With so many social media management and marketing tools out there how do you know which one to use? And how do you know which features to choose from?
The variety of social media tools out there can be pretty overwhelming, for a beginner as well as for the more advanced user.
So we made the ultimate list of the top 10 social media management tools for 2018. There are three major feature groups that a good social media management tool should always have – publishing and RSS integration, social engagement, and a great analytics reporting. Those three areas make for a pretty comprehensive social media management platform.
Updated as of May 2018 – Let’s get started – tools are ranked from top to bottom:
1. eClincher
The best part about eClincher is that it is a comprehensive platform but yet simple to use. It has all the essential features a social media management tool should have plus unique ones – auto posting with smart queues, social inbox, RSS feeds integration and auto-posting, suggested content plus curation, influencer discovery, custom analytics reports, Canva integration, media asset management, free image library, URL shorteners, and more. Let’s look at a few of those.
Publishing & RSS – eClincher has a robust system for publishing content. One of the most favorite features is the Auto Post with Queues which allows users to automatically publish hundreds of posts for the next X number of months, with just a few clicks. eClincher offers the ability to recycle content as well as publish it once and remove it from the queue. There is also the RSS integration which allows users to automatically publish every single blog post (their own or their favorite industry blogs) onto their social media profiles. eClincher also offers a great scheduling tool with visual calendar, auto link shortening, free images, and animated gifs, and video publishing support.
Suggested Content allows you to use keywords or categories to quickly find articles to share with your audience.
Social Engagement – eClincher offers a Social Inbox which lets users manage all their social media engagement and interactions in one place. We’re talking about tweets, DMs, mentions, comments, likes, shares, new followers, even YouTube and Facebook Ad comments. There are also social listening and monitoring features to help you monitor your brand or other mentions, interact with followers, and start new conversations.
Influencer Search – eClincher offers users the ability to search for influencers on Twitter, view them by topic, ranking, location, and interact with them.
Clients Management Support – if you are an agency or have several clients that you manage, then this feature is perfect for you. eClincher offers a dedicated workplace for each client, with a separate calendar, inbox, analytics, and assigned team members, so you won’t ever get confused and will be able to keep everything organized and clean.
In addition, eClincher offers fully customized white label analytics reports, inbox workflow for teams, and internal/external post-approval workflow.
Supported Networks: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Instagram Business, Google+, Google My Business, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, Google Analytics
Prices:
$49 1 user/ month, 15 social profiles, unlimited posting & analytics reports
$99 3 user/ month, 30 social profiles, unlimited posting & analytics reports
$199 6 user/ month, 100 social profiles (10 profiles per brand or client), profiles/brands/users can be added, unlimited posting & analytics reports
2. Buffer
Buffer is a well established social media management platform. It has several good features – publishing with queue, engagement, analytics, and team features. It integrates with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, and Linkedin.
Publishing & RSS – Buffer has the basic publishing features such as scheduling and adding posts to a queue but it is not made for evergreen posts. Meaning, it will not let you upload hundreds of posts and then recycle them, or publish them on your social media until you tell it to stop. It does have the RSS feed that helps you publish posts from blogs.
Social Engagement – Buffer just launched a new product called Reply which is similar to eClincher’s Social Inbox but it only supports Facebook, Twitter and Instagram comments. it is also way more expensive. It costs $415/month for 3 user/15 profiles, in addition to the basic Buffer pricing.
Influencer Search – Buffer does not have an influencer search feature.
Client Management Support – Buffer has a limited team feature that allows a user to add team members and give them permissions to manage various social media pages but nothing else in this category.
Supported Networks: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest
Prices:
$15 1 user/ month, 8 social profiles, limited to 100 posts per month per profile
$99 5 user/ month, 25 social profiles, limited to 2,000 posts per month per profile
$199 10 user/ month, 50 social profiles, limited to 2,000 posts per month per profile
$399 25 user/ month, 150 social profiles, limited to 2,000 posts per month per profile
Buffer supports: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest
Plus Buffer Reply: $415 3 users/ month, 15 social profiles (supports Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)
3. Sprout Social
Sprout Social is similar to HootSuite and other social media tools in that it combines a variety of social media tools. It has monitoring, scheduling, analytics, the whole gamut.
Publishing & RSS – Sprout Social has some cool features when it comes to publishing. It has all the basics and a few more customized features such as the individual statistics on each post, and agency features such as post-approval. It does not have the Auto Post with queues feature.
Social Engagement – Sprout Social does have the social inbox, which is great. It also has the social monitoring and keyword searching features that help you monitor your brand on social media.
Influencer Search – Sprout Social does not have an influencer search feature.
Clients Management Support – Sprout has the basic team features but not much else in this category.
Supported Networks: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn
Prices:
$99 1 user/month , 10 social profiles
$149 1 user/month , 15 social profiles
$249 1 user/month , 20 social profiles
4. HootSuite
HootSuite has probably been around the longest (since 2008). It has all the various applications that you need and some robust content features as well – content curation, organization, scheduling, RSS integration.
Publishing & RSS – Hootsuite has bulk scheduling which allows you to upload several posts at a time, but it does not have the Auto Post feature that recycles the content for you. It has a cool feature that allows you to create social sweepstakes or contests on social media. It also has RSS integrations just like eClincher.
Social Engagement – Hootsuite does not have a Social Inbox or anything like it, so you have to manually engage with each follower by logging in to each social media account separately.
Influencer Search – Hootsuite does not offer the ability to find influencers.
Client Management Support – Hootsuite has the basic team features plus post-approval and custom branded URLs.
Supported Networks: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, WordPress
Prices:
$29 1 user/ month, 10 social profiles, unlimited posting
$99 3 user/ month, 20 social profiles, unlimited posting
$499 (for annual billing) 5 user/ month, 50 social profiles, unlimited posting
5. Sendible
Sendible is a tool that was built for agencies in mind. It has many features and includes a CRM just like eClincher and Sprout Social. Let’s take a deeper look.
Scheduling & RSS – Sendible has a Smart Queue feature which is similar to eClincher’s Auto Post in that it helps you put your favorite posts on repeat. It also has a smart recommendation system that recommends the top posts for you.
Social Engagement – Sendible does have the Social Inbox feature and it has team member features just like eClincher’s. Sendible also has social listening features that allow the user to monitor different keywords and see what is being said about their brand.
Influencer Search – Sendible does not have an influencer search feature but it does have a CRM that allows you to treat your social interactions and the people that you interact with like leads. It shows you the entire conversation history and different information about them.
Clients Management Support – Sendible has a separate dashboard for each client and even has a white label solution.
Sendible’s pricing is calculated per number of services as well as profiles. A service is a one-way interaction with any social media network. For example posting and streaming to 1 Facebook page would count as 2 services.
Supported Networks: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google Analytics
Prices:
$29 1 user/month, 4 social profiles, no reports
$99 3 users/month, 16 social profiles 6 reports
$199 7 users/month, 35 social profiles, 35 reports, unlimited scheduling
$299 12 users/month, 64 social profiles, 60 reports, unlimited scheduling
6. Social Pilot
Social Pilot is also a great platform because it offers many features in one dashboard.
Scheduling & RSS – Social Pilot has all the basic scheduling features (bulk scheduling included) but does not have the Auto Post or Smart Queues. It does offer RSS integration and auto publishing.
Social Engagement – Social Pilot does not have the Social Inbox feature or any social monitoring or listening features. It does have content feeds where you can browse at different content and get ideas, but not engage with other social media enthusiasts (or your own followers).
Influencer Search – Social Pilot does not have any influencer features.
Client Management Support – Social Pilot allows you to connect your clients into the social media management system without needing their credentials. They also have post approval and a separate client dashboards.
Supported Networks: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, VK, Tumblr
Prices:
$10 1 user/month, 10 social profiles , 50 posts/day
$30 5 user/month, 50 social profiles , 200 posts/day
$50 10 user/month, 100 social profiles , 500 posts/day
$100 20 user/month, 200 social profiles , 1000 posts/day
7. Agora Pulse
Agora Pulse has a variety of features that are really useful – social engagement, publishing, listening, reports, and team collaboration.
Scheduling & RSS – Agora Pulse does have the Auto Post feature where you can queue evergreen posts (indefinitely). You can also put labels on your content that allow you to easily retrieve and analyze each post (or an entire category of posts).
Social Engagement – Agora Pulse does have the Social Inbox feature where you can interact with every follower and message in one place. You can also view every single profile just like you can with eClincher. It does also have social monitoring and keyword searches.
Influencer Search – Agora Pulse does not have any influencer features.
Clients Management Support – Agora Pulse has the basic team sharing features plus content approval from clients and the ability to assign messages to clients, which is pretty cool.
Supported Networks: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube
Prices:
$49 1 user/month, 3 social profiles, add-on profile $15/month, add-on user $39
$99 3 user/month, 10 social profiles, additional profile – $12/month, add-on user $39
$199 6 user/month, 25 social profiles , additional profile – $9/month, add-on user $39
$299 12 user/month, 40 social profiles , additional profile – $6/month, add-on user $39
8. CoSchedule
CoSchedule is known for its social calendar feature. The whole platform is positioned to help you schedule and organize all of your social media posts. What’s really cool is that the CoSchedule blog is one of the top blogs on content marketing.
Scheduling & RSS – CoSchedule has all the basic publishing features as well as something called ReQueue – which is an intelligent piece of software that schedules only the top posts in your social history.
Social Engagement – CoSchedule does not have any social engagement features nor does it have any social monitoring, listening, or keyword searches.
Influencer Search – CoSchedule does not have any influencer features.
Clients Management Support – CoSchedule has a separate dashboard for each client, task templates that you can re-use, social approval, and custom reports.
Supported Networks: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr
Prices:
$49 1 user/month, 8 social profiles, add-on user $9/month
$79 3 user/month, 10 social profiles, add-on user $19/month
$399 5 user/month, 25 social profiles, add-on user $49/month
$1200 billed annually 10 user, 25 social profiles, add-on user $149/month
9. Crowdfire
Crowdfire reminds me very much of an automated bot. It makes recommendations about your social media through a series of automated chat messages. You can set up various automation with it including scheduling and publishing.
Scheduling & RSS – Crowdfire does have basic scheduling tool but lacks the queues, auto post, and RSS integration features. It’s not built to be a comprehensive scheduling tool, it’s actually more made for social engagement.
Social Engagement – Crowdfire nicely automates various features in this category. It helps users grow their audiences by unfollowing, following, easily targeting relevant audiences and automating DMs.
Influencer Search – Crowdfire does not have a way to search for influencers, but you can find peoples’ followers on Twitter and target them.
Clients Management Support – Crowdfire does not have these features.
Supported Networks: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest
Prices: $9.99, $19.99, $199.99.
$9.99 1 user/month, 2 social profiles, 100 posts/month
$19.99 1 user/month, 5 social profiles, 100 posts/month
$99.99 1 user/month, 20 social profiles, 800 posts/month
10. Edgar
Edgar specializes in scheduling content but it does this in a unique way. It groups all of your content into categories and then adds time slots to each category. Edgar then fills up those slots with your content and publishes them for you.
Scheduling & RSS – Edgar (formerly Meet Edgar) is hyper-focused on publishing automation and will do this for you in a clever way. It does have an Auto Post feature that continuously publishes evergreen posts for you. It also has an RSS feature as well.
Social Engagement – Edgar does not have any type of social engagement or social monitoring features.
Influencer Search – Edgar does not have any influencer features.
Clients Management Support – Edgar has no features in this category.
Prices:
$49/month, 25 social profiles
Supported Networks: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
Final Thoughts
If you have a very specific need for a particular feature then you can definitely find exactly the tool that you are looking for. But if you are looking for a social media management platform that has all the features to boost your engagement, get more leads, and grow your social following then eClincher is the best tool for you.
Source: eClincher