creating catchy headlines that capture attention in a crowded online space.

Ideal for: CoSchedule is ideal for businesses and marketers who need a tool that provides social media management, content marketing, and project management capabilities.

Tailwind

Tailwind started as a Pinterest-focused platform but expanded its capabilities to include Facebook and Instagram, making it a versatile tool for brands looking to leverage the power of visual social media platforms. The tool is especially renowned for its Pinterest content promotion and Instagram User-Generated Content (UGC) management, offering unique features tailored to these platforms.

Key Features:

1. Pinterest post ideas: Tailwind provides a continuous flow of post ideas, ensuring that brands always have fresh content for their Pinterest strategy. 
2. Design tool for pinterest graphics: The platform includes an integrated design tool that allows users to create custom Pinterest graphics and immediately save them to their boards. This feature simplifies the content creation process, making it more efficient.
3. Automated scheduling and SmartSchedule: Tailwind’s automated scheduling and SmartSchedule features ensure that your Pinterest feed remains active without the need for constant manual input. This automation is key for brands looking to maintain a consistent posting schedule with minimal effort.

Ideal for: Tailwind is well-suited for brands and businesses focusing on visual content, especially those looking to maximize their impact on platforms such as Pinterest and Instagram. Its user-friendly design tools, content recommendations, and performance measurement capabilities make it a good choice for businesses seeking to enhance their visual content strategy.

Later

Later began as an Instagram-focused social media management software, later expanding to encompass other platforms such as Pinterest, Facebook, X, TikTok, and more. Its roots in Instagram management have led to a suite of features that are particularly well-suited to the visual-centric nature of Instagram, making it an excellent choice for businesses and influencers looking to optimize their presence on this platform.

While Later now supports multiple social media platforms, its features, including the link-in-bio tool, are particularly streamlined for Instagram management. These features make managing an Instagram account more efficient and effective, particularly for businesses and influencers who rely heavily on this platform.

Key Features:

1. Social media scheduling tools: Later provides tools that allow for the planning and scheduling of content in batches. This feature is key for maintaining a consistent and strategic posting schedule across various platforms.
2. Visual content calendar: The visual content calendar is a standout feature, enabling users to easily visualize and plan out their feeds, especially on Instagram. This feature helps in creating aesthetically pleasing and cohesive social media feeds.
3. User-generated content tools: Later includes tools that assist in finding and curating user-generated content. This feature is particularly beneficial for engaging with and leveraging the content created by your audience.

Ideal for: Later is ideally suited for influencers, marketers, and businesses that prioritize Instagram in their social media strategy but also maintain a presence on other platforms. Its user-friendly scheduling tools, visual content calendar, and user-generated content curation capabilities make it a good choice for those who value a visually cohesive and engaging social media presence.

MeetEdgar

MeetEdgar is a somewhat lesser-known yet highly effective social media management tool designed to automate and streamline social media curation, especially for solopreneurs and small teams. It is particularly suited for startups and businesses where team members handle multiple roles, providing a set of features that maximize efficiency in social media management.

Key Features:

1. Content repurposing: MeetEdgar offers the unique ability to breathe new life into old content by automatically republishing it at a later date. This feature ensures that valuable content continues to reach new audiences and remains a part of the social conversation.
2. Optimized scheduling tools: The platform includes scheduling tools that allow users to set optimal times for content posting. MeetEdgar then automates the scheduling process, ensuring that content is published when it’s most likely to reach and engage the target audience.
3. A/B testing: A key feature of MeetEdgar is its A/B testing capability, which enables users to experiment with different types of content to determine what resonates most with their audience. This insight is invaluable for refining content strategies and enhancing audience engagement.

Ideal for: MeetEdgar is suited for small businesses, solopreneurs, and startups that require an efficient and automated approach to social media management.

Zoho Social

Zoho Social is an integral part of the Zoho ecosystem, offering a comprehensive suite of features for social media management. This tool is designed to seamlessly integrate with other Zoho applications, providing a unified experience, particularly beneficial for businesses already utilizing other Zoho products. It excels in cross-functional campaign management, leveraging its connectivity with CRM and marketing tools to offer a more holistic approach to social media strategy.

In addition to its unique features, Zoho Social provides robust analytics, scheduling, and monitoring capabilities. These tools help businesses track performance, plan content effectively, and stay aware of relevant social media activities and trends.

Key Features:

1. Integration with Zoho CRM: One of the standout features of Zoho Social is its instant integration with Zoho CRM. This integration allows for real-time monitoring and management of customer interactions on social media, enhancing customer relationship management.
2. Social listening dashboards: The tool includes social listening dashboards that enable tracking of brand reviews, @mentions, and branded keywords. This feature is crucial for maintaining brand reputation and engaging effectively with the audience.
3. Collaborative team platform: Zoho Social encourages team collaboration by providing features for chat, audio, and video calls within the platform. This functionality makes it easier for teams to discuss strategies, share reports, and provide feedback in real-time.
4. Instagram scheduling and UGC management: The software offers built-in Instagram scheduling, allowing users to publish posts and manage user-generated content directly from a desktop. This feature is particularly useful for brands looking to enhance their presence on Instagram.

Ideal for: Zoho Social is ideal for businesses that are already part of the Zoho ecosystem or are looking for a social media management tool that offers deep integration with CRM and other marketing tools. Its collaborative features and comprehensive approach to social media management make it a good choice for teams that value seamless communication and cross-functional campaign management.

Conclusion

The key takeaway is that the right tool for you depends on your specific social media goals, the size of your team, your budget, and the platforms you’re most active on. While some tools excel in analytics and reporting, others stand out for their content curation and scheduling capabilities. The beauty of this variety is that it allows for a tailored approach to social media management, ensuring that you can find a tool that aligns perfectly with your strategy.