In search of the best free social media management tools, we tried out several online tools and software. Here are some of the told we tried:
- Grabinbox: It’s a post scheduler, totally free, you can use it with Facebook, Facebook pages, Twitter, & Linked In. You can schedule posts manually or schedule/queue them automatically and it spaces them apart for you according to time slots and rules you’ve previously defined. It calculates the best time slots for posting and has Twitter insights/analytics. Also has a Chrome extension you can use for sharing pages you like. Also has newsfeed for using FB and Twitter directly from within. Very simple and straightforward.
- Commun.it: It’s a community manager, Twitter only, recommends who to follow and unfollow & who to tweet to, all based on insights and the influence of these members. Also suggests top tweets to share. A very powerful tool for increasing followers and engagement. Free plan includes 1 account only.
- Buffer App: It’s a post scheduler, similar to Grabinbox, you can schedule posts or queue them based on a calculated best times. Queuing them automatically spaces them apart. 1 post per time, unlike Grabinbox where you have to specify the number. Free plan doesn’t have a newsfeed, but it has a post suggestions feature that suggests sharing posts about certain topics. Very useful and easy to use. Can be used with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. Free plan supports 1 account of each type only.
- ViralContentBuzz: A platform to increase shares or views of a URL. You get credits by sharing content, and use the credits you get on your own content so it’ll be shared by others. It schedules/buffers the posts you’ll be sharing. Works with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, & Stumble Upon.
- Topsy: A tool to search, analyze, and get insights on tweets and keywords from the Twitter universe past and present. Useful for stats and finding people.
- Tweetdeck: A platform for Twitter where you can add several Twitter accounts and monitor & operate them all from one place. You can also schedule tweets.
- Socialoomph: In the free plan you can only monitor tweets, schedule them, space them apart, and purge tweets and DMs. Can’t add Facebook or other accounts in free plan. Paid plans have many more cool features.
- Hootsuite: Works with Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, WordPress, & FourSquare. You can monitor and operate your accounts from within, schedule posts (includes auto scheduler), view insights and analytics, and view your followers and see their info with an option to follow or unfollow them (manually).
- Klout: Measure your influence, schedules posts and measures their impact. Also suggests daily content for you to share and people for you to follow based on keywords you provide. Suggests your best time to post when scheduling. Very easy to use. Supposed to work with Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram, & FourSquare, but only worked for Twitter when I tested it.
- SocialBro: Works with Twitter & Instagram. Helps you find influencers, see follows and unfollows, monitor competition or sources, find retweeters, finds your best time to tweet, what your followers talk about, and other analytics. Very useful for stats and info.
- Sharegrab: Suggests good content to share based on your keywords, competitors, and previous performance / likelihood to share. Searches FB pages that you input, and gives you the content that will perform best. Very useful. Only con is you can’t directly press a button and share/schedule that content, you have to manually visit it first.
- ManageFlitter: Find the best time to post and schedule posts, find people to follow, and unfollow people (mass unfollow included). Uses Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn. Very good.
- PostPlanner: It’s a Facebook app that helps you find and post viral pics. Also gives you status ideas and helps you find trending content. All posts can be scheduled and queued. Uses Facebook only (up to 3 accounts). Very useful.
- Dlvr.it: Get feeds automatically from your blog or social accounts and deliver/post them automatically to your social accounts. Bit annoying, not very user friendly or easy to use. Uses RSS, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, or even email as a source, and posts to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Tumblr and other accounts.
- JustUnfollow: Contact manager tool for Twitter and Instagram, shows you who’s following you and who’s not so you can follow or unfollow accordingly. You can also choose a specified account’s followers, or find users according to keywords. Has an auto-DM feature to automatically DM new followers. Useful.
- Tweepi: Contact manager tool for Twitter. Follow people who are following you, and clean up people who aren’t following you. Also find people to follow based on another user. Easy/simple and straightforward.
Verdict:
Before picking the best free social media management tools, it is important to note that there are 2 type of social media tools: scheduling tools and contact management tools. For social media post scheduling, the best tools would have to be Buffer or Tweetdeck for Twitter, and the default Facebook page post scheduler for Facebook. The reason for the choice is that on Facebook, most of the tools we tried show your shared posts as shared by “tool name” instead of your page’s name. Hootsuite would come in 2nd place as a general good cross platform choice. As for the best social media contact management tool, our top 3 choices would be JustUnfollow, ManageFlitter, and SocialBro. Let us know what you think the best free social media management tools are.
