Here are a few of the most popular social media management tools available today. Use them for personal reasons, for your blog, for your small business or for your large brand. You can monitor and post to several popular networks including both Facebook personal profiles and business pages, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others. And with its built-in custom analytics system, the ability to monitor selected keywords plus the option to conveniently schedule posts whenever you want (and do this all for free), HootSuite sets the bar high for competing social media management tools. Pro and enterprise plans are also available. The dashboard is super simple to use, giving you full customization of your posting schedule and the ability to view your analytics. Using the Buffer mobile app and the web browser extension makes it easier than ever to quickly add web page links (including title and images) to your Buffer schedule. You can upgrade for more posting privileges and social accounts to manage. TweetDeck is totally free and perfect for those who need to manage multiple accounts, follow specific hashtags, reply to lots of other users and see exactly what’s being tweeted in real-time. You can organize everything you need in separate columns so you can see all of it on one screen. Keep in mind that TweetDeck is meant for the desktop web only. A free account gets lots of great features that aren’t terribly limited, but a premium account will get you more—including follow-backs, automated DMs, quality users worth following and more. Premium members are billed every two weeks rather than monthly. For example, if you want all of your Instagram photos automatically saved to a public folder of your Dropbox account, you can create a recipe with IFTTT. You can choose from existing applets, as well. There’s no limit to the number of recipes you can build, and it works with almost any popular social website. As you might’ve guessed, SpredFast is for more than just the average blogger or small business dabbling in some light social media promotion. You have to request a demo before you can start using it. This is another one that involves requesting a demo before you can sign right up and get going on your next social media marketing campaign. It’s typically meant to be used by larger organizations that have big audiences and lots of engagement happening. There’s a free trial, but after that’s up, be prepared to pay a minimum of $60 per month to keep using all of Sprout Social’s advanced features. Enterprise and agency solutions are perfect for customizing your social media marketing needs to fit your business and is completely scalable. Customize your posts, schedule them for publishing later, collaborate with other team members and get access to all your social analytics. A free account gets you a very limited offering of just the basic features with tight restrictions, but there are four more premium account types that are affordable for any small or large social marketing strategy. For Instagram, you can take advantage of the Instagram “listening” feature, schedule posts, monitor hashtags, manage your audience, manage user-generated content and also get access to analytics and reporting. There are plans for everyone from bloggers and small businesses to agencies and enterprises.
