In 2023, the best social media tools aren’t single-purpose — they’re multifunctional. A good tool can help you work faster, create better content, collaborate with your team, analyze your results, and plan for the future. Basically, the right tool can make your job a lot easier.
Whether you’re a solo creator, part of a small marketing team, or tackling social at the enterprise level, there are plenty of social media tools out there for you to add to your tech stack.
Below, let’s go over what features to look for in a tool and what the top social media tools are.
Social media tools can help you create and schedule content, monitor online conversations, create ad campaigns, and analyze your data — but that’s not all. Before you start building your social tool kit, consider your needs and goals.
Let’s say you’re a solopreneur. Since you already juggle so many roles and tasks in one day, your social media tools need to be multifunctional and help make content creation easy and fast.
Or, let’s say you’re a freelance social media manager who works with multiple clients. You’ll need a tool that makes it easy to manage multiple social media accounts in one place so you don’t have to constantly switch between accounts.
Here are some of the top ways a good social media tool should make your life easier.
Saves you time
This is especially beneficial if you’re working on a small team and have a lot of duties to balance. As a solopreneur or someone on a small social team, you have to be intentional with how you spend your limited time and resources.
You need social media tools that help you schedule content ahead of time, write captions faster, or create stunning visuals without needing a graphic designer.
Helps you analyze and understand your performance
One of the key elements of a successful social media strategy is understanding how your content and methods are performing. The best social media tools help you monitor your engagement and provide insight into what’s working well — and what’s not.
Look for a social media tool that helps you track and manage your content’s performance and better understand the results with in-depth analytics.
Helps you prove ROI
Social media has proven itself as a critical component of any marketing strategy. Still, marketers know you need data and results to back up your performance.
The best social media tools for marketing teams, especially those at the enterprise level, need to help prove how your social campaigns contribute to the bottom line so you can advocate for your team’s social budget and strategy.
Protect your brand’s reputation
Online conversations about your brand — both on your pages and off — can directly impact your brand’s reputation.
Staying on top of every comment, mention, tag, or message is a job in itself. Still, it’s essential to be aware of any ongoing conversations about your brand so you can quickly respond and take action if needed.
A social media monitoring tool helps you stay in the loop without staying glued to your phone 24/7.
If you’re looking for new tools to help you manage your social media initiatives, here are the top social media tools to consider for your tech stack.
1. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is an all-in-one social media tool with features that can help solo business owners and large teams alike better manage their social media initiatives.
Hootsuite’s social-focused features help you create, schedule, and optimize your social media posts in one place. Hootsuite Composer, for example, makes it easy to plan and share social media posts across all channels like Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and even YouTube.
Composer also integrates with helpful tools like Canva, Grammarly, and our in-house social AI tool, OwlyWriter.
You can easily repurpose your top posts, flag and fix typos, upload branded graphics, and even get recommendations for which hashtags to use and the best time to post.
If you’re a social media marketer or community manager, Hootsuite Inbox is a big help. With Inbox, you can manage all social media messages and interactions — across multiple platforms — in one place.
Staying on top of conversations and being responsive is essential for keeping your audience engaged and creating a positive brand reputation. Inbox makes it easy to respond faster and track the history of a person’s interactions with your brand so no customer is ever left on read.
Request a demo of Hootsuite Inbox
Best for: Marketers looking for a solution to seamlessly manage multiple brand accounts in one place.
Pricing: Hootsuite offers a range of plans suited for individuals and enterprises alike. Plans start at $99 per month.
2. Brandwatch
Brandwatch is a tool for conducting market research and measuring brand sentiment. The enterprise-level solution helps marketers gather industry data, dive into consumer insights, and track brand performance metrics all in one place.
Best for: Enterprise-level brands looking for a solution to measure engagement and brand sentiment.
Pricing: Brandwatch offers three pricing plans. You can book a meeting to get specific pricing details.
3. NetBase
NetBase Quid is a social media analytics platform that provides consumer and market intelligence to help you stay on top of consumer sentiment and better manage brand health and crises.
Through its social listening features, you can moderate and engage with real-time conversations happening on both owned and earned channels such as brand campaigns, PR mentions, and social media posts.
Plus, the NetBase Quid app can be integrated with Hootsuite Streams.
Best for: Midsize or large companies that want to monitor and analyze conversations and consumer sentiment outside of social media.
Pricing: You can request a demo to get pricing details.
4. Panoramiq Insights
Panoramiq Insights provides analytics for all of your Instagram activities, including posts, Stories, and Reels. It also helps you monitor user data, such as follower demographics and new follows.
Panoramiq Insights can be integrated with Hootsuite so you can see your Instagram account’s essential metrics from your dashboard.
Best for: If you’re solely focused on Instagram, this tool makes it easy to stay on top of key metrics.
Pricing: Plans start at $8 per month for up to two Instagram Business or Creator accounts.
5. Insense
Do you work with influencers to promote your brand? Or maybe you want to incorporate more UGC into your content strategy. It’s time to start using a creator management platform like Insense.
Insense connects brands to creators to create UGC and ad campaigns for Instagram and TikTok.
Best for: Ecommerce businesses and DTC brands who want to use UGC-style content to promote their products.
Pricing: Plans start at $400 per month.
6. Google My Business
According to a PowerReviews survey, 99.9% of consumers read online reviews when shopping. Of those consumers, 65% say they look for reviews on search engines like Google.
That’s why staying on top of your Google reviews is important for managing your brand’s reputation and offering customer support. You can easily manage these reviews with a free Google My Business account.
If you already have a Hootsuite account, you can also monitor your Google My Business page from your dashboard and can even share business updates directly from Hootsuite.
Best for: Brick-and-mortar businesses and small to midsize companies that receive a lot of online reviews.
Pricing: Google My Business and its Hootsuite integration are both free to use.
7. Shopview
If you have an online shop, Shopview makes it easy to sell your products directly on social.
With Shopview, you can manage multiple stores and monitor orders and customer comments in real time. The tool also integrates with Hootsuite, so you can share products and monitor orders without leaving your dashboard.
Best for: Ecommerce brands with shops on Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento.
Pricing: Plans start at $6 per month.
8. Upfluence
Upfluence is an influencer platform that makes it easy to discover, analyze, and match with relevant creators for your brand.
You can find influencers across a range of networks, including YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, Twitter, and Pinterest.
If you use Hootsuite, Upfluence seamlessly integrates with your social workflow. You can send content from Upfluence straight to Hootsuite to schedule and publish.
Best for: Connecting and tracking your influencer marketing and social strategy initiatives in one place.
Pricing: Upfluence offers a free Google Chrome extension with limited features and the Hootsuite app integration is free. If you’re interested in features of the paid plans, contact Upfluence for pricing details.
9. Linktree
When you’re promoting multiple products, pages, or company updates at once, having a central place for your followers to access those links is a must.
Linktree makes it easy to create a custom landing page to store multiple links and drive traffic.
And psstt: If you’re already a Hootsuite user on a Team, Business, or Enterprise plan, you’ve also got access to Hootbio, our link-in-bio solution.
Best for: Solopreneurs or small businesses looking for a budget-friendly and convenient way to amplify multiple promotions at once.
Pricing: Linktree offers free plans with limited customization and paid plans that start at $5 per month.
10. Bit.ly
Long URL strings are not easy on the eyes, but UTM parameters are essential for tracking performance. That’s why a link shortener like Bit.ly should be in every marketer’s social media tool kit.
Bit.ly allows you to shorten and customize links and create QR codes that are easier to share on social media.
And FYI: If you’re already a Hootsuite user, our Ow.ly URL shorteneris built right into Composer.
Best for: Creating shareable links to distribute on social channels.
Pricing: Bit.ly offers free and paid plans starting at $8 per month.
11. Oneclick.bio
Oneclick.bio is another essential link tool for social media. The tool is specifically designed to create custom pages for Instagram and TikTok links, buttons, and images.
Best for: If you use Hootsuite, you can connect Oneclick.bio to your account for a seamless creation process.
Pricing: Plans start at $6 per month.
12. Canva
Ask any social media marketer what one of their go-to tools is, and you’ll hear many of them mention Canva.
Since launching in 2012, Canva has changed the game by making it easy for anyone to create visual content — even without a design background.
If you have a Hootsuite account, connect it to Canva to access and upload creative assets directly in Composer.
Best for: If you’re a solopreneur or on a small social team without a graphic designer, Canva is easy to use for creating original, branded graphics.
Pricing: Canva offers a free plan as well as paid plans that start at $12.99 per month.
13. Adobe Stock
If you don’t have the time or resources to create custom graphics for your social media content, you’re not alone. Adobe Stock offers high-quality images and videos that can be used instead.
Adobe Stock is convenient if you already use other tools from the Adobe Suite, such as Lightroom or Photoshop.
Best for: You can connect Adobe Stock to your Hootsuite account to search for assets and publish them directly in Composer.
Pricing: Adobe Stock offers a 30-day free trial. After the trial, plans are $29.99 per month.
14. Unsplash
If you’re looking for free stock images to use in your social posts, Unsplash is the answer.
Unsplash‘s vast library of high-resolution images is completely free. The Unsplash community of photographers has contributed over five million images, and there’s a wide range of categories to choose from.
Best for: Solopreneurs or small marketing teams.
Pricing: Unsplash is free to use.
15. Airtable
Airtable is another helpful social media tool for marketers. The online platform makes it easy to create and share spreadsheets and databases. This may not sound glamorous, but it’s incredibly useful for visual social media planning.
The tool can also be used directly with Hootsuite for a seamless planning workflow.
Best for: Larger companies who need to connect workflows across multiple teams.
Pricing: Airtable offers a free plan and paid plans that start at $10 per seat per month.
16. HubSpot
HubSpot is a CRM platform used to store and track customer data across all touchpoints, from sales to marketing to service.
When integrated with Hootsuite, you can seamlessly send customer interactions from Facebook and Twitter to your CRM so the sales or service team is kept in the loop.
Best for: Managing customer data and interactions from social media.
Pricing: HubSpot has a free plan that includes basic marketing, sales, service, and CMS tools. Plans for new customers start at $18 per month.
17. Zendesk
Social channels play a major role in fielding customer inquiries, so it only makes sense to include customer service software in your social media tool kit.
Zendesk is a help desk and customer service ticketing software that enables teams to easily manage customer support tasks. When integrated with a platform like Hootsuite, your team can seamlessly manage, create, edit, and share tickets in one place.
Best for: If your social team also manages customer support inquiries (or works closely with the customer service team), Zendesk makes it easy to manage both functions.
Pricing: Zendesk plans start at $19 per month. The Zendesk Pro for Hootsuite app is $6.99 per month.
18. Monday.com
Monday is a workflow and project management tool that can be used for everything from campaign planning to creating a content calendar.
When integrated with your Hootsuite account, you can see all of your scheduled social posts on a dedicated Monday board. This helps create a seamless workflow and ensures everyone on your team is aligned on upcoming content.
Best for: Project management or content calendar creation.
Pricing: Monday offers a free forever plan for individuals and paid plans for teams that start at $24 per month.
19. Notion
Notion is a collaborative workspace with multiple functions that are perfect for social media teams.
It’s great for project management, note-taking, and tracking content ideas.
Notion can also be used to create a central source of information — for instance, a document for social media guidelines — that can be shared across your team.
Best for: Notion can be used as an alternative to Google Docs.
Pricing: Notion is free to use. The integrated Notion app for Hootsuite is $7.99 per month.
20. Lately AI
AI has changed how marketers create social media content, specifically when it comes to speeding up the time it takes to write captions.
One of the best new social media tools to help with this is Lately.ai. The AI tool generates social media captions by repurposing long-form content like blog posts, podcasts, and webinars.
Best for: Brands that want to repurpose long-form marketing content to distribute on social media.
Pricing: Lately plans start at $99 per month. The Lately Hootsuite integration is free to use.
What are social media tools?
Social media tools like Hootsuite are used to manage a brand’s social media presence.
What are social media tools used for?
Social media tools help marketers and small businesses plan, create, and publish social media posts. Social media tools can also help monitor engagement and analyze performance so marketers understand how their content performs.
