Navigating Digital Marketing With the Best Social Media Management Apps

To help you navigate the world of social media management apps, we’ve gathered insights from sixteen industry professionals, including digital marketing consultants and founders. They’ve shared their top recommendations, from HubSpot for bridging social media and a CRM to Sendible for efficient content recycling. Discover their unique tips and features that make these apps stand out from the rest.

• HubSpot: Bridging Social Media and CRM
• Later: Streamlining Content Scheduling and Management
• SmarterQueue: Mastering Evergreen Campaigns
• Hootsuite: Visual Planning for Social Media
• Viral Content Bee: Mutual Content Sharing
• Preview App: Instagram Content Management Simplified
• ChronoSync: AI-Driven Content Optimization
• Buffer: Customized Copy with OpenAI
• Loomly: Enhancing Collaboration with Custom Workflow
• Taplio: AI-Powered Scheduling and Analytics
• HeyOrca!: Streamlining Multi-Layered Approvals
• Creator Studio: Managing Multi-Platform Content
• Storiai.com: AI-Driven Post Creation
• Zoho Social: Social Features Integrated with Business Apps
• Gain App: Enhancing Collaboration with Commenting and Grids
• Sendible: Efficient Content Recycling

HubSpot: Bridging Social Media and CRM

For effective social media management, I use HubSpot to tie vanity metrics back to website engagement, lead generation, and revenue impact.

Most social media apps work in isolation and only allow you to see the platform engagement like impressions, likes, comments, and shares. But what does this mean for your business? Nothing! A direct CRM integration can bridge that gap and show lead generation and revenue growth.

Sascha Hoffmann
Lifecycle Marketing Consultant, Back2MarketingSchool

Later: Streamlining Content Scheduling and Management

We’ve been working with Later at Bovision for almost a year now and can highly recommend this tool for scheduling and working effectively with content across various social media channels. Several members of our team currently collaborate on managing five different social media channels. This is creating a significant need for organizing content, keeping everything in one place, scheduling, and making the work processes effective.

Later handles all of this seamlessly, and a significant advantage with Later is the ability to schedule posts with a link in the bio to drive traffic. Additionally, it allows us to manage comments and respond to them directly within the tool. Recently, a new feature has been added where we can receive content creation suggestions and tips. Even though it is currently in beta, it is genuinely valuable when ideas run dry. We really recommend Later as a social media tool at Bovision.

Andreas Eriksson
Digital Marketing Specialist, Bovision

SmarterQueue: Mastering Evergreen Campaigns

SmarterQueue has been a game-changer for us when it comes to social media management. The standout feature for us is the ability to effortlessly create evergreen campaigns that automatically schedule reposts of existing content, either on a specific schedule or in a queue.

This has enabled us to keep a full calendar of content and has saved us valuable time and effort. Overall, we’ve had great success with SmarterQueue and highly recommend it for anyone looking to streamline their social media management.

Mark T. Levell
CEO, Privacy and Marketing SaaS Specialist, 4Thought Marketing

Hootsuite: Visual Planning for Social Media

I’ve always found Hootsuite to be the most effective app for managing social media. I’m a very visual person, and the calendar and planning functionalities are by far the best laid out of all the apps I’ve tried. It allows me to, at a glance, understand what the coming weeks and months look like for the brand, and gain a good picture of what content is planned and when.

Especially if your scheduling strategy is consistent, the calendar function allows the team to more easily see where there are gaps and what content is needed and when. This is especially important when working across multiple channels, or even multiple brands. Switching between different channel views or different page views in the calendar, combined with the visual layout, makes this management a lot easier.

Alex Myers
Head of Marketing, The SEO Works

Viral Content Bee: Mutual Content Sharing

I recommend Viral Content Bee (VCB) to any marketer looking to get some extra reach on their content and social media.

Viral Content Bee works as a mutual content-sharing platform. You upload a webpage, usually a blog, then people will share that content to their own social media accounts.

This is incredibly useful because you are effectively scheduling your content on other people’s channels, thus reaching audiences you were previously unable to tap into.

My pro-tip would be to go further and retweet and interact with people who share your content and build relationships with them.

I managed to land myself a recurring placement on a very powerful website. Their editor found my content through one of the social accounts that shared my blog via VCB. I followed up with them, asked them how they found me, and got chatting. They now publish me almost weekly on their roundups!

Will Rice
SEO and Marketing Manager, MeasureMinds Group

Preview App: Instagram Content Management Simplified

Preview App is, so far, the most effective and time-saving tool we have found. Not only does it allow you to schedule Instagram content of all different types and styles, and auto-posts so you don’t have to be online, but the best features are when you come to create your captions and hashtags.

The app has lists of hashtag suggestions, and you can save your own groups of hashtags for those you use regularly. Then, when creating the caption, there’s inspiration from their list of prompts with conversation starters (on many topics and days of the week) so your post is almost written for you. The social media manager can edit the caption to personalize it. This is a time-saving tool for businesses of any size.

Kristie Prada
Founder, Mammaprada

ChronoSync: AI-Driven Content Optimization

As an entrepreneur passionate about improving social media management efficiency, I highly recommend the tool “ChronoSync.” The groundbreaking, AI-driven content optimization function distinguishes ChronoSync.

Unlike other platforms that rely purely on scheduling, ChronoSync analyzes audience engagement patterns dynamically and proposes the best posting times for maximum reach and impact. This forward-thinking strategy recognizes that the social media landscape is continuously changing and that peak engagement times vary. ChronoSync ensures that your content reaches the right audience at the right time by leveraging artificial intelligence to modify and refine publishing schedules in real-time.

My objective as a startup was to create a platform that not only simplifies scheduling but also actively contributes to content performance.

Kelvin Wira
Founder, Superpixel

Buffer: Customized Copy with OpenAI

When it comes to scheduling social media content, you can’t go wrong with Buffer. Not only can you manage several platforms at once, but it also easily integrates with OpenAI for generating customized copy.

With a well-trained AI chatbot agent connected to your account, your posts are written for you, on-brand, and ready to go. For example, you can generate summaries of long-form content from your blog or knowledge base. Another example is to pull in news feeds that your audience might be interested in and write summaries in your brand’s tone.

Kevin Hall
Digital Marketing Consultant, Halls Consulting

Loomly: Enhancing Collaboration with Custom Workflow

Running a social media agency, my go-to is Loomly for social media management and scheduling. My team and I are pretty much in love with it, and it’s super user-friendly, making the learning curve practically flat. So, whether we’re teaming up with a client or a designer who just needs to pop in and contribute, edit, or approve, they need next to no instruction, saving everyone a ton of time.

It handles the entire posting journey from start to finish and easily optimizes content for different social channels. But if I had to pick only one thing that makes it stand out, it has to be the collaboration capabilities through its Custom Workflow feature. You can set up special triggers for each account, pick teammates for automatic post assignments, and use approval guards to avoid posting anything incomplete by accident. If you’re on a team, this tool is a total game-changer.

Jessica Barzler
Owner, Barzler Social

Taplio: AI-Powered Scheduling and Analytics

I’ve been using Taplio for a couple of months now, and it’s really made a difference in how we handle our LinkedIn presence. What’s really cool about the tool is its AI-powered features, especially the post scheduler and analytics. It’s made our LinkedIn strategy much more efficient. It’s not just about putting content out there; it’s about sharing the right kind of content at the best possible times, and then being able to track everything. Taplio really nails this part, including its UX.

As someone who loves diving into data (big nerd here, LOL), the analytics part of Taplio is like a dream. It gives us such detailed insights into how we’re doing on LinkedIn. We can see what’s working with our audience, figure out the optimal times to post, and really understand the impact of our content. This kind of info is invaluable for our LinkedIn strategy. It’s really, really good!

Josien Nation
Co-Founder and Head of SEO, Operation Nation LLC

HeyOrca!: Streamlining Multi-Layered Approvals

As an agency, the social media posts we produce need to go through multiple rounds of approvals, both internally and with our clients. Managing that process with most of the tools we’ve used historically has been cumbersome and always required the integration of our project management software to interpret the phases of development.

Recently, we started using a posting tool called HeyOrca!, which is designed for agencies and marketing departments with multi-layered approval needs. From draft development, through commenting and approvals, we’ve found the streamlined nature of their offering to be a much faster and easier way to manage approvals.

In addition, their interface and presentation options are something that even our least technically inclined clients can manage, meaning that no one has frustrations or project delays because of technical hang-ups.

Maryann Pfeiffer
Principal and Founder, 108 Degrees Digital Marketing

Creator Studio: Managing Multi-Platform Content

The app I find most useful for managing social media posts is the Meta-linked Creator Studio. It allows me to create, schedule, and edit content on Facebook, Instagram, and other Meta products.

The good thing about this app is that it’s designed to cater to the different formats of the social media platforms, so I don’t have to manually create different variations of the same content. At the same time, if I have two different teams working on social media content, they can work independently yet check and provide feedback on each other’s work.

Manasvini Krishna
Founder, Boss as a Service

Storiai.com: AI-Driven Post Creation

Storiai.com is an AI-driven social media management tool that can draft posts and also come up with ideas for posts. Many AI social media tools have been tested, but this one stands head and shoulders above them.

A common issue with most AI tools is that their language simply isn’t natural. The output invariably is far too gushing and over the top. With Storiai.com, the output uses language that is far more natural and the way people actually compose posts in real life. It is such a time saver and has meant I have ditched the previous (non-AI) tool that I’d been using for years.

Philip Atkinson
Founder, Ignite Images

Zoho Social: Social Features Integrated with Business Apps

Truth is, there are a lot of social media management apps. I know that many people prefer Hootsuite and the like, but I’ve recently moved to Zoho Social, and I must say—it’s great.

The app integrates with other Zoho apps, so that’s a real bonus for me. I’ve been using Zoho for different aspects of business management, including documents, collaboration, email, and more. Now, I have their social features integrated into my dashboard, so it’s really becoming an all-in-one solution for me.

Joe Flanagan
Marketing Manager, Ukulele Tabs

Gain App: Enhancing Collaboration with Commenting and Grids

Gain App has been my holy grail of social media management platforms! Having a system that schedules and manages social marketing content in a collaborative space is incredibly transformative, especially for agencies.

The commenting and grid features alone make Gain App worth using. In addition to customizable workflows and a user-friendly interface, Gain App features in-post commenting and collaboration. Anyone connected to the workspace can comment, collaborate, and assign revisions or tasks to people right within the post. This significantly reduces the need for extensive email or Slack communication, ensuring that all pertinent information remains where it belongs.

You’re also able to plan your Instagram grid visuals right on the platform—undeniably a game-changer!

Chelsea Evans-Flower
Owner, Scott Social

Sendible: Efficient Content Recycling

For efficient social media management, I recommend Sendible. Its user-friendly interface sets it apart from alternatives like Hootsuite. While Hootsuite requires regular uploads of CSV files for pre-written tweets, Sendible offers a more streamlined approach. Its standout feature is the ability to recycle content queues. This means your social media posts can be set to reappear over weeks or months, ensuring consistent engagement without the need for constant updates.

This functionality saves significant time in content management. Instead of repeatedly setting up and uploading new CSV files, Sendible allows you to schedule content once and then let it run its course, recycling as needed. This feature is handy for businesses looking to maintain a steady online presence with minimal daily input. Sendible’s approach to content recycling enhances efficiency and ensures your message reaches your audience, even if they missed it the first time.

Shane McEvoy
MD, Flycast Media

Related Articles