These days, mere posting isn’t enough. Social media statistics indicate that a mass majority of businesses use social media platforms for marketing.
To make a mark on your audience and cut through the slack, you have to be consistently active on all the platforms where your audience is present. But its a monumental task, keeping up with all the aspects of social media management.
But why worry when there are numerous tools that can bat for you on the social media front?
These social media automation tools bring heaps of features to secure your online presence and gauge its performance.
So rather than stressing about what and when to post, you can focus on what matters the most – your business. Choose the right set of social media tools available to make your marketing efforts seamless.
In this post, we’ll walk you through the 13 best social media automation tools to enhance your marketing and upgrade your branding to the next level.
How we analyze & select Social Media Automation Tools:
This list of exceptional social media automation tools has been formulated through in-depth research and experiential analysis. We have considered various aspects of the tool, such as user engagement, G2 ratings and reviews, price points, and scalability. The list ranking also reflects the evaluation of these tools’ competencies in automation, content production, visualization, analytics, and collaborative features. Our goal in curating this list is to enable marketers to choose tools that will help scale their business.
ContentStudio is one of the tools used for social media management tool that offers content automation, content planning, social media scheduling, a social inbox, analytics, and content discovery.
In addition, it enables you to plan, brainstorm, and manage when and where content is shared or published; this occurs in the Content Planner section of ContentStudio.
ContentStudio provides a social media content calendar that allows you to view, accept, reject, and edit posts easily. This reduces the likelihood of sending out incorrect or error-filled content. Furthermore, all team members can easily collaborate. For example, your social manager can contribute ideas, your designer can add images, and your copywriter can create captions right away.
To reduce clutter, you can also see your content as part of an organized list. To make things easier, you can sort posts by type, status, member, and even label them in the content calendar.
Pros
- You can use ContentStudio as your editorial calendar for a trial period to see how simple it is to manage social media with ContentStudio.
- It boosts productivity by utilizing a single interface.
- Its built-in approval workflow facilitates collaboration and workflow.
- It provides a variety of views (list and calendar) for your convenience.
- It has powerful filters that allow users to easily manage their calendars.
- Content management across multiple channels is available.
Alex M
I have used ContentStudio for several years now. I’m a big fan of using something that can simplify my content creation and posting. ContentStudio’s automation features keep me consistent with my social media management. The composer is easy to use and gives a great preview of what your post will look like on your different social channels.
Cons
- It lacks social inbox for IOS.
Brad Ford P
The content approval flow is a little wonky for the client or collaborator. The discovery area is nice, but there’s a lot of clicking to filter what you want, and there’s no way to save that filtering.
Hootsuite is a popular social media tool for marketers. Its robust features make it compatible with a variety of social media platforms. It mainly focuses on large enterprises and big-sized agencies because of the complex features and pricing range.
Additionally, Hootsuite enables you to monitor multiple social media platforms at once with its social media streams. And yes, with this social media automation tool, you can also keep an eye on all your brands with its real-time updates.
Pros
- You can view social media streams in one place with automated social media posting.
- Hootsuite makes you understand how your social media strategy is performing by availing reports whenever you need them.
Aacini H.
Hootsuite’s great feature is the streams, you can get any important activity from any and all platforms on all accounts with a quick glance, if somebody retweets or mentions you, you will know ASAP and be able to respond accordingly.
Cons
- The interface isn’t very user-friendly. It comes with a learning curve.
- Cost-heavy for small businesses and agencies.
- They aren’t very responsive to the emails/posts if someone is facing issues.
- You need to pay extra to get the social media reports.
Brad Ford P
Its interface is not so appealing and you have to spend a lot of time figuring out the features. It is necessary to get to it through learning videos, only then you can create effective plans. Adding team members is more expensive and training expensive as well.
BuzzSumo is an essential social media search tool if you want to have a greater understanding of your content marketing strategies. So instead of wasting time on guessing the content topics, use BuzzSumo to help you discover some of the popular keywords in your industry.
Over the years, BuzzSumo has grown as one of the popular social media marketing tools because of its ability to provide in-depth insights into what your competition is doing.
If you want to become a savvy content marketer and stay ahead of your competition, BuzzSumo will help you discover the most popular content by entering either a keyword or a domain name on the search bar.
You have the option to filter your results, depending on what you want – from duration to location. BuzzSumo can also collect analytics from popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Twitter, among others.
Pros
- It’s a great tool to identify the most popular or widely shared content in your niche.
- You can identify influencers within your niche and build stellar relationships with them using BuzzSumo.
- It helps with link-building strategies by identifying the most suitable content topics.
Sujata S.
BuzzSumo helped me a lot to find the content which was most shared on social media channels. Using this, we can find influencers related to particular topics. By entering, we can find what is shared socially.
Cons
- It is limited to specific mediums.
- It does not have enough backlink data to help content marketers build links.
Paul K.
Some of the team members have had trouble using it. Mainly on the resource for brand names that include near ties to the title of our business. Maybe it’s because Buzzsumo lacks good data for some domains, which makes it inadequate for new sites.
Sprout Social is yet another social media engagement tool that you can use to ace social media marketing. Sprout Social allows users to organize and assign tasks to members. This tool also helps run ads on limited social platforms.
With this tool, you can schedule your posts or campaigns and it also provides analytics and social listening features. What’s more? Sprout Social serves all tiers of businesses – small or large enterprises.
Pros
- The analytics features by Sprout Social helps you track followers, link clicks, the number of posts, change in your social media engagement, etc.
- Sprout Social has a smart inbox where you can monitor and reply to all your brand mentions.
- You can monitor campaigns across social media and search for posts mentioning you or your brand.
Rachel P.
The Smart Inbox in Sprout is my favorite feature. It allows us to see what’s happening on all of our platforms at once and is so convenient to react and reply to customer messages.
Cons
- Sprout Social is not at its best yet when it comes to scheduling campaigns on Instagram. You can consider other scheduling apps for Instagram.
- Some users also encounter issues with LinkedIn posting. They say that when they schedule a post on LinkedIn, the image often looks smaller than what they thought had been scheduled.
Kendall D.
Its pricing is very high. It has limited social media platforms to be integrated with. You can only have four social media accounts at a time. If you need more apps, it will cost more fees. It is very expensive for teams because the more people you need to interact with, the more you have to pay.
Buffer is one of the popular tools for social media that offer users scheduling functionality. This tool comes in handy for LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook users. Customers on the pro package can enjoy the Pinterest feature, too. However, those on a lower package on this social media marketing tool will have a limited number of social media accounts connected.
As a new user, you can choose to go with the default scheduling functionality offered by Buffer or use your automation to match your needs. This social media automation tool provides users four slots per day by default. You have the freedom to either delete or add slots depending on the number of campaigns you have to post daily.
Buffer browser extension is available for Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. With these extensions, you can schedule your posts by clicking on the Buffer icon to add to your queue. Additionally, there are mobile applications – both for Android and iOS.
Pros
- Buffer gives users the ability to customize every post, depending on which social media account you will be scheduling.
- This automation tool gives you insights into the best times to send out your campaigns.
- They have a great engaged community you can interact with.
Jose Luis A.
Buffer is a social network monitoring and management program, it is a tool that allows you to keep constant track of your social networks, as well as keeping your contact space completely up-to-date.
Cons
- To get the analytics, you will have to pay way more. You can get the same functionality at a fair price with other tools like SocialPilot.
- The downside with Buffer is that they don’t have the media library feature, which most social media automation tools have.
- They have different pricing plans if you need to have Analytics and Social Inbox. You need to buy subscriptions to all of these plans to have a complete social media automation tool that can be way more expensive.
Verified Buffer User
Team collaboration features are lacking some functionality that would help the team be more productive in suggesting, curating, editing, and approving content for distribution. Costs prohibit us from increasing to larger team packages
The primary goal of CoSchedule is to achieve efficiency for both solopreneurs and marketing companies. This social media automation tool integrates with WordPress and helps with pushing content to your preferred social media account whenever you hit “publish” for every post.
The best of all is that CoSchedule offers users a “Top Content Report,” which gives users insights into the social engagement of the campaigns you send out on social media. This feature is useful for content marketers who are curious to know how their marketing campaigns are fairing to help them adjust whenever necessary.
Unlike other social media tools, CoSchedule focuses on content and social performance. It offers features such as “ReQueue,” which allows users to reschedule their best content. This will help your audience see more fresh content in their feeds.
Pros
- The tool allows users to visualize their content in one place. You can create a read-only calendar using CoSchedule, and your team members can view what is coming up next.
- You can easily tweak your calendar settings to match your preferences.
- CoSchedule will enable you to implement approval procedures.
Karen C.
I love being able to plan all my social media in one place. Even if one of my children gets strep throat, my social media strategy keeps going without missing a beat. Having it connected to my blog makes it indispensable.
Cons
- The tool has become sluggish suddenly, probably because of the massive amount of data users are entering.
- The tool offers scheduling functionalities, but people experience publishing errors regularly.
- You will have to change your templates manually if you change your mind about scheduling posts.
Carissa W.
Dislike the pricing and not enough integrations with other applications or workflows. Dislike the photo upload feature and no short link feature for websites being shared in content posts.
Scoop.it is a social network and content curation tool for content marketers. It is also one of the best free social media automation tools, offering users a free plan. With Scoop.it, you can create specific topics, share your ideas, and connect with like-minded individuals.
Using the Scoop.it content director, users can curate content from any other source. You can also share your idea across your most preferred social media platforms with just a click of a button.
This social media automation tool also enables users to generate ideas using specific terms called keywords. So, if you are a content marketer, Scoop.it will help you stay updated and know what to always share with your audience.
Pros
- Scoop.it regularly updates its users on trending topics, depending on the keywords you choose.
- You can share your content to various social media channels with just a click.
- Your front page provides you with all the relevant information you need – from curator profiles to topics.
Mark A.
I can publish a page from my blog to ScoopIt, and then share it to other social media platforms very quickly and easily.
Cons
- Social media marketers haven’t leveraged this tool because they are muddled about whether or not it is worth an investment.
- It’s pretty expensive, $79/month, which most beginner writers can’t afford to “lose” every month.
Verified Scoop.it User
When compared to other curation services that we’ve tested Scoop. It was more difficult to manage, and the suggestions overall included less reputable sources. Pricing is too expensive with the feature of posting on WordPress.
Sendible is another great social media tool that helps you manage and automate social media channels. Sendible, not only lets you do one-by-one campaign scheduling on different social media accounts but also manages how your campaigns go out right from your dashboard.
The best feature is that you can create content and schedule it for a week, month, or as long as you need. Moreover, with this social media automation tool, you can tailor your content according to different social platforms by leveraging features such as emojis, attachments, and more.
Pros
- Sendible has excellent and dedicated customer support whenever you counter issues.
- Sendible has a unified social inbox that helps you manage all your conversations in one place.
- You can create custom reports as you want with Sendible.
Luke F.
The three things that I like the best about Sendible are the content calendar and its functionality, analytics and customizability with great data charts, and the monitoring aspect.
Cons
- Sendible does not feature a clickable calendar, which is on-demand right now.
- The pricing is way too high for a small business and agency for the features it offers.
- It has a learning curve, not very user-friendly.
Verified Sendible User
Sometimes the integrations don’t work 100%. Instagram often doesn’t pull featured images even when fetched. Hashtags sometimes run together after they’re added to various services. The mobile app seems to have a lot of bugs and the Services concept takes a little bit to get used to.
Meetedgar is different from other automation tools existing in the market. It offers better service and helps in uniquely scheduling content with its posting feature.
After your post is scheduled in Meetedgar, it also provides the feature of saving the same in the library for later use. This social media automation tool supports and assists you on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
Pros
- Meetedgar has a posting queue that allows you to never run out of scheduling your posts, that is, evergreen posting.
- It also has category-based detail scheduling, which enables you to categorize your content and schedule them differently.
Sandra G.
My favorite part of Meet Edgar is how they handle the recurring sharing of content. All the benefits of automation with really granular control over what goes out, when it goes out, and where it goes.
Cons
- With its limited features, it hardly supports 4 networks which might not be sufficient for marketers.
- Meetedgar doesn’t allow you to shuffle your posts in the queue for rescheduling.
- Features are as stagnant as they could be with only one pricing plan available.
- It doesn’t have features for creating a social team or in-depth analytics.
Verified Meetedgar User
You could only set the frequency to daily rather than bi-weekly or on X day every month. Made it difficult to automate our process as we don’t post daily
With businesses growing at breakneck speed, Zoho Social is built to match their needs efficiently. This social media automation tool will help you work with your team and monitor brand mentions and social conversations.
Zoho Social offers an unlimited social media scheduling feature and creates a custom report to analyze your social media. With this social media marketing automation tool, you can manage multiple social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Google My Business.
Pros
- Its SmartQ feature comes up with the best time slots to schedule your posts for maximum audience engagement.
- With its CRM integrations, you can interact with prospects and generate potential leads from social media.
- Automated report creation at Zoho Social enables report sharing with clients at any time complemented with a personalized message.
John K.
Post scheduling and smart scheduling feature, which aims to publish your posts at times when your audience is most active.
Cons
- Zoho Social lacks a combined analytics feature that takes it on a low for marketers, especially when some Zoho Social alternatives offer this.
- The most common feature in social media scheduling tools is missing in Zoho Social, i.e., RSS feed integration.
- It is an expensive tool for the features it offers.
Verified Zoho Social User
I do wish they had content generation options, such as RSS feeds or suggested posts for the field. The user interface unexpectedly becomes a little bit messy and difficult to navigate when uploading a large number of pictures and videos.
Agorapulse is an all-in-one tool for social media management that encourages teams to work collaboratively. Whether you are looking to schedule, reschedule, queue, or bulk upload your posts, they have plenty of options to fill your content calendar.
With a social inbox to catch every conversation, this social media automation tools one-click report offers a quick look into your users. Agorapulse supports social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Instagram.
Pros
- Their social inbox offers you to send reports to your clients within a few clicks directly.
- You can easily label your content for smooth retrievals and analysis.
- With their inbuilt CRM feature, Agorapulse helps you understand your audience better.
Sarah F.
Definitely the all-inclusive inbox that helps me to stay caught up on all of my messages!
Cons
- Their reporting feature is too basic for the ever-growing industry of marketers.
- It’s difficult for users to navigate through the tool.
- This social media automation tool doesn’t integrate with any external applications or tools except for bit.ly.
- It is also expensive for all the features it offers.
Emily M.
The reports are not as complete as they should be. I do not like the app very much. It’s not intuitive and it’s extremely basic.
As a B2B social media automation tool, Oktopost is designed to assist you in elevating your content visibility and quantifying the true ROI of social. This tool brings you features like scheduling, analytics, and AI-powered social listening.
Oktopost integrates multiple social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. It also offers business intelligence, CRM, and Marketing automation, which your team can connect their social media data.
Along with all this, you also get a 360-degree view of your social media performance by building custom dashboards. Track meaningful data and display it with charts, tables, maps, and other visual components.
Pros
- You can effortlessly share posts and content.
- It offers you Microsoft Teams integration.
- Quickly share messages without copy-pasting or sharing from other LinkedIn profiles.
- You can post on multiple platforms from multiple profiles through a single dashboard.
Limuel M.
Since I regularly use Linkedin on my phone, I typically perform most of my tasks through its app. With Oktopost, sharing posts and content has become a very effortless and productive process.
Cons
- You can`t tag people from it.
- It doesn`t let you share a single post on different social media platforms simultaneously. Manual work is required.
Verified User
You can’t tag people, you can’t share one post on different social media at the same time, so manual work is still needed.
Wrapping Up
Social media marketing has evolved over the years. It constantly demands of you consistent commitment to remain relevant to your audience. And to ensure this, you need the best social media automation tools to make a lasting impression.
Though all of the social media automation tools are top-notch, SocialPilot stands out from the rest because of its wide range of features at a pocket-friendly price. Take its free trial right away to automate your strategy on social media.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is social media automation?
Social media automation is the process of optimizing or customizing your social media campaigns using automation tools, such as SocialPilot, Buffer, among others mentioned in this article.
How do I automate my social media?
You can automate social media using tools like SocialPilot, Buffer, Hootsuite, Agorapulse, Meetedgar, Zoho Social, etc. You need to sign up and link your respective accounts to one of these tools. You can choose your channels and schedule them at the best times.
What are some social media tools?
Several types of social media tools are based on curation, scheduling, social listening, analytics, and report. Some social media automation tools like SocialPilot offer a wide range of features in one place too. Other notable tools are Agorapulse, Zoho Social, Sprout Social, Scoop.it, Meetedgar, Sendible, etc.
Can social media campaigns be easily automated?
Yes, social media campaigns can be easily automated using automation tools like SocialPilot. They give you the ability to post and track your campaigns on multiple channels. You can even go for a free trial to find the befitting plans to suit your needs.
What are some benefits of social media automation tools?
Some benefits of social media automation tools are:
- It saves time and effort
- Posts at the best time to boost engagement
- Easy to track a wide range of metrics
- Establish workflows and leverages team collaboration
- Efficient management of multiple accounts and campaigns
How do I post on all social media at the same time?
Yes, you can post to all social media at once using social media automation tools. You can also bulk schedule these posts at preferred times for each channel.
What are the best social media automation tools?
There are a ton of social media automation tools. The list above only comprises some of the best automation tools you can start using today like:
- SocialPilot
- ContentStudio
- Hootsuite
- Buzzsumo
- Sprout Social
- Buffer
- CoSchedule
- Scoop.it
- Sendible
- Meetedgar
- Zoho Social
- Agorapulse
- NapoleanCat
About the Author
SocialPilot
SocialPilot is a social media automation tool built for businesses of all sizes, from small to enterprise-sized. With this versatile tool, expect to enjoy a ton of features such as social media scheduling, calendar management, AI content generator, robust analytics, client management, and more.
Additionally, it doesn’t matter what social media channel you are using because SocialPilot has your needs covered. That being said, you can integrate accounts from LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Google Business Profile, TikTok and start directly publishing within it.
SocialPilot makes the often complex and tedious process of working with a team to manage social media, a smooth-sailing one. With ‘Approvals-On-The-Go’, the approval and feedback workflow becomes quicker. Your clients are not required to login to SocialPilot to approve or give feedback on posts, ensuring efficient management and preventing any posting slip ups on social media.
SocialPilot has a nifty social media calendar feature, which will help you monitor your social media campaigns. You can incorporate filters into your calendars and monitor your social media campaigns by groups and accounts.
Finally, SocialPilot users can analyze their social media post-performance basis how engaged their audience, influencers, demographics, and competitors are.
Core Features of SocialPilot
Now that you know what SocialPilot can do for you, let’s discuss the core features of SocialPilot below:
Pros
Brian W.
I had been using another company to facilitate all of my social media posts, however, the number of accounts I needed took me out of the search for the free products and jumped up pretty quickly to some prohibitive pricing. SocialPilot fit a perfect price point and got me connected to all of my social media accounts very quickly. I can make my posts and schedule them as I like. Thank you!
SocialPilot Pricing
SocialPilot offers a 14-day free trial and a walkthrough as you sign up (no credit card required). Here are all SocialPilot plans.
Professional
$25.50/month Annually (Save 15%)
Small Team
$42.50/month Annually (Save 15%)
Agency
$85.00/month Annually (Save 15%)
Agency+
$170.00/month Annually (Save 15%)
Enterprise
Get customized plan based on Your Requirements.