5 best social media management tools: 2024 update

Buffer provides a free plan tailored for beginners, allowing scheduling of up to 10 posts across three social media channels. The free option includes a calendar view, buff.ly link shortener, and Twitter hashtag suggestions. For more comprehensive features like analytics reports, data storage, audience demographics, and campaign analysis, plans start at $6 per month per channel. You can test either plan for free for 14 days.

Buffer suits individuals and small businesses aiming to manage multiple social media channels conveniently from a single dashboard at an affordable price. However, compared to platforms like Zoho Social and Hootsuite, Buffer may lack some advanced analytics and engagement capabilities.

Zoho Social is a comprehensive social media management tool designed to assist businesses and agencies in various tasks, including scheduling posts, monitoring social media mentions, generating customizable analytics reports, and facilitating team communication regarding pending posts. One standout feature of Zoho Social is its "pause post" functionality, which enables social media managers to halt all scheduled posts during emergencies or brand crises, ensuring that inappropriate content isn't published. Once the situation is resolved, a simple click of the "resume" button allows the campaign to continue seamlessly.

Beyond social media management, Zoho offers a CRM tool that integrates smoothly with its social media management platform. This CRM tool facilitates email management, accounting tracking, lead generation from social media, and engagement with prospects. Users can set parameters for lead generation, engage with social media interactions, add contacts to lists, and track them as potential customers for targeted marketing campaigns. Zoho Social stands out for its affordability, offering a free plan that allows posting on seven outlets under one brand. The paid plans, which include advanced analytics, engagement features, and organizational tools, are reasonably priced, ranging from $10 to $40 per month.

SocialPilot stands out as an exceptionally affordable social media marketing tool, particularly suitable for social media managers handling numerous accounts. Its Small Team tier, priced at $42.50 per month (billed annually), enables three users to post across 20 social media accounts. This contrasts sharply with competitors like Hootsuite and Sprout Social, which charge significantly higher rates for similar capabilities. Notably, SocialPilot distinguishes itself by integrating with TikTok, a feature lacking in many other platforms. With TikTok boasting over 800 million active users, this integration presents an invaluable opportunity for brands to reach a vast and engaged audience.

Among its array of features, SocialPilot offers a user-friendly drag-and-drop social media calendar, simplifying the task of rearranging posts. Additionally, it includes a feature that compiles a list of past posts for easy reposting, enhancing efficiency and content recycling.

Hootsuite is recognized as a highly comprehensive social media management tool among its competitors. Like its counterparts, it enables users to schedule social media content, optimize posting times, and review scheduled content using an interactive planner. Its higher-tiered plans offer extensive analytics, various integrations for productivity tools, and live training sessions for teams. Hootsuite offers four pricing tiers: Professional, Team, Business, and Enterprise. Each tier provides increasingly detailed analytics and social media tracking reports. The Professional tier suits individuals and small businesses, allowing management of 10 social media accounts by one user, while the Team tier caters to small teams, permitting three users to handle 20 social media accounts. The latter tiers, including Team, Business, and Enterprise, offer advanced customizable analytics reports.

Though the higher-tiered plans come at a higher cost, their additional analytics tools are indispensable for businesses heavily reliant on social media marketing. A standout feature of Hootsuite is its seamless integration with a wide range of applications. With all APIs available as open source, Hootsuite can collaborate effortlessly with various software solutions. This compatibility extends to over 250 apps, including Microsoft business apps, Canva, Adobe, and Spotify, among others. Such versatility is invaluable for social media managers and content creators working across multiple platforms, facilitating swift and easy navigation between them.

Sprout Social is positioned as one of the higher-priced options among its competitors, with its entry-level tier starting at $249 per month. However, this higher cost grants users unlimited posting capabilities and access to robust data analytics tools. The Standard plan, while limiting users to five social media sites, offers powerful analytics features. The Professional plan, priced at $399 per month (billed annually), is the most popular option, enabling users to post to an unlimited number of social media sites. It includes features such as an all-in-one social box and analysis tools for Twitter hashtags and response rate analysis reports. The Advanced plan, priced at $499 per month (billed annually), offers additional features like automated social chatbots, digital content libraries, and link tracking capabilities.

In addition to its scheduling functionalities, Sprout Social excels in data analysis. Users can leverage demographic and geographic measurements to gauge content performance with their followers. The platform also monitors keywords across social media platforms, notifying users when their business or brand is mentioned.