Every marketing campaign I’ve participated in has always had social media at its core. It’s no shock — over five billion people are active on social platforms daily. So if you want your product, service, and mission to reach the maximum number of people, your business needs to be on social media, too.
However, the ease with which you execute your social media strategy depends largely on the tools you use. Social media work is incredibly time-consuming, covering everything from the creative challenge of designing eye-catching graphics to posting at the right time to tracking campaign performance.
Without the right tools, it’s tough to pull off a robust strategy that balances both speed and quality — trust me, I know. That’s why I’ll be sharing the top social media tools you should be using in 2025 to save time, boost conversions, and prevent the kind of burnout I experienced in 2021 trying to go it alone.
Table of Contents
Social media campaign tools
What are social media tools?
What makes for a good social media tool?
What to look for in a social media tool
Best social media tools
What are social media tools?
Social media tools are digital platforms and applications designed to help you manage, optimize, and measure your social media efforts. They streamline tasks like content creation, scheduling, audience engagement, and performance tracking, allowing you to focus on strategy and creative storytelling while automating repetitive tasks.
There are different types of social media tools, including:
Scheduling tools. These tools allow you to plan and schedule posts ahead of time across multiple social platforms. They help maintain a consistent posting schedule, optimize publishing times for maximum engagement, and provide analytics to track performance.
Image editing tools. These tools help you create and enhance visuals. They offer a range of features — from templates and drag-and-drop interfaces to advanced photo editing options — that ensure your social media graphics are polished and on-brand.
Video-making tools. These tools simplify video creation. They provide pre-built templates, transitions, audio editing, and special effects, making it easy to produce professional-quality videos without needing extensive editing experience.
Social listening tools. These tools monitor mentions, keywords, and sentiment around your brand on social media. They help you stay informed about what people are saying, identify trends, and manage your reputation by enabling timely responses to customer feedback.
Analytics tools. These platforms give you insights into how your content performs, tracking metrics such as engagement, reach, and conversions. They provide data-driven insights that help refine your social media strategy and demonstrate ROI.
Collaboration and management tools. These tools facilitate team collaboration by enabling content reviews, approval workflows, and centralized communication. They ensure that everyone involved in your social media campaigns is on the same page, making it easier to create cohesive and impactful content.
What makes for a good social media tool?
Although the term “social media tool” is very general and can apply to a wide range of services, there are a few key features that your top social media tools should have.
It saves you time.
The main goal of a social media tool is to cut down on the hours spent on routine tasks without sacrificing quality. It should automate processes — whether it’s scheduling posts or generating captions — while still ensuring each step is done right.
It helps you increase brand awareness.
I believe that one of the biggest benefits of social media is its ability to increase your brand awareness, which is something you should keep in mind when choosing the social media tools you’ll use.
For instance, if you’re using an editing platform like Lightroom or an Instagram scheduler like Later, the primary focus should be that your brand’s image is consistently presented. This way, when people come across your posts, they immediately know it’s your brand.
It’s easy to use.
No matter how powerful a tool might be, it only saves you time if it’s straightforward and intuitive. I appreciate social media tools that are designed with the user in mind — ones that let anyone, from the analytical folks on the accounting team to your creative, right-brained writers, navigate functions without hassle.
Many top-notch tools offer tutorials on their websites to help you navigate the tools. Others, like Kicksta, have exceptional customer service, which means you can always get quick, expert help when you need it.
It’s affordable.
The best social media tools don’t have to break the bank. Often, you can find high-quality options that are free or very budget-friendly, like the Unfold app, which is great for creating engaging Instagram stories.
As a freelance content marketer who dabbles in social media from time to time, using affordable tools means I can focus on strategy and creativity rather than worrying about overspending on technology.
It keeps you organized.
Efficiency isn’t just about speed — it’s also about staying on top of your tasks. A good social media tool should help you manage your workflow, whether it’s by sorting through comments, scheduling posts, or saving your designs for later edits.
For example, HubSpot’s Social Media Management tool keeps your interactions prioritized, and graphic design platform Canva ensures that your creative work is neatly organized and easily accessible for revisions.
This organization not only saves time but also reduces stress, allowing you to focus on what really matters: connecting with your audience.
What to Look for in a Social Media Tool
When I’m choosing a social media tool, here are some features/elements I always look for:
1. User-friendly Interface
I’d like to think I’m tech-savvy, but I’ll always appreciate a tool with a clean, intuitive design that minimizes the learning curve and reduces errors.
Even if you can find your way around tools easily, chances are not everyone on your team can. So when choosing a social media tool, look for one with an interface that every member of your team can navigate easily.
This is especially crucial during fast-paced campaign launches, where every minute counts.
2. Automation Capabilities
The first time I used Hypefury to schedule X (formerly known as Twitter) posts, my mind was blown at how much easier my work became. Since then, I’ve always recommended choosing a social media tool that can automate repetitive tasks, like cross-platform publishing, so that your campaigns run smoothly even when you’re not at your desk.
For example, with scheduling tools like Hypefury or Hootsuite, you can set up automated posts for a six-month-long campaign. As long as you set your times and dates right, you can leave it and focus on other things, like responding to comments/inquiries.
3. In-depth Analytics and Reporting
Detailed analytics are my compass in determining what works and what doesn’t. So, I choose social media tools that provide real-time engagement metrics, demographic breakdowns, and conversion rates. This way, I know what’s working and what isn’t, and can tweak my strategy accordingly.
For example, if your analytics dashboard reveals that your video content is outperforming image posts by 40%, you’ll know to scale back on images and focus more on creating videos.
4. Seamless Integration With Other Platforms
Integration is key to maintaining an efficient workflow. So, I look for social media tools that play well with other applications I use — whether that’s my CRM, email marketing platform, or design software like Canva.
I remember a campaign where direct integration with Canva allowed me to import and tweak images without the extra step of exporting files manually. This seamless connection saves time and reduces the chance of errors.
5. Customizable Features
Every campaign is unique, so having the flexibility to customize dashboards, reporting metrics, and even workflow settings is a huge plus.
For example, if you’re executing a user-generated content (UGC) campaign, you can tailor your dashboards to monitor specific hashtags or mentions. This ensures that you’re tracking the metrics that directly impact your strategy.
6. Reliable Customer Support
When issues arise, having prompt and effective customer support makes all the difference.
Picture a situation where you encounter a technical glitch right before a crucial campaign launch — having access to expert help means you can resolve the problem quickly and keep your project on track.
7. Affordability and Scalability
Finally, I look for cost-effective tools that grow with my needs because budget constraints shouldn’t limit campaign potential. So, if you’re starting small and plan to scale, selecting a social media tool that offers both free and upgrade options allows you to invest in more features as your campaign demands increase.
1. HubSpot’s Social Media Management Software
Price: Starts at $800/month, included in the Marketing Hub Professional tier
HubSpot’s Social Media Management Software is designed to simplify and unify your social media efforts. This tool allows you to publish different types of content across multiple networks directly from a central dashboard, which streamlines the entire process and makes it easier to maintain a consistent brand voice.
I also love how this tool helps you set up keyword monitoring so you never miss a mention or critical conversation about your brand. HubSpot also integrates all of your marketing with your CRM, so it‘s easy to figure out how many leads and customers you’re receiving directly from social media.
“HubSpot Marketing Hub … puts the potential of corporate marketing within everyone’s reach,” one customer says.
Some standout features of HubSpot’s Social Media Management software include:
AI social post generator: This helps you quickly draft and publish content directly to LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter).
Automatic blog sharing: Connect your social accounts to your blog so that your content is shared automatically as it’s published.
Optimal scheduling suggestions: Get recommendations on the best times to post, ensuring your content reaches your audience when they’re most active.
Out-of-the-box social reports: Compare the performance of different platforms, campaigns, and publishing times with detailed, easy-to-understand reports.
CRM integration: Seamlessly connect your social interactions to your CRM, so you can easily track customer journeys and report on social media ROI.
2. Hootsuite
Price: Starts at $99/month per user with a 30-day free trial
Hootsuite is a comprehensive social media management tool that brings all your social tasks together in one intuitive dashboard. This tool’s robustness astounds me in that it allows users to plan, create, schedule, and analyze social content for multiple platforms — whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, or YouTube.
This allows you to engage with your audience across the board, which makes it easier to maintain a consistent and active presence no matter where your customers are.
I also love how smoothly Hootsuite integrates with over 200 marketing tools, including Canva, HubSpot, Shopify, Mailchimp, and Microsoft Dynamics. This interconnected ecosystem allows you to bring together your marketing, design, and analytics processes into a single workflow.
Hootsuite’s AI-powered tools further enhance your strategy by helping you post at the best times for your audience, create on-brand captions for each network, and even analyze your performance against top competitors — all of which contribute to smarter, more efficient social media management.
Pro tip: In our 2024 State of Social Media report, we found that 6 PM to 9 PM, along with 12 PM to 3 PM, are the best times to post across social channels.
3. Sprout Social
Price: Starts at $199/month per seat with a 30-day free trial
Sprout Social is an all-in-one social media management platform designed to power your entire social media strategy. I appreciate how this tool bundles social management, customer care, and data intelligence tools into one cohesive package.
This integration means you can not only create and schedule posts with ease but also manage interactions and gain deep insights into your brand’s performance — all in one place. It’s a real asset for ensuring your social media efforts are both proactive and reactive to customer needs.
I also love Sprout Social’s ability to support every stage of the social marketing funnel. Whether you’re focused on content creation, post scheduling, or reviewing campaign performance, Sprout Social has powerful features to help you.
After every campaign, you can review your performance and make adjustments to your content strategy by using the social listening tool to get insights into your brand’s health and industry landscape.
4. Statusbrew
Price: Starts at $69/month for two user seats with a 14-day free trial. For agencies, prices start at $49/month per client.
Statusbrew stands out as a top alternative to Sprout Social, offering a broad range of features that streamline social media management. I love its user-friendly navigation and robust tools for content creation, audience engagement, and analytics, which together help you build a strong brand presence across multiple networks.
For agencies and teams managing multiple clients, Statusbrew truly shines. I like how it allows you to create separate workspaces for each client or project, ensuring that data remains organized and compartmentalized.
This is further enhanced by internal tags and labels, which let you categorize posts, users, and engagements. So, if you’re juggling campaigns for different brands, you can easily filter and generate detailed analytics for each client without any data overlap or confusion.
Some other features of Statusbrew include shareable content calendars, sentiment analysis, and automated comment moderation.
5. Planable
Price: Starts at $33/month per workspace with a free plan available
Planable is a comprehensive collaboration, approval, and social media management tool that allows you to craft social media posts, content briefs, emails, newsletters, or even blogs — all from a single platform.
This tool is designed to take the hassle out of content production by keeping everything organized and accessible, ensuring that every piece of content is ready for publication without unnecessary back-and-forth.
One of the standout features of Planable is its support for team collaboration. You can leave comments directly next to each draft, mention teammates, add internal notes, and assign custom roles and permissions to ensure the right people see the right content.
If you’re managing a campaign for multiple brands, you can easily switch between workspaces and use the intuitive drag-and-drop calendar to schedule posts, ensuring that each brand’s content is on track.
After your campaign goes live, Planable helps you measure success. You can analyze performance and create detailed reports to share across your organization, enabling you to pinpoint what worked and where adjustments are needed.
6. Kicksta
Price: Starts at $39/month for individual creatives
Kicksta is an Instagram growth service that helps you get more organic followers on your Instagram business account. It operates in two ways:
Growth pods network – Here, Kicksta’s AI will analyze your Instagram account, and based on the results, you will be added to several growth pods, which consist of different IG accounts. Then, you’ll be incentivized to participate in growth pod activity.
Targeted growth – This method depends on a follow/unfollow automation, meaning that Kicksta’s software will follow an account, perform an interaction with it, wait for the follow back, and then after a few days, unfollow the particular account, leaving your following count low, and followers count high.
Kicksta is a great alternative to buying followers because it ensures that all the followers you get are real people who are genuinely interested in your niche, not bots or fake accounts.
“Kicksta helps introduce new audiences to our brand while providing consistent organic Instagram growth,” says Ryan Beltran, CEO of Original Grain. “It’s great for social proof too!”
7. SocialBee
Price: Starts at $24.20 per month with a 14-day free trial
SocialBee is a robust social media management platform that streamlines every stage of your social media marketing efforts. With its range of features, including automation, visual creation, AI assistance, analytics, and inbox monitoring, SocialBee offers a complete solution for your social media needs.
For example, SocialBee’s AI tool, CoPilot, takes crucial information about your business (like its name, URL, tagline, services, tone, etc.) and uses it to:
Determine the best social networks for you
Categorize your social media posts for a more organized experience
Generate a best time posting plan based on your chosen platform(s) and content categories, and
Generate actual posts that will resonate with your target audience.
This platform also integrates with popular design tools like Canva, Unsplash, and Giphy, allowing you to access a wealth of visual resources directly within SocialBee.
And after your posts have been published automatically across all your social profiles, you can analyze the performance of your content from the Analytics dashboard and monitor your inbox for messages, comments, and mentions.
8. Visme
Price: Free, or starts at $12.25/month
Visme is an all-in-one design tool that allows you to create, curate, schedule, and publish your social media content, all within the app. It offers a 360-degree approach to social media management by providing a user-friendly interface, access to thousands of customizable social media templates and millions of design assets, a brand kit, AI-powered tools to streamline your content creation process and provide engaging visuals and captions.
Visme also comes with a built-in calendar so you can get a bird’s-eye view to plan and track your social media process. When you’re ready, publish directly to platforms like Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, and YouTube.
Visme also integrates with platforms like Hubspot, MailChimp, Salesforce, and more so your team can work in sync when launching major marketing campaigns.
9. Adobe LightRoom
Price: Starts at $11.99/month
Adobe Lightroom is a photo editing and organization tool that allows you to create stunning visuals with ease. With a robust set of editing features — from sliders and filters to advanced color adjustments and cropping tools — this tool ensures that your images are always vibrant, on-brand, and tailored to your business’s aesthetic.
Beyond basic editing, Lightroom offers a range of creative presets and customizable options that can streamline your workflow and reinforce your brand identity. So, you can develop a signature look by applying a consistent filter to a series of images, which helps maintain a cohesive visual story across your social media channels.
I also love LightRoom’s seamless cross-device synchronization. Changes you make on your desktop are instantly available on your mobile device, which means you can edit on the go and maintain consistency across all your visual content.
Furthermore, LightRoom integrates with other Adobe products, like PhotoShop, Illustrator, and InDesign. So, if you’re an avid Adobe user, you’ll have fun with LightRoom.
10. Canva
Price: Free, or starts at $10/month (billed $120/year for one person)
Canva is a user-friendly graphic design platform that makes creating custom, on-brand visuals for your social media accounts a breeze. I’ve used Canva for three years now and some of my favorite features are:
Its intuitive drag-and-drop interface that allows you to design everything from Facebook posts and Instagram stories to presentations and infographics without needing advanced design skills.
Its extensive library of fonts, images, icons, and illustrations that allow you to create visually appealing content tailored to your audience.
The thousands of stunning templates across different topics and color palettes. I often find it intimidating to start designing from scratch, so the templates give me a foundation I can customize to match the brand’s style.
Canva also supports collaboration, so you can work with team members to refine designs and share feedback in real time — making it perfect for busy teams and agencies alike.
One user said, “Canva has been a lifesaver to me and my business. No more hours sitting in front of the computer coming up with graphics for social media post(s) or Pinterest post(s).”
Check out our video that dives into how Canva built its product into the awesome creative tool it is today:
11. Buffer
Price: Free, starts at $5/month
Buffer is a simple yet powerful toolkit that helps you create, schedule, and analyze content across all the popular social media channels. I love its clean, user-friendly interface that makes managing your social media presence straightforward — even if you’re new to the game.
This platform combines content scheduling, in-depth analytics, and audience engagement tools. So, you can plan your posts ahead of time, which ensures that your content is published at the optimal times for maximum reach. The analytics allow you to track performance metrics so you can refine your strategy based on what resonates with your audience.
You can also triage and respond to people’s comments on your Facebook and Instagram posts from a single dashboard. Buffer offers smart alerts using machine learning that notify you immediately if a post has questions, negative sentiment, or comments about a purchase.
Buffer also offers several free social media tools including:
A link-in bio tool to help you create a customized landing page for your social profiles
An image editor for customizing visuals so your posts remain on-brand
AI-powered tools to help you generate social media post ideas, polish captions, and repurpose content for different channels.
12. Movavi Video Editor
Price: Starts at $19.95/month, with 7-day free trial
Movavi Video Editor is an easily navigable video editing software that helps you create stunning videos for social media — whether it’s showcasing products, riding the latest TikTok trend, or curating engaging Instagram content.
This platform has a wide range of creative features, including smooth transitions, dynamic titles, eye-catching filters, and creative special effects that can transform ordinary clips into captivating videos. You can also add music, voiceovers, and various audio effects to ensure that your video not only looks great but also delivers an audio experience that catches (and holds) your audience’s attention.
This company understands that video editing can be complex, so it provides a rich library of video tutorials and step-by-step guides. Whether you’re a beginner or have some experience, these resources help you get started quickly and explore different techniques at your own pace.
13. Unfold
Price: Free, starts at $12.99/month
Described as “a toolkit for storytellers,” Unfold is a versatile app available on both iOS and Android that empowers you to create Instagram stories. Some standout features of Unfold include:
Its template library that helps you create beautiful social media content
Its editing suite that allows you to edit photos and videos with an array of filters and effects
Its bio site feature that allows you to build a customized bio site, perfect for linking your most important content or promotions, so your audience can easily explore more of what you have to offer
A brand kit where you can store your assets, including your brand colors, fonts, logos, and stickers.
Unfold is the ideal app for lifestyle brands who want to create stylish collages to keep their social media accounts on-brand and receive the maximum amount of engagement from followers.
14. HypeAuditor
Price: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $2999/year
HypeAuditor is an influencer marketing platform that helps you find authentic influencers across several social platforms and industries.
This platform has an influencer database containing 205.6M+ accounts across Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, and Twitch. All you have to do is apply filters like keywords, follower count range, audience location, interests, and age to find the perfect influencer for your brand.
This platform also allows you to peruse accounts that already mention your brand or products, so you can spot potential brand ambassadors. You can also track mentions of other brands to know how well you compare to them.
Once you’ve found some influencers you’d like to work with, HypeAuditor allows you to reach out to them quickly and easily — I’m talking dozens of personalized emails in minutes. It also simplifies the negotiation process and helps you track and monitor your influencer marketing campaigns once they’re live.
15. Retouchup
Price: Starts at $0.15-0.25 per image
The website Retouchup provides an easy way to edit photos for social media, from basic color correction to more advanced Photoshop-like features such as adding or removing people from a photo. With Retouchup, you don‘t do the work yourself — instead, just submit a photo and the website’s experts will edit the photo for you within 24 hours.
“You’re making me look like an awesome photographer!” one user gushed. Retouchup can save you time during the editing stage, and make your images appear higher-quality and more compelling.
16. Animoto
Price: Free, or starts at $9/month (billed annually).
Animoto is a powerful yet user-friendly online video maker that allows you to create professional-grade videos in just minutes — even if you have no prior editing experience.
All you need to do is upload images or clips, record your screen, add stock images, and use Animoto’s drag-and-drop tools to merge, resize, crop, and trim it to become a cohesive video. If you don’t want to start from scratch, you can use a pre-built storyboard template curated by either Animoto or HubSpot.
To make your videos more bubbly, you can overlay music, text, animations, graphics, and effects. You can also add transitions and create collages to make your videos look unique.
Animoto also allows you to turn any of your videos into a reusable template. All your design elements, music, media, and text will auto-populate so you can quickly roll out on-brand videos. When you’re done, you can export your videos to your HubSpot file manager with one click and manage them from there.
Animoto also integrates with Getty Images, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn, so you can have video tools for a good portion of social media platforms all in one place.
1. Brandwatch
Price: Reach out to Brandwatch for a custom quote
Brandwatch is a powerful digital consumer intelligence platform that allows you to monitor, analyze, and act on the wealth of data generated by online conversations. It helps you tap into real-time insights from social media, blogs, forums, and news sites, so you can understand your audience’s sentiments, track trends, and gauge overall brand health.
The platform comes packed with advanced features such as customizable dashboards, in-depth sentiment analysis, and AI-powered insights that simplify complex data into actionable strategies. It also offers real-time alerts, competitor tracking, and detailed reporting tools that allow you to stay ahead of the curve and effectively manage your brand’s online reputation.
Brandwatch integrates with HubSpot to help you provide efficient social customer service. When you sync customers’ tickets and social media profiles to HubSpot, you will get a more complete overview of your customers and make sure every customer interaction is handled with care, speed, and accuracy.
2. Quuu
Price: Starts at $19.79/month with 7-day free trial
Quuu is an intelligent content curation platform designed to help you discover hand-picked content suggestions for your social media feeds. By providing a steady stream of pre-vetted articles, blog posts, and visual content, Quuu takes the guesswork out of content curation.
It’s particularly useful for marketers and social media managers who want to keep their channels active and engaging without spending hours searching for high-quality content. The platform’s curated suggestions are tailored to your chosen topics, ensuring that every piece of content resonates with your audience.
In addition to content discovery, Quuu also has an AI social media scheduler that allows you to easily plan and post curated content alongside your original material. The scheduler also recommends content adjustments and improvements tailored to your audience’s preferences and past engagement trends.
If you‘re a HubSpot customer, you can integrate the two platforms. Quuu finds the best content for your social profiles, and HubSpot lets you control those suggestions. You can go to your draft folder via HubSpot and pick which content you want to upload if your Quuu account isn’t automated, which you can change.
Quuu looks for content so you don’t have to. The tool also integrates with Buffer, Hootsuite, and Socialbee.
3. Later
Price: Starts at $16.67/month, with 14-day free trial
Later is a visual-first social media scheduling platform that helps you plan, schedule, and analyze your posts across Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, X, and TikTok. It offers a clean, drag-and-drop content calendar that lets you visually plan your social feed and ensure your posts align with your brand’s aesthetic.
With an intuitive interface designed for marketers and social media managers, Later simplifies the process of managing visual content and allows you to maintain a consistent posting schedule without the hassle of switching between different tools.
Later provides robust analytics that help you optimize your posting strategy by identifying the best times to post and tracking engagement metrics. It also offers useful features such as hashtag suggestions, user-generated content management, and a link-in-bio feature for Instagram that helps your posts become instantly shoppable.
“I love that you can either use it via the website or app on-the-go,” one user remarks. “It is one of those apps that I could not live without … Later is [a] super easy tool to set up.”
4. Design Wizard
Price: Free, or starts at $9.99/month
Design Wizard is a versatile graphic design platform that empowers you to create professional visuals quickly and easily.
With its extensive library of customizable templates and a vast collection of stock images and illustrations, Design Wizard makes it simple to produce a variety of content — from social media graphics and marketing materials to presentations and invitations — without needing advanced design skills.
The platform stands out for its intuitive, user-friendly interface and robust customization features. You can easily tailor every element to match your brand’s identity, whether you’re adjusting colors, fonts, or layouts.
Design Wizard also offers several other design tools, including background remover, YouTube video maker, online video trimmer, ad maker, and storyboard designer.
Elevate your social media game with the right social media tools
Choosing the right social media tools is the key to streamlining your campaigns and boosting engagement. Whether you need robust scheduling, compelling visual content, or insightful analytics, the variety of tools we‘ve covered ensures that there’s a solution tailored to every aspect of your social media strategy.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in May 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.