With over 10,000 digital agencies in the U.S. alone, it’s never been more important for brands to have a strong social media presence to stay competitive.
And for marketing agencies managing one or multiple brands, from content creation and performance reporting, using the right set of tools can help you do just that. From project management software for planning, managing, and tracking every part of your social media workflow to content collaboration, these tools will ensure you maximize your team’s efforts and establish a winning content strategy.
It’s time to step up your social media game. Here are 10 of the best social media management tools for agencies available today!
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Summarize this article for me please
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat are Social Media Management Tools?
Social media management tools help agencies and businesses manage their social media accounts more efficiently.
These tools provide an array of features, such as:
- Planning and scheduling posts
- Social media monitoring
- Team collaboration
- Analytics and reporting
- Project management and campaign management
- And more
All in all, they’re designed to reduce the time spent on busy work so that agencies can focus on valuable work.
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat Makes a Good Social Media Management Tool?
A solid social media management tool should have the following aspects:
- Intuitive UI
- A calendar feature that offers an overview of content across multiple platforms
- Feedback and collaboration functionalities
- Approval workflows with custom or pre-set options
- Accessible and scale-friendly pricing
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhy Should Your Agency Use a Social Media Management Tool?
As an agency, it can be challenging to keep track of multiple client campaigns across different social media channels. A good social media management tool enables agencies to solutions for all the essential work: analyzing data, measuring performance, collaborating with clients, and creating and distributing content.
That said, let’s dive into 10 social media management tools that will help take your agency to the next level. 🚀 📈
Summarize this article for me please10 Best Social Media Management Tools You Need to Know About in 2024
1. ClickUp
Best for all-in-one project management and team collaboration
ClickUp is a leading project management and productivity platform. At its core, ClickUp is designed as an all-in-one project management solution to help teams stay on top of their tasks, effectively manage every part of their workflow, and hit their goals.
So why is this tool useful for marketing agencies? Here are a few reasons why:
1️⃣ Fully customizable platform packed with flexible features: It offers hundreds of powerful features, a user-friendly interface, and a fully customizable platform. This means you can configure ClickUp in any way you need it to fit your project needs, use case, preferences, and workflow, making this tool the perfect match for any team, including social media marketing teams.
2️⃣ Project management and team collaboration: With ClickUp, marketing teams will have access to advanced project management and collaboration features. Choose over 15 custom views to organize content marketing projects your way, a suite of tools, including ClickUp Docs for blogs, wikis, SOPs, and other documentation needs, and collaborative Whiteboards for brainstorming, strategy planning, and mapping out concepts. Social media managers and teams can also find a lot of value in ClickUp’s Calendar view, where they can plan, coordinate, and manage their social media and content calendar.
3️⃣ Allows guests such as clients and external teams: As for communicating with clients and external teams, agencies can invite guests to join their Workspace and use the Sharing and Privacy settings to control what guests have access to. Granting clients access to ClickUp means you get to work with them within the platform and use features such as Proofing that allows you to annotate images, videos, and PDF to for easy communication and speed up the feedback and approval process.
4️⃣ A library of customizable templates: ClickUp offers a library of templates for every use case, including a beginner-level Social Media Template and the Modern Social Media Calendar Template to give a solid framework for your workflow in ClickUp. There’s also an advanced-level template to help you develop your social media strategy and manage all your work, teams, and client in one place—The Social Media Posts Template by ClickUp!
Whether it’s for agencies, small teams, large enterprises, or somewhere in between, ClickUp can help you stay organized and productive. Bring your social media marketing projects together and keep them running smoothly with this all-in-one project management tool—it might be just what your social media agency needs.
Best features
- Over 15 custom views: 15+ custom views to visualize your work your way, including a Calendar view
- ClickUp Brain: Create AI generated content using ClickUp’s AI tool
- Calendar view: Manage your social calendar, develop your social media content, and more in one view
- Fully customizable platform: Customize ClickUp for any need. Use it for website project management, content management, and more
- Proofing: Speed up the feedback and approval process by annotating directly on images, videos, and PDFs and tagging team members or clients
- Tags: Add custom tags to organize your tasks by category
- Priority flags: Mark your tasks as urgent, high, normal, and low priority to ensure your team knows what to prioritize
- Customizable templates: Choose from over 1,000 customizable templates for every use case, including content calendar templates
- Mobile app: ClickUp is available on mobile. Access your work at any time from anywhere
- Integration capabilities: Connect ClickUp to over 1,000 other work tools to bring all you work in one place and streamline your workflow
Pricing
- Free plan: Forever
- Unlimited: $7 per member/month
- Business: $12 per member/month
- Enterprise: Contact sales for pricing
Customer ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.7 out of 5 (6,547 reviews)
- Capterra: 4.7 out of 5 (3,602 reviews)
2. Planable
Best for content collaboration
Planable is a content planning and collaboration tool that helps marketing teams plan, preview, approve and collaborate on their social media content.
With Planable, you can easily share post ideas with your colleagues and clients and receive real-time feedback in the same place. With their latest update, Universal Content, teams can create and collaborate on any kind of content: social media posts, newsletters, blogs, product descriptions, and anything in-between.
There are several ways in which Planable streamlines content approval. For starters, users Planable can opt for one of 4 approval workflows — None, Optional, Required, and Multiple levels of approval. The latter enables users to customize their approval in whichever setup suits their situation and adds an extra layer of security by having posts go through an approval chain before publication. For example, you can make it so that a post has to first go through the client’s legal before publication.
Planable’s intuitive interface also makes collaboration between different teams effortless.Your team’s conversations are contained within a single platform, and you can easily tag other members to start discussions or review content. That’s because conversations are displayed right next to the post in question in the form of comments and replies.
There’s also external collaboration. Content and comments can be set to “internal” until you’re 100% sure it’s ready for the client’s approval. As for clients, there’s the option to generate a link leading directly to the post, making it super easy for the client to just jump and share their thoughts in the comments.
Whether you’re a boutique marketing agency or running lots of different clients, Planable provides the tools to streamline collaboration processes to get better results from your campaigns. You can start with planning a product launch and use Planable to sync the content from all channels (social media, blog, emails, banners, etc.).
Best features
- Multi-level and custom approval workflows
- Sync and/or tweak posts for social media platforms (not available for universal content yet)
- Intuitive and sleek calendar view
- Customizable filters for your content that can be saved as Custom Views
- Five ways to view content (Grid, List, Feed, Calendar)
- Real-time collaboration
- An in-app image editing tool
- Integration with major social media platforms
Pricing
- Free plan
- Basic: $13 per user/month
- Pro: $26 per user/month
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
Customer ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.6 out of 5 (548 reviews)
- Capterra: 4.5 out of 5 (305 reviews)
3. Hootsuite
Best for content creation and reporting agencies
Hootsuite is one of the oldest and most prominent social media management tools out there. Hootsuite has made a name for itself as one of the go-to solutions for agencies seeking to invest in their social media marketing efforts.
Hootsuite features many functionalities expected from a social media tool of its caliber, including social media post scheduling, monitoring, task management, and performance reporting. Thanks to its equal mix of reporting and project management functionalities, Hootsuite is a good solution for agencies juggling performance and creative-heavy projects.
Best features
- Managers can assign specific social media posts to specific team members.
- Hootsuite’s calendar offers three ways to view the calendar (List, week, month) and two subviews (by post status or social network)
- Detailed analytics & reporting features
Limitations
- No centralized media library to share assets
- Relatively limited collaboration features compared to other tools
- Steep pricing
- No version control for posts
- There’s no way to share posts with guests
Pricing
- Professional: $99 per month
- Team: $249 per month
- Business: $739 per month
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
Customer ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.1 out of 5 (3,840 reviews)
- Capterra: 4.4 out of 5 (3,412 reviews)
4. Agorapulse
Best for social media management and project management
Agorapulse is a social media management platform that offers scheduling and task management functionalities. What sets Agorapulse apart from other social media tools for agencies is its range of marketing-adjacent niches, from analytics, keyword monitoring, and social listening to project management.
Best features
- Visual content calendar
- Shared calendar add-on for external collaboration
- Covers a wide range of social media marketing tasks
- Solid social media project management functionalities
Limitations
- No multi-level approval
- Steep learning curve
- UI can be improved
Pricing
- Free plan
- Standard: $49 per user/month (billed annually)
- Professional: $79 per user/month (billed annually)
- Advanced: $119 per user/month (billed annually)
- Custom: Contact for pricing
Customer ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.5 out of 5 (871 reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6 out of 5 (698 reviews)
5. Sprout Social
Best for social media monitoring
Sprout Social is a social media management tool designed for agencies. Sprout Social allows you to easily manage multiple accounts in one platform and collaborate across teams. You can also measure the success of your campaigns with its detailed analytics and reporting features.
Finally, another great Sprout Social feature is its expansive asset library. Since agencies are, by definition, asset-reliant, Sprout’s asset library provides tons of value by offering an entire sub-platform where agencies can share, manage and distribute assets with teams and clients.
Best features
- Smart inbox to quickly sort through requests and work
- Asset library with two ways to view it that allows for quick and easy asset management
- Rich analytics, social listening, and monitoring features
- External collaboration is easy and straightforward
Limitations
- Steep pricing for small-sized agencies
- Cannot group posts in the calendar
- No drag and drop option in the calendar
Pricing
- Standard: $249 per month
- Professional: $399 per month
- Advanced: $499 per month
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
Customer ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.4 out of 5 (2,367 reviews)
- Capterra: 4.4 out of 5 (550 reviews)
Check out these Sprout Social alternatives!
6. Buffer
Best for integrations, reporting, management
While Buffer has made a name for itself thanks to their many integrations, they are also a powerful tool for agencies of all sizes.
Buffer lets you easily create and schedule posts across multiple social media accounts. Its excellent analytics lets you track post performance, report on your progress, and compare yourself to competitors. Plus, its bulk scheduling feature makes it the perfect tool for agencies with a high client roster.
Best features
- Lots of integrations, including Canva
- Campaign tracking and management; you can create content in the campaign window and track scheduled, published, draft posts and approvals
- Has a pricing plan literally for agencies
Limitations
- There are no labels and tags for posts, which are pretty much essential in large-scale social media initiatives
- Doesn’t allow collaborating with external teams
- Hootsuite’s approval infrastructure is a tad limited in the sense that aside from a 1 to 1 approval workflow, users can’t structure approvals by layers
Pricing
- Free plan
- Essentials: $6 per channel/month
- Team: $12 per channel/month
- Agency: $120 for 10 channels/month
Customer ratings and review
- G2: 4.3 out of 5 (971 reviews)
- Capterra: 4.5 out of 5 (1,390 reviews)
7. Sendible
Best for small to mid-sized agencies
Next up on the list is Sendible, a powerful tool designed to help agencies manage their social media accounts. Sendible offers a decently-diverse array of features, including content calendars, automated messages, and reporting capabilities. Additionally, Sendible allows users to collaborate with clients and team members on projects in real time.
Sendible has a couple of features that set it apart from similar tools, such as DM monitoring and a client dashboard. The latter does an excellent job of streamlining team-client management. Also worth mentioning are the built-in image editor and topic suggestions.
Best features
- Users can sync and edit posts across social multiple social media platforms instead of editing each post individually
- Intuitive social media calendar that is very easy to use
- DM monitoring
- Client Connect enables clients to connect their socials to the Client Dashboard without giving away their login credentials
- Custom approval workflows for clients and social media teams
Limitations
- Mobile experience can be improved
Pricing
- Creator: $29 per month
- Traction: $89 per month
- Scale: $199 per month
Customer ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.5 out of 5 (832 reviews)
- Capterra: 4.5 out of 5 (116 reviews)
8. Later
Best for social media and content marketing agencies
Later is an excellent choice for any agency that wants to take its social media management to the next level. Its intuitive scheduling system enables users to plan and post content across multiple channels in one place, saving time and effort. It also offers powerful analytics features and SEO tools.
Additionally, Later’s visual media library makes storing and organizing visual content easy, enabling users to quickly find the perfect photo or video for their next post. With powerful features like these, it’s no wonder Later has become one of the most popular agency social media management tools.
Best features
- Integration with WordPress
- Ease of use and clean interface
- Robust media library that makes asset management for teams and client management easier
- Supports Link in Bio
Limitations
- No Google Profile (previously Google My Business) integration
- Somewhat inflexible pricing. For example, the Starter and Growth plans set limits to 30 and 150 posts per social, respectively
- Starter plans limits analytics data to up to three months of data
Pricing
- Starter: $18 per month
- Growth: $40 per month
- Advanced: $80 per month
Customer ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.6 out of 5 (289 reviews)
- Capterra: 4.4 out of 5 (358 reviews)
9. Planoly
Best for medium to large agencies
Planoly is another excellent choice for agencies looking to optimize their social media workflow. This popular scheduling platform works with Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and other major platforms.
Planoly provides a simple visual interface that helps you collaborate, plan campaigns, track performance metrics, and analyze results. Planoly also makes it easy to create stunning visuals by offering over seven million stock photos, graphics, and branded fonts.
Best features
- Supports Link in Bio
- Robust, in-app TikTok video planner
- Supports cross-posting between platforms (for example, TikTok videos to YouTube shorts)
Limitations
- Free trial period lasts only seven days
- Small agencies may find Planoly inaccessible because the Starter Plan puts a cap on the number of monthly uploads
Pricing
- Starter: $13 per month
- Growth: $23 per month
- Professional: $43 per month
Customer ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.3 out of 5 (64 reviews)
- Capterra: 4.5 out of 5 (46 reviews)
10. Loomly
Best for analytics and collaboration
The final entry in our round-up of the best social media tools for agencies is Loomly.
Loomly offers an intuitive user interface makes scheduling and publishing posts effortless and allows users to preview posts across all their different channels and set up automated approval processes with customizable roles and permissions.
The latter feature gives agency teams greater control over their clients’ content while ensuring brand consistency. Using Loomly, agencies can also analyze their content’s performance with detailed reports on engagement, reach, and other metrics. All of this makes Loomly the ideal choice for agencies looking to improve their efficiency in social media management.
Best features
- Supports Snapchat integration
- Customizable team workflows for approving and publishing social media content
- Suggested post ideas and RSS feeds to inspire your team
Limitations
- No workspaces or folders
- Manual Instagram and Facebook post publishing
- UI issues with filters
Pricing
- Base: $35 per month
- Standard: $7 per month
- Advanced: $172 per month
- Premium: $359 per month
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
Customer ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.6 out of 5 (1,307 reviews)
- Capterra: 4.7 out of 5 (476 reviews)
Summarize this article for me pleaseSteamline Your Workflow and Manage Multiple Accounts with Social Media Tools
The best social media management tools for agencies depend on their specific needs and size. Larger agencies may require more advanced solutions with deeper automation and analytics capabilities.
In contrast, smaller ones could make do with more straightforward solutions that offer enough features to perform the basics. No matter what your needs are, there is a social media scheduling platform out there that can meet them—you just have to choose the one that gives you the features and the flexibility to support your growing needs and scaling business!
Guest Writer:
Marco Giuliani is a content marketer at Planable and an aspiring YouTuber. His expertise is in content writing, social media copywriting, and neo-noir graphic novels.
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