Social media has changed a lot over the last decade—and the way marketers manage social media channels has changed, too. Few marketers have the bandwidth to stay on social media all day, curating and sharing content as they go. Many of us have additional job responsibilities, and we have to be structured and deliberate about the time we dedicate to social.
Related: 6 effective social media strategies to increase brand awareness
Fortunately for us, there are lots of tools out there designed to make social media management easier and more efficient. From finding sharable content to scheduling posts, the 30 tools listed below can help you streamline and automate the tasks you can—so you have more time to spend on the ones you can’t.
What is social media automation?
Before jumping into the list and trying out the tools, let’s quickly clarify what we mean by automation. Social media automation is using software or tools to accomplish specific tasks on social media platforms without human intervention. Put simply, it means using a program to automate things like posting and sharing content on Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms.
30 best social media automation tools
Without further ado, let’s get to our list. You’ll find big players and small players here, with a variety of specialties and capabilities, so there’s something for everyone. The descriptions are short, just to give you a general idea of each tool’s primary strengths. If you want more info, give one a click and check out their website.
Our picks for the 30 best social media automation tools out there today are…
1. Buffer
One of the market leaders, this popular tool lets you schedule & publish upcoming posts across all of your social media accounts. It also offers excellent analytics on your campaigns.
2. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is another popular choice. You can use it to schedule your posts and monitor the competition. Using search streams, you can more easily build a community of followers.
3. Workflow
With Workflow, you can craft the ideal workflows (hence the name) so that the right content is always shared at the right time.
4. SocialPilot
The tool automates the process of scheduling content across various social media accounts. You can also learn more about your followers, so you can determine the right content to post.
5. IFTTT
An acronym that stands for “If this, then that,” this free tool lets you set up rules for how different tools, apps and social media platforms trigger one another. It’s a simple concept that’s hard to explain, so pop over to their website for details and examples.
6. Sendible
The tool is designed to help you schedule updates, reply to followers, create reports, and collaborate with others.
7. Later
Later is a powerful tool for Instagram scheduling that boasts over 600k customers. Unlike many social media tools, you can use this one to manage comments.
8. Tailwind
Tailwind is an automated scheduling and analytics tool that’s great for Pinterest. It will recommend the best times for you to post to reach your audience.
9. CoSchedule
This application helps you to schedule all your posts. In fact, you can schedule over 60 posts at once! You can also use it to lay out your social media calendar.
10. Post Planner
This simple tool helps you to find content and schedule posts for your social media accounts.
11. Iconosquare
Iconosquare arms you with personalized information about your social media accounts that will help you manage activities more efficiently.
12. Agorapulse
You can easily plan and schedule posts across your social networks with this tool, but it’s also useful for tracking performance.
13. Crowdfire
This automation tool helps you root out inactive Twitter followers. It’s also worth using if you want to discover the right cadence and content to share with your audience.
14. Socialert
Social media listening is made much easier when you use this tool. Again, it’s all about finding the best content for your audience and being part of conversations as they happen.
15. BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is popular with content marketers because it’s great at finding trending topics. Results can be filtered based on location and domain. You can also find influencers here and start building relationships with them.
16. Scoop.it
With this tool, you can easily curate content from other sources and share in a way that reflects your brand’s personality and values. You can also use it to set up a smart social calendar.
17. Pocket
This “read later” tool lets you save content you find around the internet. The service is free, and you can access it anywhere, so you’ll never lose track of that one awesome article you found again.
18. Sprout Social
Designed to help small businesses use social media more effectively, this tool automates posting. It can also help you engage with an audience and monitor the competition.
19. Mention
You’ll never miss a conversation your brand is mentioned in when you use this tool. It’s also great for identifying influencers and monitoring keywords in real time.
20. TweetDeck
TweetDeck is an awesome free service for social media listening on Twitter. You can set up custom timelines to track brand names, usernames, hashtags, keywords and more.
21. SocialOomph
SocialOomph makes it really easy to manage your Twitter accounts. Effortlessly schedule tweets, track keywords, and more.
22. MeetEdgar
MeetEdgar is a fascinating take on social media automation. You can build a library of content you’d like to share across different platforms, and Meet Edgar will automatically schedule it for you—including repeat posts. It can even write variations of your posts to keep things fresh.
23. Everypost
Everypost is perfect for brands who want to schedule and share visual content on social media.
24. Facebook Pages Manager
No surprise here, this app helps you manage your Facebook pages effectively. You can get insights on traffic, clicks and views from its main menu.
25. Zoho Social
With Zoho Social, you can schedule as many posts as you like and monitor keywords & trends. It’s great for teams who collaborate on social media.
26. SocialFlow
This is one of the best tools for publishers, because it replaces arbitrary scheduling with data-driven scheduling, so your audience is engaging with you in real time.
27. Social Studio
Social Studio by Salesforce offers marketers a range of features such as publishing posts across various platforms, social media listening, and managing marketing commands.
28. Sprinklr
This tool helps you to achieve end-to-end social media marketing management. Data is unified across platforms, and publishing is automated.
29. DrumUp
DrumUp is an interesting tool that helps you discover and share meaningful content with your audience.
30. Kontentino
The last tool on our list provides you with easy, flexible workflow management. Content is easy to schedule, share and modify.
Bonus: Lucidpress
That’s right—it’s yours truly! If you’ve used Lucidpress before, you might be asking yourself: Why are we including ourselves in this list?
The answer: because Lucidpress has a host of new features that actually make it easier than ever to streamline social media for brands.
Everyone knows we offer some of the best free social media templates around—but have you ever considered creating your own branded templates with certain elements locked down?
Imagine if, instead of starting with a blank slate, you could always start with a perfectly sized template that uses your brand’s colors, fonts & logos. That would save a lot of time, right?
Don’t forget, you can share your Lucidpress designs straight to Facebook, Twitter and Buffer… without ever leaving the tool. That makes it a one-stop shop for creating beautifully branded social media posts and sharing them to your platforms of choice.
Key takeaway
Social media automation helps you discover and share the right content at the right time. Automation tools can also help you analyze audience behavior, monitor conversations, keep an eye on competitors, and more. For the best results, consider your business’s goals with social media (and your preferred budget) before selecting a tool.