As a marketing agency, you are well aware that social media platforms have become a prominent, if not the most important, marketing arenas in the strategies of many companies. Social media strategy, however, has long surpassed the concept of being present on social media channels and publishing now and then. Now, agencies have to consider the optimal time to post, tailoring content to the needs and likes of target audiences and the requirements of platforms and constantly keeping tabs on content performance and user sentiments.
Luckily, plenty of social media management tools for agencies have come forth in recent years consolidating arduous duties into one dashboard. Social media marketing teams can use these solutions to save time and manpower, resulting in stronger relationships with their clients and more efficient social media project management. This article will review the 10 best social media management tools, including their key features and strongest points.
What Is a Social Media Management Tool?
A social media management tool enables brands, marketing teams, and individuals to fast-track their social media content production, publication, and analysis from a centralized place. Social media tools are especially viable for marketing agencies that oversee social media accounts and content development for multiple clients. These tools are designed primarily to automate and optimize several tasks and observe numerous audience and performance metrics, and user feedback across various social networks.
Why Should Agencies Use Social Media Management Tools?
To put it simply, they make their work easier and deliver better results for their clients. Social media teams have a lot on their plates from developing a content strategy that fits their customers’ goals to being in the know of their competitors’ moves and current trends and handling emerging crises in a blink of an eye. The sheer number, complexity, and diversity of tasks justify using social media management platforms. The most popular agency social media management tools offer a variety of functions that help agencies stay organized and work more efficiently, including solutions for:
content creation,
post scheduling and publishing,
content calendars,
social listening,
sentiment analysis,
analytics,
communicating with users.
Now, let’s cut to the chase and explore 10 tools that assist marketers in performing diverse social media marketing tasks.
Zoho Social
Zoho Social is one of the many apps offered by Zoho Corporation’s comprehensive suite. The robust platform was built to enable users to run their entire business in one place by providing tools for managing marketing, HR, finance, project management, sales, and other workflows. In this article, we will focus on its social media management tool, Zoho Social.
It provides all the core features any other social media management tool provides including content creation, scheduling posts, messaging with potential clients, social media listening, and analytics and reporting. An outstanding feature is the Collaborate board where team members can discuss content performance, share ideas and thoughts, etc.
Agencies can connect Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, Mastodon, and YouTube to Zoho’s social management platform.
Price
Zoho offers separate plans for businesses and agencies, plus a free plan with basic functions. Here we list the agency plans.
Agency
€230/month (billed annually)
10 brands, 110 social media channels, and 5 team members
Agency Plus
€330/month (billed annually)
20 brands, 220 social media channels, and 5 team members
Key features
Integrates with Zoho CRM and Zoho Desk, two apps designed to handle leads, sales, and customer service.
An internal collaboration page for team members to work on posts.
Users can monitor keywords, hashtags, mentions, reviews, questions, leads, and contacts across social media networks.
Integrates with Facebook Lead Ads and LinkedIn Lead Ads.
Strengths
Based on the engagement of previous social media posts, the SmartQ feature suggests the best time for posting.
You can easily refer your connections - aka people who engaged with your content - to the CRM tool and turn them into clients.
It provides image editing, Instagram first comment, YouTube video options, and hashtag groups.
StoryChief
StoryChief is a powerful tool for teams that specialize in content marketing. From content creation to distribution and analytics, it is an all-in-one solution for marketing agencies whose clients rely heavily on quality content. Agencies can easily tailor texts to social network requirements and customize accompanying images with its advanced editorial features. It integrates with a wide range of apps and platforms, making StoryChief a dream tool for producing first-rate social media content and aiding multi-channel marketing.
StoryChief integrates with LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and Google Business Profile.
Price
Social Media Calendar for Agencies:
Starts from €150/month (billed quarterly or yearly)
3 workspaces, 4 users per workspace, 3 social channels per workspace.
Content Marketing Suite for Agencies:
Starts from €400/month (billed quarterly or yearly)
3 workspaces, 4 users per workspace, 3 social channels, and 1 website connection per workspace.
Key Features
AI-generated content templates.
A library to keep your media assets in one place.
Built-in editing features.
Collaboration feature for seamless teamwork.
Strengths
Integrates with hundreds of sales, marketing, CRM, CMS, editor, video, e-commerce, and calendar apps, such as HubSpot, Webflow, WordPress, Google Slides, MailChimp, Shopify, Vimeo, and many more.
SEO optimization.
Insights into how much value your blog and social media content can generate in terms of reach and revenue.
Planable
Like all social media management tools, Planable offers all the essential features including content generation, scheduling, and analytics. What sets it apart from other tools is its collaboration feature. This enables agencies to invite other co-workers and even stakeholders involved in the creative process and assign them different roles and permissions. This makes teamwork effortless and simplifies the approval procedure significantly.
Users can integrate their Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Linkedin, YouTube, Google Business Profile, and Pinterest accounts into it.
Price
Planable didn’t offer separate plans for businesses and marketing agencies. They have 1 free plan, 2 subscription plans, and a custom plan. Clients can calculate the prices based on the number of workspaces and users they need.
Basic plan
Starts at $11/month (billed annually)
1 user and 1 workspace
Pro plan
Starts at $22/month (billed annually)
1 user and 1 workspace
Key features
Boost content with AI-inspired ideas.
Media library.
Besides social media platforms, you can link newsletters and blogs to Planable.
Notes, and client feedback.
Strengths
Teams can develop their own content review and approval workflow.
Notification once the content is approved.
4 different views: calendar view for a more organized overview of your posting schedule, grid view for a visual perspective, list, and feed views if you need to make quick actions, like bulk schedule or approve.
Social Champ
When designing its suite, Social Champ thought of one-person businesses, big companies, and agencies as well. It integrates with the most popular social media platforms as well as apps like Dropbox, Google Drive, Canva, Zapier, and WordPress. Its free plan includes most of the functions that its subscription plans offer except team management. As well as this, it offers all the essentials for performing social media tasks, including social media post creation and scheduling, performance tracking, and user engagement.
You can connect Social Champ with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google Business Profile, TikTok, and Mastodon.
Price
Social Champ has a free plan 2 subscription plans for businesses and a custom plan for agencies. The latter contains over 100 social media accounts and 10 or more users.
Key features
Bulk posting, first comment, and location tagging on Instagram.
Provide daily, weekly, and monthly reports, as well as performance records for individual posts.
Cloud and RSS integrations.
Chrome browser extension.
Mobile-friendly (iOS and Android apps).
Strengths
Social Champ's free plan is loaded with vital features.
AI Suite with sentiment analysis and an image converter tool.
Content curation features, like trending content suggestions, and free images.
eclincher
Eclincher offers the standard features all social media tools for agencies do, such as direct publishing or scheduling social media posts ahead, content creation with designer tools, and AI assistants. Besides social listening and a social inbox, it provides team management and approval workflows, as well as analytics and reporting. A reputation management add-on from Eclincher provides alerts and notifications when your brand is mentioned online and crisis management services.
It connects with Facebook, Instagram Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Business Profile, YouTube, and TikTok.
Price
Eclincher has 4 plans, the Basic, Premier, Agency, and Enterprise plans. There is no free plan, however they offer a 14-day trial.
Agency
$425/month
Contains 6 users and 40 profiles
Key features
Content creation, curation, and scheduling features.
Royalty-free images.
Suggestions for national holidays and hashtags for each day for content inspiration.
Inox for handling all messages and comments.
You can schedule your reports to inform your clients of the progress of a campaign.
Strengths
You can publish directly and schedule Instagram Reels and TikTok videos from the platform.
RSS feed.
Custom reports and competitor audits.
Brandwatch
Brandwatch is known as one of the best social media management tools for agencies. Its powerful suite offers tools for content publishing, performance measuring, automated advertising, benchmarking, social listening, and a multi-platform inbox for messaging, and audience insights. Brandwatch’s not-so-secret weapons are its competitor analysis and social listening features, which help brands and agencies gain a significant competitive edge.
Brandwatch integrates with major social media channels, including TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Google Business Profile and YouTube.
Price
Brandwatch calculates a custom price once users book a demo and discuss their needs with sales personnel.
Key features
Unified calendar for organic and paid content.
Invaluable audience demographics, engagement, and mention data.
100+ metrics tracked across numerous channels.
Strengths
Historical data on consumer behavior and competitive channels.
Social listening across 100 million online sources.
Benchmarking.
The ability to boost copies into paid ads that perform the best.
Mention
Mention’s selling point lies in its online brand reputation and management solutions. Brands and marketing agencies whose first priority is an impeccable online presence, will not be disappointed in Mention. Aside from online and social media monitoring, it also offers competitive research, brand reputation, and social media management tools. Although the platform was designed to garner in-depth data about audience behavior, sentiments, and discussions, it also provides standard content production and publishing features.
Mention connects with Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest and Reddit.
Price
Mention doesn’t have a free plan, but offers a 14-day trial. It has 4 plans, the Solo, Pro, ProPlus, and Company. The Company plan includes unlimited users and channels, but prices depend on individual needs.
Key features
Monitors keywords across news sites, blogs, forums, and social media.
AI-driven caption and hashtag generator.
Asset library.
Integrates with Zapier, Slack, and RSS feed.
Strengths
Tracks review sites.
Identifies the source of mentions and evaluates its positive or negative impact on brand prestige.
Iconosquare
Iconosquare is the go-to social media management tool for those agencies whose clients’ content strategy is leveraging Instagram and Facebook. The suite's strengths are clearly Instagram analytics and content creation, including Carousels, Reels, and Stories. Additionally, it provides comments and mentions tracking on Instagram.
Iconosquare links with Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok.
Price
Iconosquare has Single, Teams, and Custom plans and offers a 14-day free trial.
Teams plan
€79/month (billed yearly)
Up to 10 users and 5 social profiles
Key features
Scheduling and media library.
Account analytics and reporting.
Campaign tracking.
Approval and collaboration features.
Strengths
In-depth post and Instagram Stories analytics.
Custom dashboards.
User-friendly and easy-to-understand interface.
MavSocial
MavSocial's powerful suite has a wealth of features that satisfy those who wish to create quality content without needing additional tools. The tool is invaluable for those who deal with brand management, including social listening, audience sentiment analysis, and reputation management. Marketing specialists who wish to use individual and aggregated data for improving campaigns and teams can also rely on the platform. Furthermore, even their smallest package includes 3 users and 30 profiles.
MavSocial connects with LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Google Business Profile and Tumblr.
Price
MavSocial offers a Pro and Business plan and a fully flexible Enterprise plan. It doesn’t have a free plan but offers users a 14-day trial.
Key features
Free image library and built-in editor.
Respond to Facebook and Google reviews.
Chrome extension.
Available on iOS and Android.
Strengths
Agencies can request permission from users to use their content on the platform.
Ad campaign management on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.
HeyOrca
HeyOrca clearly aims to attract creative agencies with a feature list that heavily emphasizes visuals. Not only is this demonstrated in the post editor, the media and asset library, the AI caption generator, and the hashtag library, but also in the easy-to-organize visual calendar, where agencies can see what they have planned. Plus, your team members can effortlessly collaborate and share content and ideas with external parties.
HeyOrca integrates with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile, and TikTok.
Price
All three plans by HeyOrca’s include unlimited users. It doesn’t have a free plan, but users can try out the Basic plan for free.
Key features
Customize posts for diverse channels quickly.
Visually captivating calendar.
Direct publishing to Facebook and Instagram profiles.
Strengths
Easy-to-use interface.
Outstanding and quick customer support.
HeyOrca offers weekly webinars on social media strategies and updates.
FAQ
What are social media tools?
A social media tool allows users to create and share content online, especially through social media sites, and track their performance. The best social media management tools for agencies make it easier to coordinate publishing between multiple accounts, engage with customers, and analyze campaigns. They enable social media managers to maintain a strong online brand presence and agencies to use their resources better.
What are the best social media tools for agencies?
The perfect tool for agencies is a comprehensive platform that provides a range of features. This includes:
Producing content: This includes designer and editorial tools, AI assistants for ideation, hashtag, and caption generators, media asset libraries, integrations with designer tools, etc.
Publishing: Social media tools were originally designed to manage content publishing across multiple outlets from one location. As a result, marketers were freed from logging into individual accounts. Nowadays, tools suggest the best time to post for maximum reach and engagement. Additionally, pre-scheduling allows brands to maintain a consistent presence.
Social listening: Through subtle tools, teams can monitor what people are saying about their clients on social media, blogs, and forums, so they can address any issues, and negative opinions and acknowledge positive feedback quickly.
Engaging with users: Most suites have a social inbox. As a result, users are spared the laborious task of logging into different accounts and engaging with users from there. Instead, they can use the social inbox to respond to comments and answer questions across multiple channels.
Analytics and reporting: An essential component of analytics is audience demographics and follower insights. The other chunk is the performance of the channels and content. By tracking real-time metrics, agencies can adapt posts to the target audience's preferences and improve content that doesn't perform well. Further, agencies can build custom reports to share campaign progress with clients and stakeholders.
Team collaboration and approval workflow: Social media marketing is teamwork between marketers, designers, copywriters, SEO specialists, and clients. Team management features enable smooth collaboration between colleagues and simplified review and approval procedures.
Competitor audits and benchmarking: A number of platforms offer competitor analysis and benchmarking so brands can stay ahead of the competition.
How do agencies manage social media?
A social media agency works with a wide range of brands and industries. Thus, it's crucial to discuss with clients the goals of their marketing efforts, their target audience, and the social media outlets they prefer. Once the team members know the objectives, they can develop content ideas that align with the brand and attract the audience. A social calendar makes it easy to plan posting dates and determine a publishing schedule for the upcoming weeks.
Using a social media management platform, they can monitor brand mentions, keywords, and conversations online. Marketing professionals can use them to analyze audience sentiments and content metrics, such as engagement, reach, impressions, and views. Through these tools, they can interact with users, reply to their comments, and answer their questions. Many platforms offer trend analysis and competition research features that help brands stay on top of their marketing game. By managing their social media accounts, agencies help their clients maintain a reputable and consistent image online and grow their brands.
What tools do you need for social media management?
You can see that social media management tools help agencies coordinate many tasks in one place. Alternatively, marketers might use professional software for graphic design, such as Adobe Photoshop or Canva, and video editing solutions, such as Final Cut Pro. For actively monitoring and engaging with potential clients, brands, and agencies can find a multitude of social listening and CRM tools. Collaboration and project management tools like Asana and Trello facilitate communication within teams and track progress. Lastly, social media platforms' analytics features and third-party solutions like Google Analytics assist marketing teams in understanding how their clients' campaigns perform and making data-driven decisions to improve their social media strategy.
