Social Media Management Tools for Small Businesses
One of the biggest challenges small businesses and marketers face is keeping up with the constant changes to social media, and that’s where social media management tools can help. Being able to effectively manage multiple accounts and engaging with your audience easily are some of the pain points our clients face.
If you want to reach and engage with your audience, you should be using content planners to help share content and stay up to date with comments and direct messages. Social media content scheduling tools are necessary for anyone who wants to save time and become ‘smarter’ with their social media efforts.
Here are our top 5 picks when it comes to selecting the right social media management tools for your business –
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a top-rated social media planner, and for several reasons. The sophisticated tool enables you to manage multiple social media networks at once in a column format. From Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and now Tiktok (as of 2022).
Hootsuite is easy to navigate and is easily customisable. Hootsuite does much more than just your average Instagram and Facebook post scheduler – allowing you to post multiple posts, review organic content, and provide up to date real-time analytics. Hootsuite easily integrates with useful apps such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Canva and One Drive.
In May 2022 they launched a new feature ‘Recommended times’ where Hootsuite tailors recommendations for you based on your own historical data. This feature takes the guesswork out of when to publish. You can schedule posts with confidence at optimal times and drive engagement on your social accounts.
Prices start from free of charge for 2 social accounts or from £39/month for 10 social accounts. You will have limited features with the free account but for small businesses the basics will pretty much help you to plan and manage your campaigns effectively. You can also get a 7 day free trial.
Loomly
Loomly is an influential scheduling and management tool with an easy to navigate platform.
Creating a post on Loomly is extremely easy! You have the choice of creating a post from scratch or pulling in ideas from its RSS feeds that automatically creates draft posts for you for each platform. Loomly also hosts Facebook Ad campaigns all on its platform.
Unlike other platforms, Loomly lets users set various calendar workflows and its interaction screen enables managers to easily reply to comments and messages through tagging.
Loomly offers four pricing tiers after a 15-day free trial ranging from £21/month for 10 social accounts.
ContentCal
ContentCal helps individuals, businesses, and agencies with their social media management! It is becoming one of the leading tools in 2022.
ContentCal is all about saving time, collaborating with team members or clients, and creating awesome social media content. This platform is ideal for small businesses or agencies managing multiple social accounts. ContentCal follows an approval process when managing accounts and you can communicate and collaborate on tasks with team members.
Like any other social media management tool, content call offers scheduling, collaboration, feedback analysis, analytics reports and project management with its main highlight being its collaborative features – making the workflow easy and efficient for teams and clients.
ContactCal is priced at £15/month for 4 users and is a cost-effective solution for many businesses.
Later
Later is a popular tool for Instagram posting. Unlike other platforms, Later’s interface is based on a media library using photos to create the post before adding a caption. With Later’s paid plans, you can also upload videos and create stories.
The only downside to later is the confusing set up system, but once you are registered it is easy to use the “quick schedule” function and will make managing posts a lot easier! Simply drag and drop your posts into time slots across the calendar. With a paid plan, you can also take advantage of tracking and managing your messages all on the platform.
Later’s great if you have a small team and are looking for something quick and easy to use, with a free plan or from £15/month you can manage 1 whole social set.
SocialPilot
SocialPilot provides a simple and organised interface. Managers can use this social media planner to sort accounts into relevant groups of their choice to make scheduling efficient. Its newest feature supports Instagram direct blushing, making it easy to manage and publish multiple posts. Along with creating and scheduling TikTok videos.
If you are interested in a simple tool for managing social accounts whilst getting insights into post performance and metrics at a reasonable price per month, then SocialPilot may be an excellent choice for your small business.
SocialPilot offers professional plans from just £25/month and offers more social media accounts at each pricing tier.
Social Media Management Services
We hope our overview of social media management tools has helped you learn more about each platform. We strongly suggest reviewing each tool, making the most of the free trials and deciding which one is right for your business.
We provide a wide range of social media services to suit every business. Please do get in touch if you would like help with:
- Social media 1-1 consultancy services – advice and guidance on everything social media including advertising
- Social media services to manage your campaigns – let us take the complexities of running your social media campaigns off your hands and leave you to focus on running your business
- Social media advertising – to help take your business even further we can set up and manage your advertising campaigns including creating powerful graphics and re-marketing
We work with the following social media platforms – Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and TikTok.
You can contact us on 01494 396366 or email info@whitecommunications.co.uk for more information.
