The Most Effective Social Media Tools for Your Business in 2024

Here’s a secret: every content creator uses the power of social media tools to help them work more effectively.

And why wouldn’t they?

Facebook and Instagram alone have billions of users, and the numbers are growing fast. On the other hand, newer platforms like TikTok and Discord offer new channels to connect new buyers to your business.

These days, operating multiple social media accounts to increase visibility can be very hectic.

That’s where social media tools come in.

What to look for in social media tools:

At a bare minimum, social tools should help you create and plan content as well as keep track of posts, comments, reactions, follows, clicks, etc. But there are lots of other helpful features including:

Here are some of the most trusted social media tools that businesses use for marketing and building an audience.

1. Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a popular social media marketing tool widely appreciated for its friendly user interface, team management capabilities, and administration permission feature.

This tool makes it easier to schedule your social media posts on one dashboard. The key feature of this tool is data analysis. You’ll get an in-depth analysis of your social media account performance, including post reaches, replies, and relationships with customers.

There’s also a mobile app for both android and IOS phones.

This tool supports the essential social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook. And you can take advantage of a 30-day free trial before you buy!

A standard account costs around $90 per month, billed annually.

2. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a well-known social media tool that allows users to manage multiple social media profiles from a central dashboard. It also lets users control and collaborate with the other team members.

Like Sprout Social, Hootsuite gives you access to tracking and analytics tools to check your posts’ performance, engagement, comments, and mentions. It helps not only with post analysis and scheduling, but also in social media advertising campaigns.

Client management, bulk post scheduling, and social listening are notable features of Hootsuite.  For one user, you’ll pay $49 per month.

Hootsuite also offers a 30-day free trial with various packages, each providing a vast range of features.

3. Buzzsumo

Buzzsumo is more of a social listening tool. It’s known for helping content creators monitor which type of content works best for their audiences. Buzzsumo provides in-depth analysis and research-based reports. It keeps its users with up-to-date data on their content, engagements, and shares. It also allows for content scheduling.

Uniquely, this tool lets you reach out to influencers related to your content, track competitor performance, and identify your audience’s interests. Buzzsumo gives you a 30-day free trial with a diverse range of payment plans.

This platform offers a free plan with limited features, or for $99 per month you get access to a rich array of features.

4. Loomly

Loomly is valuable for content creation and content suggestion.

It’s not as effective as Buzzsumo and Social Sprout, but it includes post-monitoring and client management capabilities that are more than enough for a small business. It also has a visual calendar for content posting. Loomly offers extensive plans for teams and enterprises; however, the more extensive the plan, the higher the cost.

Loomly offers social listening and in-depth analysis reports. It also helps with post-optimization capabilities. But, you only get a 15-day trial to make up your mind.

Loomly’s base pricing is $26 per month, not bad if you’re just starting out!

5. Buffer

Buffer is the right social media tool for businesses with small teams and limited budgets; their offer starts at only $5 per month. This tool can bring you a bird’s eye view of your Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn profiles, making managing them easy.

Buffer has a free plan that’s good enough to manage a basic social media presence for a business that is just starting out. Or you could take the 14-day trial to try out the paid plans.

It has a friendly user interface and essential features like tracking engagement, analysis, content management, and team features. You can also schedule all your social media posts with Buffer’s auto-posting feature and analyze audience reactions and behavior towards your content with custom content reports.

Influencer search is not available in Buffer, and the client management feature is also limited. It offers a free option as well as an essentials plan for just $5 per social channel a month!

6. Statusbrew

Statusbrew is a team-oriented social media management tool that takes care of all your social media needs ranging from publishing to reporting. It helps you manage multiple social channels and profiles from a single platform. 

It enables you to create and schedule all your social posts up to a year in advance, run campaigns, and engage in conversations across all the platforms from a unified inbox. This helps to reduce the response time by assigning the conversations to the concerned users.

Statusbrew’s additional features, like approval workflows, advanced automation, customizable notifications, and link presets, enable seamless collaboration and help you manage your brand’s social image. Other key features include Twitter threads scheduling, social CRM, hashtag insights, and white-label reports.

Statusbrew also offers a free trial, platform demo, and hassle-free onboarding. The plans start from $69/month.

7. SocialPilot

SocialPilot is ideal for small and medium working teams who want to manage multiple accounts. Their basic plan allows three users with affordable pricing.

SocialPilot lets you create workflows and user permissions. It has efficient social inbox features to communicate with the audience. You can separately create custom reports for clients as well.

The tool can’t do influencer searches, but it can help with social listening, monitoring, and auto-posting. The professional tier costs $26 a month for one user.

8. Sendible

You can integrate Sendible with Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google Analytics, Canva, WordPress, and other tools and platforms. The Sendible dashboard allows you to monitor all your social media accounts in one place.

Sendible has a CRM system that lets you interact with influencers. It also has a feature of social listening, keyword monitoring, competitor analysis, and tracking mentions of your brand.

Apart from the regular scheduling, queueing, and calendar management for content, Sendible also allows you to make particular changes and customization for any individual platform.

Reporting in Sendible is also pretty comprehensive, with easy access to reports and custom email reports for clients. They offer a 14-day free trial. The single-user Creator tier starts at $29 billed monthly.

Which social media tool is right for you?

Free plans of social media management tools have limited capacity but can still get the job done! Trial the platforms you’re most interested in before making a commitment.

Using a social media tool will save you tons of time, and help in optimizing your campaigns and achieving social media marketing goals.

Ultimately, selecting the right social media management tool is entirely up to you. Only you understand your business’s needs and audience.