Top Social Media Marketing Tools in 2024 (Free + Paid)

Everyone’s on social media these days.

People from all segments scroll through Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X, and other popular platforms. In response, brands have also built social personalities to connect with their target audience. A whopping 77% of businesses already use social media to reach customers. 

But to tame the ever-changing social media algorithms and market to the relevant audience, you need the right tools.

This article explores the 14 best social media marketing tools to help you drive the results you’re after—whether it’s shares, leads, awareness, or anything in between. You will also learn what to look for in a social media marketing tool. 

Let’s begin. 

List of best 10+ social media marketing tools in 2024

1. Uniqode’s Linkpage: best for building mobile landing pages 
2. Hootsuite: best for social media management 
3. Buffer: best for scheduling social posts
4. BuzzSumo: best for content ideas and research
5. Oktopost: best for social media planning 
6. Animoto: best for creating videos 
7. ChatGPT: best for writing social media content 
8. Canva: best for designing social posts 
9. Mention: best for social listening and monitoring 
10. Brand24: best for hashtag research 
11. ContentStudio: best for multi-platform content workflows 
12. AgencyAnalytics: Best Multi-Platform Social Media Reporting Tool

What should you look for in a social media marketing tool?

The right social media marketing tools help you do at least one of the following.

1. Automate processes: An excellent social media marketing tool automates repetitive tasks, freeing time for more impactful work. Look for features such as post-scheduling, auto-curation of user-generated content, sending canned replies to DMs, etc.

2. Improve efficiency: The right tool noticeably reduces your time on routine social media tasks. Look for a user-friendly interface, a unified dashboard/inbox to respond to messages, AI capabilities, caption suggestions, bulk uploading, etc., to speed up your workflows. 

3. Monitor social performance: The tool provides detailed insights into your social media performance across all platforms. This includes real-time data on engagement rates, reach, impressions, follower growth, and competitive benchmarking. It also lets you create reports, set specific KPIs, and track them over time. 

4. Offer multi-channel management: Opt for tools that enable you to manage and monitor multiple social media platforms from a single interface. It should also provide platform-specific features like Instagram story scheduling or X (formerly Twitter) thread creation. 

5. Do audience research: Your tool should help you understand your followers’ demographics, interests, and online behaviors. This can include identifying your most engaged followers, optimal posting times, hashtags, and trending topics and content types among your audience. 

6. Boost team collaboration: If you’re working with a team, look for tools that support smooth collaboration. Consider features like shared calendars for content planning, task assignment capabilities, and approval workflow.

At a glance: Top social media marketing tools

No time to dive deep? Here’s a quick summary of the best social media marketing tools,  along with their key features and how they can be used.

Top social media marketing tools you simply can’t ignore in 2024

1. Uniqode’s Linkpage: best for social media link-in-bio page

After you’ve attracted the right people to your social profile, the next step is to place CTAs like “link in bio” that guide them further down the funnel. This means directing them to your website or store. 

That’s where Linkpage from Uniqode can help. These mobile-first landing pages can host multiple links and digital content in one place, making it easy for your audience to find everything you offer.

Let’s say you’re an influencer with multiple ongoing brand collaborations. Social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok limit the links you can add to your bio. Instead of updating your bio URL every few days, you can add one URL to your Linkpage, which contains links to all your collaborations.

⁉️Why use Linkpage 

• Create, customize, and edit mobile landing pages instantly without writing any code
• Connect your Linkpage to a QR Code and use it on physical assets as well 
• 20+ premade templates to create industry-specific landing pages 
• Add images, backgrounds, buttons, and fonts to customize your page according to your brand identity
• Modify the settings for how you want to track, set start and end dates, and protect your Linkpage using a password. 
• View insights on how many people clicked on your page and who visited.

🧑‍💼Who can use Linkpage

• Businesses can build multiple mobile landing pages for hosting promotions, product launches, or event sign-ups in one place.
• Creators can collate all their online content—social profiles, YouTube videos, and brand collaborations—on one page, allowing followers to explore everything quickly. 
• Marketing Managers can build branded and trackable mobile landing pages for different campaigns, making it easier to monitor performance.
• Freelancers can showcase their online portfolio to recruiters and clients by organizing work samples, services, and contact information in a clean and professional format.

⚠️Potential limitations 

To use Linkpage, you’ll need to subscribe to Uniqode’s QR Code Generator plans. However, you can only create a single Linkpage in the starter plan.

💰Pricing 

Linkpage comes bundled with Uniqode’s QR Code Generator. Prices start at $5/mo. 

2.  Hootsuite: best for social media management 

Hootsuite is an all-in-one social media management tool. It streamlines everything from content planning to performance tracking, making it simple to execute your entire social strategy from one place.

From the Hootsuite dashboard, you can post, schedule, analyze, and engage across popular social media networks, including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Threads, X (formerly Twitter), Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

⁉️Why use Hootsuite 

• Create, schedule, and publish content across all social media channels from one place
• One dashboard for private messages and public comments 
• Built-in Canva templates and AI writer to handle the post designs and captions 
• Analytics to identify best times, content, trends, topics, mentions, hashtags, and engagement rate.
• Support 100+ integrations, including CRMs, design tools, video editors, and others.

⚠️ Potential limitations 

The plans can be costly for smaller brands, with the Professional plan supporting only one user. Plus, its scheduling feature has glitches and sometimes fails to publish posts.

💰 Pricing 

Their pricing plans start at $99 per month, billed yearly. You also get a 30-day try for free. Skip the trial to get an extra 20% off. 

3. Buffer: best for scheduling social posts

Buffer is a social media toolkit that helps you implement your social media plans. Its core feature is automating the manual process of posting on different channels. It also offers social media monitoring and content creation features. 

With Buffer’s browser extension, you can post directly from any web page without switching back to the platform. With its composer, you can tailor posts to each social media channel.

⁉️Why use Buffer 

• Schedule posts on a wide range of social platforms 
• Quickly build a library of fresh content ideas—import from anywhere using Buffer’s extension. 
• AI assistant to write posts for different platforms
• Track performance such as boosted post insights, engagement metrics, stories and post analytics, and audience demographics
• Create multi-channel reports from one dashboard 
• Get stats such as best time to post, content that works, and best posting frequency 
• Build landing pages to collate your links

⚠️ Potential limitations 

Its variable pricing can make scaling expensive as your needs grow. Its social media monitoring features are relatively basic, and the user interface needs improvement. 

💰 Pricing 

It has a free plan for managing up to three channels. Buffer bases its pricing on the number of channels you wish to manage. It starts around $30 per month for five channels.

4. BuzzSumo: best for content ideas and research

BuzzSumo is a content research tool that helps you crawl the web and social media. This is to help find trending topics, locate influencers, analyze content performance, and see competitors’ content. 

It also helps you monitor brand mentions and get inspiration by seeing which content generates the most engagement.

⁉️ Why use BuzzSumo

• Set up alerts for competitor brand mentions on any channel
• Monitor your brand reputation and mentions on socials 
• Analyze competitor’s content on FB. Breakdown likes, shares, and comments by post type, post length, and time published.
• Discover by the social network and content type to know what resonates most on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), or Instagram
• Find and analyze influencers with authority across platforms using filters and build the entire workflow with them
• Features to build and execute a YouTube strategy 

⚠️ Potential limitations 

The platform’s stronger focus on web content rather than social media content can limit the success of your social media strategy.

💰 Pricing 

Plans start at $199 per month. You can sign up for a free 30-day free trial. 

5. Oktopost: best for social media planning

Next up is Oktopost, a social media management software for B2B brands. It creates a collaborative environment for you and your team to work towards social media goals. 

⁉️ Why use Oktopost 

• Shared social media calendar and media library for team visibility 
• Approval workflows to review, approve, and collaborate on social posts before they go live
• AI assists in creating posts in seconds. AI also analyzes brand mentions, engagement, employee advocacy, follower growth, audience demographics etc
• Quickly identify and engage with influencers and thought leaders.

⚠️ Potential limitations 

Some features and the user experience can be confusing. The pricing tends to be on the higher side.

💰 Pricing 

Plans start at $65 per month. You can book a demo with their team to learn more. 

6. Animoto: best for creating videos 

Animoto is an easy-to-use tool for creating professional-quality videos for your social profile by combining photos, video clips, text, and music. 

It offers a drag-and-drop editor, making it simple for users with no video editing experience to create marketing videos, slideshows, and presentations. Animoto is perfect for marketers, small businesses, educators, and solopreneurs. 

⁉️ Why use Animoto 

• Create and edit videos, presentations, and more with ease
• Save your colors, font, and logo to apply them to your videos
• Collaborate and review videos with anyone and post directly from Animoto 
• Invite anyone to add time-stamped comments and reply to their feedback
• Premade templates to get started quickly
• Create screen and webcam recordings for product explainer and demo videos 
• Ability to add voiceover to the videos

⚠️ Potential limitations 

The videos are not fully customizable, restricting advanced editing. Plus, it does not offer any discounts on annual plans. 

💰 Pricing 

The plans start at just $15 per month. You can sign up right away and enjoy their free plan. 

7. ChatGPT: best for writing social media content 

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI. It understands and generates human-like responses based on the input it receives. 

It can assist with various social media marketing tasks —from content planning to creation. This includes generating captions, posts, ad copies, and even blog articles. You can also use ChatGPT to brainstorm campaign ideas, create personalized messages, and analyze feedback and comments on your social media posts.

⁉️ Why use ChatGPT 

• It can create almost everything when it comes to content –blog posts, social media captions, ads, and more
• It remembers the context of conversations, allowing you to ask relevant follow-up questions
• Analyze large volumes of data or text, summarize text, and get recommendations/ideas for social media marketing
• Easily share a high volume of requests and scale your operations quickly 
• ChatGPT can create content in multiple languages, helping you execute a global social strategy 

⚠️ Potential limitations 

ChatGPT can provide incorrect or misleading information; its responses may lack creativity and sometimes become repetitive.

💰 Pricing 

ChatGPT’s basic and trial models are free to use, while the plus plan costs $20 per month.

8. Canva: best for designing social posts 

Canva is an online graphic design tool that can help you meet all the design needs of your social media posts. 

Canva’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface and wide range of templates make it accessible to everyone. It brings your social media campaigns to life without needing a designer or overloading your existing team.

⁉️ Why use Canva

• Create and schedule posts, infographics, videos, stories, ads, and animations 
• Build a brand kit that includes logos, color palettes, and fonts for consistency across all social media posts
• Share and collaborate in real-time. Allow multiple users to work on a design. 
• Get a vast library of pre-designed templates, stock images, audio, and graphics 
• You have the flexibility to create designs on web browsers, iOS, or Android apps
• Generative AI to help you edit and refine your images 

⚠️ Potential limitations 

Some premium elements, such as stock images and templates, are only available through the paid plans. Using them in free projects will result in watermarks.

💰 Pricing 

Canva offers extensive capabilities in its free plan. The paid plan is priced at $15 per month.

9. Mention: best for social listening and monitoring 

Next, we have Mention. It is a social media listening tool that lets you monitor brand mentions across the web and social media channels.  

You can set up keyword-based and page-based monitoring alerts and get notified when the topic or brand is mentioned online. It also helps unify your assets in the content library and deploy an approval workflow for team validation.

⁉️ Why use Mention

• Find user-generated content and new ideas related to your tracked topics 
• AI alerts, sentiment analysis, and Mention of history
• Check your competitors’ social media performance by comparing areas of influence, sentiment analysis, days of activity, and more
• Use AI caption and hashtag generator to save time and effort 
• Improve efficiency with post-scheduling, media library, and approval workflows 
• Track post analytics and page performance with metrics including follower growth, engagement 

⚠️ Potential limitations 

The pricing structure may not be ideal for small businesses, and customer support may not be responsive sometimes. 

💰 Pricing 

Paid plans start at $49 per month. You can sign up for a free 14-day trial. 

month/user. 

10. Brand24: best for hashtag research 

Brand24 is an AI social listening tool with a powerful hashtag research feature. This feature helps businesses stay informed and responsive to trends and audience sentiment by tracking branded hashtags and monitoring popular hashtags on social media platforms.

For example, a skincare brand launching a new product can use Brand24 to track the relevant hashtags trending across Instagram and Twitter, which can improve awareness of the new product. 

⁉️ Why use Brand24 

• Track hashtags on multiple social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Quora, YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, and Telegram
• Track and analyze contests and campaigns based on hashtags. 
• Identify top influencers based on hashtags and measure their social media reach.
• Choose hashtags based on their popularity and performance
• Generate custom reports of trending hashtags, their usage, and other insights
• Filters like influence and sentiment filters to narrow down hashtags 

⚠️ Potential limitations 

It can be expensive compared to other social listening tools

💰 Pricing 

Plans start at $119 per month. You get a 14-day free trial. 

11. ContentStudio: best for multi-platform content workflows 

ContentStudio is a social media management tool that simplifies discovering, planning, composing, and sharing content across different social media channels. Its post previews allow you to see exactly how content will appear, making it easy to collaborate with clients. 

It is perfect for agencies managing multiple brands. It offers approval workflows, content libraries, cross-channel analytics, and team collaboration features. 

⁉️ Why use ContentStudio

• Create, schedule, and manage social media posts across all accounts from one hub, accessible on both mobile and desktop
• Calendar, Grid, and Feed views to plan and organize your content 
• AI for creating captions, adding emojis, creating images, and hashtag research 
• Assign tasks, send private messages, and add labels for management 
• Collaborate with role-based access, record all actions and changes, and share asset library
• Build client workflows with one-click content review, feedback, and approval. Let them track versions and monitor status.

⚠️ Potential limitations 

The mobile app lacks features compared to the desktop version, and integration with other tools is limited. 

💰 Pricing 

Plans start at $20 per month. Go for a free trial before choosing paid plans. 

12. AgencyAnalytics: Best Multi-Platform Social Media Reporting Tool

AgencyAnalytics is a versatile tool for marketing agencies, allowing them to monitor both organic and paid social media efforts for their clients. With more than 80 marketing integrations, it’s easy to gather data from platforms like TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Facebook, giving a complete picture of campaign performance across different channels.

The Social Media Reporting Tool effortlessly collects all of the key metrics clients value, and it’s easy for agencies to get clients up and running with bulk uploads. The Social Media Report Template generates detailed, client-ready reports to demonstrate campaign performance. 

👌Why use AgencyAnalytics? 

• Smart Reports and Smart Dashboards help marketers automatically generate reports in under 11 seconds, streamlining the client reporting process and saving agencies valuable time.
• Customization features with a drag-and-drop report builder, white labeling, and more. 
• Automated report scheduling that sends reports to clients with your agency’s approval first.   

🤔Potential limitations

• Some advanced features may feel a bit complex for new users when they’re just getting started with the platform.

💰Pricing

Flexible 14-day free trial to test out the platform. The Freelancer Plan starts at $79 USD/month, the Agency Plan starts at $179/month, and custom pricing is available for the Premier Plan. 

How do you make the right choice?

Choosing the right social media marketing tool from many options can be overwhelming. So, sit down with your team and establish a clear social media content strategy. 

Ask yourself questions like: 

• What are our social media goals? (e.g., engagement, brand awareness, lead generation)
• Which platforms do we primarily use?
• How often do we plan to post content?
• Do we need collaboration features for multiple team members?

Once you have a strategy, compare these tools based on your objectives, the features you need, your plans, and the allocated budget. 

Narrow down platforms that offer multiple capabilities and help achieve other marketing goals. This will ultimately improve the ROI of the tool and maximize its value for your business. 

Finally, trials the chosen tools before committing to their subscriptions. 

Frequently asked questions

1. What are social media marketing tools?

Social media marketing tools are apps that help businesses manage, analyze, and improve their social media presence. They automate and simplify tasks like content creation, post-scheduling, audience engagement, and performance tracking across multiple channels.

2. What is the 5-5-5 social media strategy?

The 5-5-5 method involves engaging with five posts by commenting on and liking five others, all within five minutes. This quick interaction strategy helps boost your social media engagement and drives more traffic and leads to your profile.

3. What are the five pillars of social media marketing?

The five pillars of social media marketing are

• Strategy 
• Content creation and publishing
• Social listening and engagement 
• Reporting and analytics 
• Advertising and promotion 

• Author Details

Author Details

Bani Kaur

Bani Kaur is a content marketing specialist who draws on her 4+ years of experience in multi-channel marketing to create high-ranking, ROI-driven content pieces for SaaS brands. When AFK, she’s mostly found dancing or in conversations with dogs. Connect with her.

bani@gmail.com