There are a myriad of social media management platforms out there (around 50 to be exact). Savvy social media marketers (such as yourself) need to carefully select a platform that best suits their business’s needs and that’s no easy feat.
From scheduling posts and putting together an editorial calendar to tracking engagement and strategy tweaking, social media marketers need all the help they can get. And once you start taking team collaboration and in-depth analysis into account, choosing the right social media management tool can no longer be an afterthought..
Sprout Social is one of the industry-leading social media management tools. And though thousands of marketers swear by the platform, Sprout Social’s isn’t for everyone.
In this article we’ll go over what a good social media management tool should provide, some areas where Sprout Social falls short, and 13 of the best Sprout Social alternatives.
When choosing a social media management tool, there’s no one size fits all. Some tools are better for small brands while others are more tailored toward enterprises and large agencies. That being said, here are 4 core features every good tool should have:
Social media marketers already have enough on their plate. A good social media management platform should have a clean interface that’s easy to adapt and navigate.
Social media workflows can get messy. Back and forth emails, mind-numbing meetings, countless spreadsheets; no one needs that headache. The best social media tools have commenting, planning and live previews baked directly into their platform.
You want all of your page engagement, campaign budget spend and KPI data in one place. The ability to create detailed reports for your clients/ social media manager will take valuable time off of your workflow.
At the end of the day, no amount of features can justify an exorbitant price. As we mentioned before, not every social media management platform is going to fit your business’s needs. An enterprise-level tool may have all the bells and whistles, but you’ll be paying for more than what you actually need.
Sprout Social is trusted by thousands of businesses to manage their social media presence, schedule posts, analyze KPIs and better understand their audience.
Businesses can improve responsiveness using Sprout Social’s engagement insights and improve ROI with actionable data-driven insights.
Sprout Social integrates tag reporting, competitor reports and paid advertising reports with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
An intuitive tool made for seamless team collaboration
Pricing: $53/mo, $117/mo, 216/mo, custom enterprise pricing
Kontentino is a human-friendly social media tool made with ease of use and collaboration in mind. We make it easy to schedule posts, create and organize posts and talk to your team. Seamlessly reschedule or copy posts by using the drag and drop social calendar. Manage multiple clients, create custom reports, collaborate with translators, graphic designers and copywriting, all within one intuitive platform. Kontentino saves marketers 41% of their time that would normally be wasted on back and forth emails and futile Zoom meetings. Our users report that their clients love using our platform and if you have any questions our support team responds in under ten minutes. That’s like… really fast.
While both Kontentino and Sprout Social offer post scheduling and live post previews, our focus on ease of use, intuitive collaboration and reasonable pricing make us the better choice for marketing teams both big and small.
Pricing: $25.5/mo, $42.5/mo, $85/mo, $127.5/mo
Social Pilot is ideal for small businesses that deal with high post volumes across multiple social channels. Social Pilot lets you manage up to 200 accounts and schedule up to 500 posts in one go, all at an affordable price. They are also one of the few social media management tools that directly integrates CRM functionality into their platform.
Social Pilot and Sprout Social are pretty evenly matched in terms of features, ease of use and analytics. That being said, Sprout Social holds a slight edge in overall capabilities thanks to their customer segmentation, keyword tracking and contact management tools. For the budget-conscious marketer however, Social Pilot might be a better choice considering their base plan is over $70 cheaper.
Pricing: $29/mo, $89/mo, $199/mo, $399/mo
Sendible integrates with multiple tools and plugins to make managing client workflows as seamless as possible. These integrations include Google My Business, WordPress, Medium, Blogspot and Tumblr just to name a few. Sendible’s one-click reports make it easy to show clients which audiences garner the most engagement and what content performs the best.
Both tools offer similar functionality. There’s a unified social inbox where you can manage all your messages, analytics reports that give you a comprehensive overview of your posts’ performance and publishing tools to aid in scheduling and posting content. However, Sendible’s Google My Businesses integration, Smart Posts and Recycle functionality and cheaper pricing give them a discernible advantage.
Pricing: free plan, $15/mo, $99/mo, $199/mo, $399/mo
We’ve all heard of Buffer. They’re one of the most popular social media tools out there, in part due to how clean the interface is and how simple they make it to link your social accounts and start publishing. Buffer also offers basic analytics and social reporting.
Buffer and Sprout Social have cemented themselves as leading social media management tools. Both tools let you schedule posts to major social platforms, analyze engagement and manage communities.
Sprout Social is great for medium to large sized businesses that want a feature-packed social media management platform.
Buffer is the go-to for freelancers that want an easy-to-use scheduling tool.
Sprout Social takes the cake for sheer amount of features, pricing (though Buffer does offer a free plan for a single user, things can get expensive for marketers with more complex needs) and customer support. Where Buffer does exceed is in ease of use and integrations with other software.
Pricing: $32/mo, $66.mo, custom enterprise pricing
NapoleonCat differs from the other social media management platforms on this list in that they give you everything you need to automate your social presence. You can create everything from custom replies to recurring comments and send them out automatically. You can also schedule automated reporting for clients.
NapoleonCat focuses on publishing, reporting and automation solutions whereas Sprout Social prioritizes offering end-to-end social media solutions including but not limited to extensive analytics and social listening. Sprout Social boasts holistic capabilities that are enticing for enterprises while Napoleon Cat’s Influencer tracking tool, Facebook dynamic ads moderation, individual custom pricing and 1-on-1 onboarding training offer great value for your money.
Pricing: $29/mo, $129/mo, $599/mo
Hootsuite is arguably the most popular social media management platform on the market. They have over 200,000 paid accounts and 18 million users. The platform supports 35 social networks and holds all of your comments and messages in one inbox. Hootsuite also integrates with many essential services including Slack. The Hootsuite Academy helps budding social media marketers learn essential skills and advance in their careers.
Hootsuite vs Sprout Social
Hootsuite, like Sprout Social, is a giant in the social media management platform market and similarities between the two tools are plentiful. Both platforms integrate with an extensive list of social networks and let you schedule, analyze and automate posts. Sprout Social surpasses Hootsuite by offering social listening capabilities and phone support.
Pricing: $19/mo, $78/mo, $199/mo, custom pricing
Like most social media management platforms, MavSocial lets you schedule and monitor posts. On top of that MavSocial offers content curation management, built-in stock image libraries, and powerful editing tools. UTM tracking, RSS Feeds, and inbox filters come standard with any MavSocial account.
Both Mavsocial and Sprout Social offer post publishing, analysis and account management. Where Sprout Social takes the lead is in social platform integrations, listening/monitoring and engagement tracking.
Pricing: $108/mo, custom pricing
Falcon.io combines social media management, key analytics, paid advertising and audience management into a single clean interface.
Falcon.io is loved by agencies for their channel management system, making it easy to designate workflows between clients’ accounts and account managers/teams.
Though both Sprout Social and Flacon.io are largely enterprise tools, Falcon.io is preferred for their sentiment data analysis, social ads management and customer support.
Pricing: $45/mo, $50/mo, $890/mo, $3,200/mo
HubSpot owns a 41.6% share of the small business automation software market. They provide everything from powerful CRM systems to email marketing. HubSpot’s social media software integrates with their other marketing tools, meaning they probably aren’t the best choice if your focus is solely social media management. That being said, HubSpot offers the same functionality as most platforms on this list including social media publishing, social mentions monitoring and performance analysis.
If you’re looking for an all-around marketing software solution then Hubspot is your best bet. However, unlocking all of the capabilities Hubspot has to offer can cost a pretty penny. If you’re just looking to manage your social media then Sprout Social is the more affordable option.
Pricing: 79euros/mo, 159/mo, custom enterprise pricing
Agorapulse is great for small businesses who want to monitor their social presence and engage with their audience. Besides scheduling to Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Youtube, Agorapulse lets you reply to comments and messages within the platform’s inbox. They also offer powerful social CRM capabilities so you can monitor engaged individuals across your social channels.
While Sprout Social provides the ability to schedule, publish and monitor posts, Agorapulse takes publishing capabilities to another level. Their queue categories let you classify content types and requeue options let you schedule content to be posted once or multiple times.
Pricing: $25/mo, $57/mo, $119/mo, $249/mo, custom enterprise pricing
Loomly focuses on giving you the tools necessary to build a brand presence on social media. Their integrated RSS Feeds, Twitter Trends and trending topics tools make it easy to identify and adapt best practices. Loomly also lets you schedule posts, edit calendars and analyze account data.
While Loomly and Sprout Social are quite similar in terms of features and integrations, Loomly gives you more bang for your buck. The post optimization tips, content library and approval workflow capabilities are available for Loomly Advanced users ($119/mo) whereas Sprout Social only offers these features if you pay $249/mo.
Pricing: $59/mo, $119/mo, $219/mo
Eclincher focuses on optimizing your social media for ROI. They have custom plans for small businesses, medium businesses, agencies and enterprises. Their visual calendar lets you create and schedule posts and RSS Feeds can auto publish posts and blogs. You can monitor which hashtags and keywords are performing the best and the drag and drop feeds let you rearrange Instagram posts. Eclincher also houses an image library where you can choose and edit free creative assets.
Both platforms have similar pricing and features for their two highest plan tiers but Sprout Social’s chatbot automation, message spike alerts and Twitter survey integration give them an edge over Eclincher.
Pricing: $9/mo, $19/mo,$29/mo,$49/mo, custom enterprise pricing
Though Later integrates with multiple social media platforms including Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter, their primary focus is Instagram. You can track Story traffic, completion rates and Swipe-Up CTR. Later will even suggest niche-specific hashtags that will work best for your business.
Later and Sprout Social are tailored toward two different demographics. While Later is a simple, budget-friendly tool for the creative marketer/entrepreneur, Sprout Social’s data-focused, feature-full dashboard makes them the best platform for medium to large businesses and agencies.
Sprout Social is a fantastic social media management tool, but many other platforms like Kontentino offer streamlined collaboration for teams, in-depth analytics, easy to use dashboards, and overall more bang for your buck.
Hopefully this list helped you with identifying the best social media management platform for your needs so you can organize your workflow and increase your social media marketing ROI.
Now, go get those new followers, likes, and leads.
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