It’s 2024, and the social media landscape is bursting with opportunities. And as a small business owner, your goals are to connect with your community, showcase your brand, and streamline the many tasks that come with online marketing.
Luckily, the power of social media is quite literally at your fingertips — which makes it incredibly easy to achieve these goals.
Let's explore the best social media management tools for small businesses — and how they can help you take your store to the next level.
1. Canva
Canva is an online graphic design and photo editing platform that allows small business owners to create eye-catching graphics with minimal effort. It offers an intuitive experience that makes it possible for business owners with any level of design expertise to quickly craft striking visuals that capture attention and drive engagement.
And with a library full of diverse templates, fonts, and images, Canva takes the guesswork out of graphic design — users can create consistently branded content, from Instagram stories that pop to professional-looking Facebook banners to compelling Twitter posts that maximize click-through rates. Plus, Canva's direct social media publishing feature is a game-changer for time-pressed business owners.
2. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is an adaptable social media management platform that boasts an in-depth feature set that caters to the evolving needs of small businesses. Think of it as your all-in-one media command center — it allows users to schedule posts in advance, monitor social media traffic in real time, and dive deep into analytics to measure the success of their campaigns.
Its unified dashboard is a powerful organizational tool that helps you manage multiple social accounts, from Facebook to LinkedIn, to ensure your business maintains a consistent and active presence — without the hassle of logging into each site separately. This consolidated approach saves you time and allows you to respond quickly to trends or customer interactions — which makes this platform a central hub for strategizing, executing, and refining a dynamic social media presence.
3. Buffer
Buffer simplifies social media management by providing an easy-to-use platform that automates the publishing process, so you can schedule content across multiple channels with just a few clicks. This makes it easy to consistently distribute content, which allows you to spend more time managing your store operations and connecting with your customers.
Buffer also offers robust analytics, which gives you critical insights into which posts resonate best with your audience — like detailed data on engagement rates and reach. Small business owners can take advantage of this information to refine their social media tactics, tailoring their content to captivate their target market, increase their digital footprint, and ultimately drive more traffic to their business.
Sprout Social excels in providing deep insights through its social listening tools, giving you the opportunity to truly understand your audience. With this platform, small business owners can capture and analyze the nuances of customer sentiment, stay ahead of industry trends, and monitor competitor activity.
Plus, the platform's robust suite of analytics tools goes beyond surface-level metrics by offering a detailed look at performance data that can effectively inform content strategies. By measuring and interpreting social engagement, you can sharpen your messaging, enhance your online presence, and create compelling narratives that resonate with your community — all pivotal to nurturing a more profound and profitable connection with your customers.
5. Planoly
Planoly is a fantastic tool for business owners who want to tell their brand story (and even sell their products!) on Instagram. The platform has a straightforward, clean interface that allows users to meticulously plan and curate their social feeds. Its drag-and-drop functionality enables quick rearrangement of posts to achieve a cohesive feed that is so critical on visually-driven platforms.
In addition to its scheduling and planning capabilities, Planoly provides valuable analytics, so you can understand how content is performing, which posts are most engaging, and what times yield the highest interaction. And with the integration of Shoppable Posts, businesses can transform their Instagram feed into a seamless shopping experience, allowing followers to purchase directly from the posts. Overall, Planoly is an easy-to-use platform that allows you to manage Instagram stories and posts to create a compelling, cohesive narrative that not only captivates your audience, but also drives results.
6. Later
Later’s emphasis on visual scheduling makes it the perfect companion for image-heavy social platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest. Its visual drag-and-drop scheduling calendar is a powerful tool that allows you to plan and preview your feeds before going live, ensuring that every post aligns with your business’ visual strategy and narrative.
With Later, you have a visual command center at your fingertips, so you can craft an impactful digital presence that resonates visually and emotionally with your audience, enhancing brand loyalty and recognition.
SocialBee brings a fresh take on content categorization and automation, allowing you to cycle through your best content and ensuring your social feed never runs dry. With this tool, you can sort your social posts into different categories — such as promotional, educational, or engaging — and set schedules for each, to ensure a balanced and varied social feed.
The platform's automation capabilities extend the reach of your content through recycling, so your evergreen posts get a new lease of life, consistently reaching new audiences without manual reposting. This function not only keeps the content fresh for followers, but maximizes each post's value, ensuring that quality content continues to perform over time.
Zoho Social's streamlined collaboration features are designed to enhance team dynamics and the efficiency of your business’ social media efforts. With its comprehensive suite of team-oriented features, it simplifies coordination, and allows multiple team members to manage, create, approve, and schedule social media content within a unified platform.
Plus, real-time updates and seamless change tracking ensure that everyone involved is informed of the latest developments, so you can mitigate the risk of overlap or errors. Its shared content calendar provides transparency and helps prevent scheduling conflicts, making it easier for teams to visualize the overall social media plan — so you and your team can collectively fine-tune your social media strategy.
The right set of tools can empower you to craft a compelling online presence that resonates with your audience, so it’s important to take the time to explore the best social media management tools for small businesses like yours.
From creating stunning visuals to scheduling content to analyzing social media performance, each one offers unique benefits. And by selecting the right mix of these tools, you can enhance your social media strategy, save time, and drive significant growth this year — and we’re here to support you on your journey!
We want to help your small business succeed, so please reach out to us with any and all questions at sales@comcash.com.