4 Best Social Media Management Tools for Small Businesses

There are posts to be written, images to be edited, campaigns to monitor, and messages to send out — the list goes on.

Fortunately, several tools can help small businesses with their SMM efforts, so let’s discuss the 4 best social media management tools available for SMEs.

What Makes a Great Social Media Management Tool for Small Businesses?

Before we start with the list, here's some information about what we look at when we create this ranking. To determine the best tools for small businesses, we use our extensive research on the overall best social media management tools as the basis. From there, we adapt our ranking specifically to the needs of small businesses.

In other words, we weigh certain criteria more heavily, including the following in particular.

• Cost: Some social media management tools come with expensive price tags, while others even offer free plans and cheap upgrade options without sacrificing major features. Since small businesses tend to be more money-conscious, we paid special attention to the price/performance ratio.

• Essential features: As a small company, you don't need all the micro features and reporting functions that a global enterprise may utilize. Therefore, we have focused especially on the core functions.

• Ease of Use: You'll likely have one person for the job or a small team, so you need an intuitive tool. Every team member should have no problem learning the basics of the software so they can start working with it quickly.

• Post Management & Creation: The software should optimally support you in managing your posts and shortening the creation process.

• Support: Signing up for a tool is one thing. But if you have trouble using the software, you must be confident that support will be available when needed. Otherwise, you risk spending valuable time troubleshooting.

• Platforms: Every company uses different social media platforms. We have made sure to list tools that support the most common platforms SMEs use.

With that in mind, our research led us to 4 great options specifically tailored to the needs of small businesses.

1. Social Champ

On top of our list, we have Social Champ, a tool that lives up to its name. With Social Champ, small businesses will find a comprehensive suite of features to help you manage up to 12 social media accounts in the basic plan.

The user-friendly dashboard makes it easy for small businesses to keep their social media efforts organized and streamlined. You can arrange content into campaigns, assign tasks and collaborate with other users. Plus, you can use Social Champ's advanced analytics to measure your performance over time.

Social Champ also has many helpful resources to help you get started. You can find e-books, podcasts, and other materials to guide your team's learning process.

2. Vista Social

Next up, we have Vista Social, an all-in-one social media management tool tailored to the needs of small businesses. With Vista Social, you can manage multiple social accounts from one place and access analytics to track your performance. Their intuitive calendar lets you easily plan, schedule and post content without missing a beat.

Small businesses will be pleased to learn that Vista Social also has a free plan that includes basic features, making it a great choice if you only have to schedule up to 10 posts per account and month while remaining within 3 social media accounts to manage at the same time.

Finally, it's worth mentioning that Vista Social includes a social listening tool. You can monitor keywords, hashtags, and mentions so that you are always aware of what people say about your brand.

3. Postly

Another great tool for small businesses is offered by Postly.

The software offers a good balance for businesses that want to cover as many platforms as possible and focus only on scheduling and creating posts. To help your efforts, there is an AI writer included in each plan. You can use it to have parts of your content written for you, including hashtags.

Postly is especially interesting for those who also use Telegram and Reddit for their postings, as these platforms are less often offered by social media management tools.

4. SocialBu

Lastly, we have SocialBu, which offers many of the same features as our two previous solutions and it also provides an easy way to monitor your brand's online reputation.

What sets SocialBu apart is its impressive array of automation tools. You can create dynamic rules to automate specific tasks so that you don't have to do them manually each time. For example, you can set up rules to repost content that mentions your brand or to send a welcome message to new followers.

The analytics dashboard is also particularly useful. It gives you a detailed overview of how your social media efforts are performing so that you can see which ones need improvement. From post reach to engagement rate, it provides you with all the data that you need.

Conclusion

Depending on the nature of your small business, different things can be important for a social media management tool.

Without a doubt, Social Champ offers the best overall package for small businesses with a nicely balanced price-performance ratio. The software's tools are comprehensive, except that ads can't be managed directly through the platform, which is also the case for the other tools in the list.

Vista Social offers a good alternative if you require review management and have a large team. In this case, their highest tier plan provides unlimited user seats with the ability to respond to reviews on all major platforms such as Trustpilot, Yelp, Google, Facebook, OpenTable, and Tripadvisor for $379/month.

If you need to manage a lot of social accounts (100+) in the long run, Postly is another great alternative, because you always pay a fixed price, no matter how many accounts and users are on your team. However, your focus with this tool should be on editing and scheduling posts, as analytics and reporting are not strong points of the software.

Pricing becomes even cheaper with SocialBu between 12-150 social accounts. However, the tool lacks support for some essential social media platforms. If you don't use them anyway and automation of replies (and other things via webhook) is important for you, it can still be the best tool for you.

These are the best social media management tools for small businesses. If you’re interested in a more comprehensive overview of the whole market, feel free to check out our Best Picks, where we rank the overall best social media management tools.