The 27 Best Social Media Tools for Marketers in 2021 (& Beyond)

Which social media tools are right for you or your business?

It seems like new tools are popping up daily (and changing or adding new features almost as frequently).

But which features do you really need?

Here are our top picks for must-have social media management tool features in 2021:

• Fast and flexible content uploading
• Intuitive interface
• Integrates with other marketing tools
• Easy customer service message management
• Intelligent content recycling
• Clear, easy-to-understand analytics

The all-in-one social network tools on our list below have these features.

Some specialize in serving solopreneurs and small businesses, while others are better for mid-sized corporate marketing teams.

We also found a few ground-breaking combos that will revolutionize the way you do social media marketing. Brand-new concepts that solve problems you didn’t think were fixable, making once painful chores almost a pleasure.

But which ones are right for you?

Keep reading to find out.

What Are the 27 Best Social Media Tools?

The best social media tools make marketing easier.

They make workflows easy and smooth, are hassle-free, and help create brand awareness — getting more of the right people into your funnel.

Check out our 27 top picks for social media bliss.

1. Buffer

Who hasn’t heard of Buffer?

Around almost as long as social media itself, this tool lets you post on all the major platforms. It’s super easy to use, and is oh so affordable, making it the choice for scrappy social media marketers looking to save a few bucks.

Many small businesses get started with Buffer’s free tools (and stick around because it’s so easy to use).

Their new social media analytics package helps you quickly dig into what’s working and find out what flopped faster.

Pricing

• Free
• $15/month (Pro)
• $65/month (Premium)
• $99/month (Enterprise)

Standout Feature

Easy-peasy social media publishing workflows for small business technophobes.

2. Hootsuite

Hootsuite may be one of the first social media marketing tools created back in 2008.

Now it’s one of the most recognized tools for medium to large businesses (but you can still use it if your business is smaller).

This all-in-one social media management software is easy to use, even if you’re a bigger company with lots of team members. It’s built for larger teams, where collaboration is crucial.

Pricing

• Free
• $49/month (Pro)
• $129/month (Team)
• $599/month (Business)

Standout Feature

Hootsuite integrates well with a long list of must-have marketing tools that larger companies need.

3. Canva

If you’ve been in the social media marketing game for 10 minutes, you’ve heard of Canva.

It makes your social media visual content look like you’re a wiz at graphic design (and without too much fiddling around too).

The hardest part of using Canva?

Deciding which part makes your life easier — the free images, animation, or tons of fonts and colors.

But its best feature may be its pricing. Canva is one of the best free social media tools (even though the paid version does offer even more).

Pricing

• Free
• $9.99/month (Pro)
• $30/month (Enterprise)

Standout Feature

Easy to find free and paid high-quality images for any social media post.

4. BuzzSumo

Tired of the “let’s try it and see what happens” social media marketing strategy?

BuzzSumo gives you data on trending topics in real-time, showing you who’s making content on which social media platform that’s getting the most clicks, shares, and comments.

Use their trending score to choose topics more likely to go viral. And find influencers with real, engaged fans fast.

Plus, their SEO research tools help content marketers and freelancers know what their audience is typing into that search box.

Pricing

• Free
• $99/month (Pro)
• $179/month (Plus)
• $299/month (Large)
• $499/month (Enterprise)

Standout Feature

Find viral topics that get tons of engagement easily.

5. Sprout Social

Hate complicated tech and got a growing team?

Sprout Social can help you untangle your social media strategy with their all-in-one solution.

Easy to use, social messaging all in one place, chatbots, CRM, and even help desk integration. It was made for teams (so customer service agents, social media managers, and marketing strategists can work better together).

Pricing

• $99/month (Standard)
• $149/month (Professional)
• $249/month (Advanced)

Standout Feature

Easy-to-use customer service features right there in the tool.

6. Agorapulse

Small businesses and marketing agencies love Agorapulse because it offers them everything they need in one place without the hassles.

All the functionality you’d expect in a social media management tool (schedule posts, metrics, etc), plus all your messaging in one place, a CRM to track your customers, and social listening tools.

Pricing

• $79/month (Pro)
• $159/month (Premium)
• Custom (Enterprise)

Standout Feature

It’s a social media management platform that can grow with you. The free plan is a great place to start (and the Pro plan gives you everything you need as a growing business).

7. Animoto

Stop wasting your time with slow video creation software. Let Animoto make it quick and easy to put together attention-getting social media videos.

Their templates save you time (and do a better job at stopping the scroll).

Use their photo and video library of Getty images for stunning visual content. And make your videos in all the important sizes for any social platform.

Your brand colors, logo, and fonts are all taken care of too.

Pricing

• Free
• $29/month (Professional)
• $79/month (Team)

Standout Feature

Their eye-grabbing video templates help you stop the scroll (and speeds up your content creation time).

8. IFTTT

You don’t know it yet, but IFTTT is your new best friend.

Imagine free tools that allow you to automate tasks between two programs.

Go to the explore page and search for any tools that you use. Google Drive, Dropbox, Facebook, Twitter, or Linkedin, for example. Automatically send your Facebook posts to Twitter or Google Drive. Sync your IOS contacts with Google sheets.

So many helpful data automations are available. Most connections are ready-to-go. Just connect and your automations are done.

Pricing

• Free
• $5/month (Pro)

Standout Feature

Create time-saving automations with this free tool.

9. HubSpot

HubSpot wants to solve all your marketing problems at once.

They don’t have a social media management tool — they’re giving you an entire small business marketing department.

You supply the people, they provide the compatible programs. Blogging, landing pages, email marketing, automation, lead management, SEO, and more.

Your team members can all use it and collaborate easily too.

It’s not cheap, but you’ll have everything you need (and they’re designed to work perfectly together).

Pricing

• $45/month (Starter)
• $800/month (Professional)
• $3,200/month (Enterprise)

Standout Feature

Your entire marketing department in one place.

10. MeetEdgar

When MeetEdgar hit the scene in 2014, it was revolutionary.

For the first time, you could automate social media scheduling. And they’re still at it.

Load your posts, set your schedule preferences, and let this tool run through your social media content (and then let it recycle your content intelligently again).

You can schedule one-off and seasonal posts too.

It’s a very flexible social media tool.

They’ve recently added a fun time-saver that scans webpages for alternative social media captions (to help you find alternate text for your evergreen social media posts).

Pricing

• $19/month (Edgar Lite)
• $49/month (Edgar)

Standout Feature

Your social media calendar on auto-pilot.

11. Oktopost

Got 100+ employees and a small marketing team in the B2B sector?

Oktopost is the social media marketing tool for bigger companies looking for a more customized social media management solution.

It’s an all-in-one tool that lets you create your own custom dashboards, track leads and demonstrate the impact of your social media marketing to the higher-ups with impressive reporting.

Pricing

• High-level customization, so you’ll need to book a demo for more information.

Standout Feature

Their employee advocacy feature allows all employees to help promote your company’s social posts easily.

12. Quuu

Is content curation a big part of your marketing strategy on social?

You need to know about Quuu.

This isn’t a dumping ground for blah content. We’re talking about hand-curated content (yep, they quality control every submission).

And to make it super easy on you, they have carefully organized, detailed content categories to peruse.

It makes finding relevant content for your audience a piece of cake.

Pricing

• Free
• $5/month (Pro)

Standout Feature

Insanely high-quality curated content at a low price.

13. Sendible

Agencies love Sendible.

Sendible loves them back even more.

You could say it’s the platform designed for them. Content suggestion tools, impressive client reports, and password privacy are only a handful of features created for the needs of agencies.

Plus, there are plenty of little things to love, like easy-loading content libraries and auto-posting RSS feeds.

If you’re managing social media for clients, you might swear Sendible is reading your mind.

Pricing

• $25/month (Creator)
• $76/month (Traction)
• $170/month (Scale)
• $340/month (Expansion)

Standout Feature

Hard to choose, but the content suggestion tool and easy content library uploading are fantastic.

14. Tailwind

Need to get a handle on Pinterest?

Tailwind has been the dominant tool for a decade now.

They make consistent Pinterest scheduling easy and fast. It’s not 100% set it and forget it (but it will save you a ton of time).

In addition to their worth-every-penny scheduler, Tailwind’s new pin creation tool can save even more time.

And if you already love Tailwind, their Instagram tool is an easy addition.

Pricing

• Free
• $9.99/month (Pro)
• $19.99/month (Advanced)
• $39.99/month (Max)

Standout Feature

The nearly set-it-and-forget-it (and most Pinterest friendly) marketing tool out there.

15. Later

Instagram is the platform with the most frustrating rules (but the best engagement rates of all social networks).

Later is a hyper-specialized Instagram social media scheduling tool (plus way more).

Sure, you can manage Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest too.

But what Later really does is make your Instagram marketing easier (the user-generated content feature is worth the price alone).

And their hashtags social media analytics tool will make you never want to leave.

Pricing

• Free
• $12.50/month (Starter)
• $20.83/month (Growth)
• $33.33/month (Advanced)

Standout Feature

Share content from other Instagram accounts (or create something on the fly) easily.

16. StreamYard

Need to go live on different social media platforms at the same time with your PC?

You can make your live broadcasts easier to manage with StreamYard.

Go live on Facebook, Youtube, Linkedin and more. Add logos, calls to action, guest hosts, and more easily too.

They have green screen functionality and virtual backgrounds available to take the worry out of going live.

Pricing

• Free
• $20/monthly (Basic)
• $39/monthly (Professional)

Standout Feature

A no-hassle platform that lets you do live broadcasts on multiple social networks at the same time.

17. Story Swag

Need to make social media posts on the fly?

If you’re standing in line or waiting for your order to be ready, you could knock out a few items on your social media to-do list fast.

Story Swag is the IOS or Android app that takes the hassle out of post creation. They’ve got stock video and photos, and it’s super easy to create great content directly on your phone.

Stuck somewhere without your computer? Get those memes done in a few minutes.

Pricing

• $4.99/month

Standout Feature

Make video, photo, or graphic posts for any social media channel directly (and easily) on your phone.

18. Ecamm Live

If you’re a MAC user, going live on your social media accounts is about to get so much easier.

Ecamm Live lets you add guests, share your screen, and add calls to action. You can even do picture in picture (with a pre-recorded video).

One-click multi-streaming is available if you have audiences on different platforms.

Want to hide your location? Use the green screen feature.

Correct lighting, color, and more with an inexpensive add-on, and go live anywhere.

Pricing

• Free trial (14 days)
• $16/month (Standard)
• $32/month (Pro)

Standout Feature

An add-on that color corrects your recording live (in case lighting is bad or you just don’t feel like doing your makeup).

19. SmarterQueue

Solopreneur or time-crunched tiny team?

SmarterQueue is jam-packed with everything you need.

In addition to the usual features, add powerful social media analytics tools like social media monitoring and competitor analysis.

Use their time-saving content curation tools to quickly browse social content and bulk import your favorites.

And then, finally set up your social media calendar with intelligent automation scheduling to implement your marketing strategy hands-free.

Pricing

• $16.99/month (Solo)
• $33.99/month (Business)
• 67.99/month (Agency)

Standout Feature

A toss-up between content scheduling automation and the powerful content curation tools.

20. Influential

Who’s got time to research influencers?

Influential can analyze your social media channels using cutting-edge artificial intelligence (and find the right people to help promote your products and services).

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Get strategic insights into your audiences’ demographics, behaviors, and buying tendencies. And then build targeted customer groups that are perfect for your brand.

Most of your favorite brands are already using Influential.

Pricing

• This mind-blowing level of analysis requires a demo.

Standout Feature

They had me at “find the perfect influencers on all major social media platforms.”

21. Quuu Promote

Need more shares on social media?

Quuu Promote can get your content out to people you don’t even know yet. And it can do it on auto-pilot if you want.

They’ve got categories for clearly defined micro niches too.

Get real people sharing your content.

You can choose to do it yourself manually, or hook up your RSS feed and let them suggest your new content to their platform audience.

It’s a great tool for any business using content marketing (including freelance writers).

Pricing

• $50 or $75/month (Individual)
• $100 or $150/month (Company)
• $500 or $750/month (Agency)

Standout Feature

Your social media content shared by real people on autopilot.

22. Easel.ly

Turn your boring data into attention-grabbing infographics with Easel.ly.

You can create viral social media content (even if you can’t design your way out of a paper bag).

We’re talking high-quality visual content even tech-awkward types can handle.

They’ve got hundreds of templates (and template themes) you can customize with their library of icons, images, illustrations and more.

Choose from their templates and start editing.

Pricing

• $2/month (Student)
• $4/month (Individual)
• $5/month (Business)

Standout Feature

Easily make eye-catching infographics for a very low price.

23. SocialBee

Looking for a Twitter-friendly tool?

SocialBee is far more than just a Twitter scheduler (but they have lots of extras if you love to tweet).

Post to Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin and more.

Super affordable pricing with automated post recycling that lets you create alternate posts to keep things fresh.

Content categories help you balance out your content types and topics.

Use the Twitter research tools to find new fans and grow your followers.

Pricing

• $19/month (Bootstrap)
• $39/month (Accelerate)
• $79/month (Pro)

Standout Feature

The Twitter tools (competitor, keyword, and hashtag research) are pretty impressive.

24. Audiense

Wish you could magically know how your target audience is going to react to your post topics?

Well, it’s not magic, but Audiense can give you the demographics data you need to make strategic decisions about your social media content.

Imagine knowing what posts are likely to be shared (and even go viral) for different groups of people.

Pricing

• Free
• $79/month (Twitter marketing)
• $696/month (Audiense Insights)

Standout Feature

Artificial intelligence analytics tools that tell you exactly what different audiences want.

25. Dollar Eighty

Staying consistent on your Instagram engagement is hard to do when you’re busy.

But what if it were as much fun (and as addictive) as your fav game app?

Imagine having fun growing your Instagram following (and selling your products and services). Dollar Eighty turns your IG engagement into a game.

You know what you need to do to grow your account (it’s not a secret).

Great content isn’t enough. Oh, and regular engagement has the same effect on other social networks too.

Pricing

• Free
• $15/month (Premium)

Standout Feature

Gamify your marketing efforts and make social media engagement addictive and fun.

26. Feedly

Having trouble remembering where you put that awesome article link?

Curate your content quickly with Feedly.

Get all your favorite web sources in one place. Organized. And you can let their advanced AI assistant LEO filter out all the noise you don’t want.

Extra bonus: Most smart social media tools integrate with Feedly.

Pricing

• Free
• $6/month (Pro)
• $8.25/month (Pro+)
• Custom (Enterprise)

Standout Feature

Their filter-out-all-the-noise feature is a major time-saver.

27. Yotpo

Ready to ramp up your eCommerce business sales on social?

Yotpo is designed to help product sellers make more money using social media.

Get more reviews and turn them into high-converting ads. And once you get those reviews, encourage your happy customers to share your content with their friends (in exchange for points in your new referral program).

Yotpo is more than just a social tool. It’s a full-blown marketing platform for building customer loyalty, tons of social proof, and sales.

Pricing

• Free
• Custom (Premium)

Standout Feature

High converting social media campaigns using reviews generated with Yotpo.

Are You Using the Right Social Media Tools in Your Business?

Is it time to test out some new social media tools for business?

This is one market niche that never stops evolving.

What was cutting edge five years ago is now standard practice. Or it’s obsolete.

Your current tools aren’t making your marketing easier. Those five tools you’re using could be an innovative all-in-one tool.

The good news: social media management tools are getting more ingenious, intelligent, and innovative.

Time for an upgrade.

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