21 Social Media Tools for Smart Marketers

Let's be honest. Keeping up with social media isn't easy. From content creation to daily marketing to-do's, knowing how to manage it can be confusing. Not to mention the hundreds of social media tools to choose from. But while automation can be a divisive topic, I've always believed that automation in moderation is the key to success. And the data supports it.

• Companies that automate lead management see a 10% or more bump in revenue in 6-9 months' time.
• Businesses that nurture leads make 50% more sales at a cost of 33% less than non-nurtured prospects.
• 69% of marketers say converting leads is their top priority. 79% of top-performing companies have been using marketing automation for three or more years.

So how do you pick the best social media management, listening, and promotional tools to keep you productive, not just busy? I've made it easy!

Below are 21 of my top picks. Not only are they the most effective social media tools on the market, but they'll also simplify your social media strategy. No more running around trying to manage social media. Instead, these tools do the heavy lifting so you can focus on what matters most: your business.

TL;DR:You''ll find all 21 social media tools listed in alphabetical order. I break down how to use it, why you'd use it, and how you can get started today.

1. Agorapulse

Agorapulse is a social media management tool that can make your life infinitely easier and is my #1 recommendation. With integration into Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram, Agorapulse helps you publish and schedule activity, monitor your results, and listen to what your audience cares about most. Most importantly, Agorapulse makes it super easy for brands and agencies to get set up and start saving time.

Agorapulse is actually one of the most affordable social media management tools. Coupled with their outstanding support and the ease of use I mentioned, it’s no wonder it’s the top user-rated tool.

2. Brand24

Brand24 is my daily social listening tool. With Brand24, you can intentionally listen to your customers, target your niche audience, and attract potential leads.

In fact, you’ll find that social listening is one of the most powerful ways to understand your audience better. And once you do, you can give them exactly what they need.

But be careful not to confuse social listening with monitoring. Monitoring is simply tracking your brand mentions. Social listening, on the other hand, requires analysis and lets you see the bigger picture behind the conversation.Use it daily and you'll see your engagement, leads, and traffic skyrocket.

3. Buffer

Since its inception, Buffer has been saving marketers oodles of time. Although many tools have followed in their footsteps, Buffer retains its popularity and remains a favorite among social media marketers worldwide.

At its core, Buffer is a publishing platform. With it, users can schedule content to publish across various social media platforms. Thanks to Buffer, marketers no longer need to login several times a day to post content – instead you can simply create a posting schedule for each social network and queue posts to be shared at an optimal time.

This becomes incredibly powerful when you pair it with a "best time to post" tool like Followerwonk. The best thing about Buffer is that it gives you back your time.

Create a schedule for weeks and even months ahead, posting your evergreen content without lifting a finger. Plus, their built-in analytics help you see what is working and what is not so you can quickly (and easily) adjust your course of action.

4. Buzzsumo

Great content is key to great social media marketing, and Buzzsumo is just the tool for that. It helps you find the most popular content and stay updated on what's happening in your industry. It can be used as a source of curating content or researching top-performing keywords.

Simply type in the word or phrase you're looking for, and you'll find popular content that's already performed well. You can also type in the domain name of your competition and look at the most popular content they've created. Buzzsumo searches through different types of content including:

• Article
• How-To Article
• Infographics
• List
• Videos
• What Post
• Why Post

It's a daily go-to tool for me as I'm researching a specific topic or looking for additional content to link to from a blog post like this one. Any way you use it, it's a goldmine of insight into your target market likes and dislikes. Use that info to better tailor your marketing strategy to the needs and tastes of your audience.

5. Clickfunnels

I've been using Clickfunnels for over 2 years now and have found it to be an invaluable tool. Whether you're looking to create a webinar landing page or build out an entire membership site, Clickfunnels makes it easy and pain-free.

From their template library, choose from professionally designed landing, thank you, and webinar funnel pages. Those templates contain each step within your funnel and follow the methodology behind Russell Brunson's massive success.

6. Commun.it

With Commun.it, you will never need to worry about missing a mention or important conversation again. Commun.it is an easy way to monitor your Twitter activity and respond in real-time. You can also find and engage your top supporters to create reciprocal and meaningful relationships.

7. CoSchedule

CoSchedule is an end-to-end social media calendar scheduling system. Rather than simply posting content, use it to strategically align all content, including blog and social.

Plan, create, and promote your content and projects all in one place. CoSchedule not only saves you time but also helps you grow your audience through smart marketing plans and efficient team collaboration.

8. CoSchedule Headline Analyzer

Headlines can make or break a post, and that’s why you want to make sure that yours is a winner. Co-Schedule has created a headline analyzer that measures the effectiveness of your headline. In other words, how well will it perform?

I use this tool daily to Co-Schedule test out as many variations of a headline as I can come up with. Each one is scored based on their algorithm, giving me an idea of how my audience will respond to it.

9. Dashlane

With Dashlane, you can get your logins and passwords in order. Stop trying to keep track of your passwords, and instead, let Dashlane do the work for you. And the beauty in this tool? You can get your passwords wherever and whenever you need them!

10. Designrr

If you're ready to take one piece of content and turn it into multiple with a click of a button, this is the tool for you. I use Designrr to take blog posts and videos and repurpose them into PDFs, ebooks, and downloads.

Get it now with this one-time offer of $27 for lifetime access, regularly $324. Why spend hundreds of hours and dollars on designing content upgrades or opt-ins when you can get Designrr and get started today?!

11. Droplr

I couldn't live online without this handy tool. And if you work within the design space or manage a team, this will simplify your life tenfold. With Droplr, you remove the friction and frustration of sharing files, shortened URLs, screen recordings, and even gifs from your busy life.

12. Likeable Local

Likeable Local is a powerful social media platform that offers small businesses a simple solution for managing a social media presence. As Neal Schaffer from Maximize Social Business says, "it's a scalable tool solution to small businesses who are looking for an easy-to-understand and easier-to-implement complete social media solution.”

13. LikeAlyzer

Are you randomly posting to your Facebook Page with no clear strategy? Would you like to know what you can do to better optimize your Page? Look no further than LikeAlyzer! With LikeAlyzer, you get a comprehensive review and tips to help you improve your interaction with current and potential fans and customers.

14. Mention

If you are looking for a tool that will help you monitor your brand’s presence across social media and the web, then Mention is a real life (and time) saver.

Mention, a real-time monitoring tool, detects any reference to your brand or keywords you're monitoring on all forums, social networks, blogs, and sites. It also offers the option of responding to the mentions and sharing them, making it a quick and easy engagement solution.

15. OverVideo

Video is hot, hot, hot. What better way to show off your product or display your latest feature than a video? Now take that video and amplify the message with an animated text overlay! With OverVideo, you can take an average video and make it a real stand out.

16. Pocket

Knowledge is one of the most important tools in a marketer's tool belt. But who has time to cull through the hundreds of thousands of articles written daily? That’s where Pocket comes in.

Stay up-to-date on the latest trends and industry news by saving content to read later. I use the Chrome extension and the iPhone app to sync my content as I save on the go.

17. Post Planner

I can’t talk about my favorite tools without mentioning Post Planner. Full disclosure, I'm the brand ambassador for Post Planner, but my love of the tool goes well beyond that. I've used Post Planner for years for many reasons.

Not only is it one of the top tools for social media marketing, but it can also help you save time through proven content, creating predictable results. And who doesn't want that? For those unfamiliar with Post Planner, it's an app that helps you manage and enhance your marketing strategy.

In other words, it does all the heavy lifting so you can focus on what matters—building relationships, driving traffic and making sales.

But what makes Post Planner stand out is that it also helps marketers find the perfect content to post. It gives you access to the most viral posts on Facebook and provides a huge list of status ideas.

With Post Planner, it's incredibly easy to find content that is currently trending in your niche, so you never have to hunt for popular content to post. The tool also provides a real-time analysis of the posts, helping you see what posts will help your engagement soar!

18. Quill Engage

There is no denying the importance of quality analytics. Unfortunately, not all analytics tools can provide clear, detailed, and easy-to-understand data analysis. Most are complicated, with too many options and data that is difficult to filter through.

That’s where Quill Engage stands out. This is a fantastic social media tool that connects to Google Analytics, scans it, and puts the data into a detailed report. It focuses on the most important information you need and reports any significant changes, whether good or bad.

The review Quill Engage sends you has a summary of your site’s traffic changes, as well as information about which post got the most or least traffic, and where the majority of the traffic came from. All of that information is sent to you in simple language that paints a clear picture of what is really going on.

19. Relay

Any social media marketer knows about the importance of visual marketing. It’s also no secret that a significant portion of your visual content must be original if you expect to get great results. But how can you create visually appealing content and do so over and over?

Relay is the answer. Relay is new to the scene, but quickly has become my go-to for creating attention-grabbing graphics in a matter of minutes. Relay has pre-designed templates with appropriate dimensions for an Instagram post, Facebook post or cover, presentation, and many more.

The layouts, fonts, sizes, and others factors Relay lets you choose from make it possible to create professional looking content that will get noticed and shared.

20. Sprout Social

Another superb, all-in-one management tool is Sprout Social. I've used Sprout Social since their beta days and couldn't live without it.

The Sprout Social publishing system lets you schedule content on all of your accounts, whether it's Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or LinkedIn. It also lets you easily monitor any mentions across the major social networks and reply to them right away. There is even a mobile app available that makes messaging a piece of cake.

One of Sprout Social's coolest new features is their Instagram integration. More Instagram makes me happy!

21. Tailwind

Tailwind is my go-to tool for Instagram and Pinterest scheduling, including powerful performance data. If you want to make content curation, scheduling, and analysis super easy... this is the tool for you.

Take a look at "Post Inspector" to analyze the performance of your Instagram posts over time. Identify which message, graphic, and style are creating a buzz around your business.

Or make your way over to your Pinterest dashboard and check out Smart Loops. As a content creator, this feature blows my mind. Not only can you automate your top-performing pins, but you can also identify the best times to post to each board. Brilliant!

Final thoughts

As you can see, there are many social media tools to choose from. The key is finding the one (or two) that simplifies and improves your current process.

All of them are business-friendly—including features that will help boost engagement, reach, traffic, and sales. So, what's your favorite tool? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!