Navigating social media can be a complicated task. It’s time-consuming, complex, and easy to get wrong. Too often, brands misunderstand the power of social media, leading to unpredictable and costly mistakes. They may under-utilize their platforms or overextend their reach, landing themselves in hot water. 

Over time, every brand can benefit from third-party management software to streamline their social media campaigns. 

These tools integrate with frequently used networks, making the job quicker and easier. Many come with handy mobile apps. Keep in mind that if your business requires a personalized app to meet specific needs you can always look into hiring an Apple developer if you want to focus on an iOS app.

In this article, we’ll explore three leading tools with mobile applications and analyze their benefits and general scope:

 

1. Hootsuite (Android/iOS)

 

Best For: Comprehensive Social Media Management

Hootsuite is created to integrate all your social media profiles into one convenient panel, which makes it quite easy to regularly update all your accounts with the same marketing content. It is an all-inclusive tool that any social media marketer will find extremely useful.

Key Features

Scheduling and Publishing: Hootsuite enables users to schedule posts across various platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more. This feature ensures that your content is published at optimal times, even when you’re offline.

Hootsuite has one of the most useful features as it can post to TikTok, a platform that few other tools cover, which means that your content will be seen by a large and interested audience.

Analytics: The app provides detailed analytics and reports on your social media performance. You can track engagement, follower growth, and the success of individual posts, helping you make data-driven decisions.

Tool Integration: Some of the important marketing tools that Hootsuite can be easily integrated with include SocialFlow, Constant Contact, Statigram and RankSpeed among others making it more useful for marketing specialists.

Social Listening: Hootsuite’s social listening tools help you monitor keywords, hashtags, and mentions. This allows you to stay informed about what’s being said about your brand and industry, and respond promptly.

Paid Add-Ons: Hootsuite is equipped with a very powerful feature set; however, some of these features are part of paid add-ons that are not initially included in the price, which gives the opportunity to choose only those features that are necessary depending on the requirements.

Hootsuite’s comprehensive features make it a must-have for marketers who need to streamline their social media efforts and maintain a consistent online presence.

 

Recommended App Integration: Vidyard

One integration we specifically encourage is the Vidyard, a useful video library. Vidyard gives marketers fast and easy access to marketing videos and gathers useful information about viewers’ activity. Thus, if the client’s focus is on the video marketing and he or she wants to go viral, it is perfect to use Hootsuite in conjunction with Vidyard.

By applying Hootsuite to your social media management together with the use of valuable integrations like Vidyard, your marketing can be boosted and your processes made easier.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Integrates with a wide array of social media platforms and marketing tools.
• Offers detailed analytics and reporting.
• Supports social listening to monitor brand mentions and industry trends.
• Allows posting to TikTok.

Cons:

• Some features require paid add-ons.
• Recommendation: If you manage multiple social media accounts and need comprehensive analytics and integration capabilities, Hootsuite is your go-to tool.

Hootsuite is ideal if you need an all-in-one tool that integrates various social media accounts and essential marketing tools. Its robust features, including scheduling, publishing, analytics, and social listening, make it a powerhouse for managing large-scale social media campaigns. 

Hootsuite is particularly useful if your strategy includes a diverse range of platforms, including TikTok.

 

2. Canva: Design on the Go

 

Best For: Creating Stunning Visual Content

Visuals play a big role in social media marketing, and with the Canva app, you can easily design attractive graphics even if you are a newbie when it comes to graphic designing.

Key Features

Templates: Social media post templates, stories, banners, and many more templates are available in Canva. These templates are professionally designed to suit any business type and can be edited to suit the brand’s look and feel.

Ease of Use: The operational system of the app is based on the drag and drop option that helps users to create great looking graphics in a short time. With it, text, images, icons as well as effects can be placed with ease with the help of a few taps.

Brand Kit: With Canva, you can create a brand kit within the application which enables you to save your brand’s colors, fonts, and logos for use when designing.

Collaboration: Canva has a feature of teamwork where several people can work on a single project at the same time. This is particularly helpful if your organization has a massive marketing department.

Animations: It has basic animation tools for enhancing the visual on the app and perfect for capturing people’s attention on the social media platforms.

Thanks to Canva, you can create high-quality images at the moment and be sure that your social media posts will be bright and interesting.

Recommended App Integration:  Canva Pro

Canva is excellent for creating graphics and designing, and Canva Pro is a more complete version.

Canva Pro is available for those who want to get even more features – this includes better options of templates and images, additional options for design, and increased storage space. 

Using Canva in your marketing plan and particularly going for Canva Pro guarantees that your social media graphics are always excellent and your brand is always well-represented visually.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Extensive library of customizable templates.
• Intuitive drag-and-drop design interface.
• Brand kit for maintaining consistent visual identity.
• Team collaboration features.

Cons:

• Limited advanced design features in the free version.
• Recommendation: If creating high-quality visuals quickly is a priority, and you value brand consistency and collaboration, Canva is the best choice.

Canva is perfect for marketers who prioritize visual content and need an easy-to-use design tool. It offers a vast array of templates and a user-friendly interface, making it accessible even to those with no design experience. 

Canva’s brand kit and collaboration features are particularly beneficial for maintaining brand consistency and teamwork.

 

3. Buffer (Android/iOS)

 

Best For: Simple and Effective Post Scheduling

Buffer is a simple yet very efficient application for post scheduling and content reposting on social networks. It is a favorite tool for marketers because of its simple interface and numerous useful functions.

Key Features

Scheduling and Publishing: Buffer enables you to share and schedule posts on different social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and many others. This feature helps to schedule the posting of your content to occur at the most appropriate time when you are not the most active online.

Custom Scheduling: The scheduling of the post can also be done in Buffer in a way that the message will be posted at certain times that are preferred by the targeted audience.

Analytics: It gives an analysis of your posts, the engagement rates, clicks and reach of your posts. This data is useful to know what content people would like to see and change the approach, if necessary.

Social Media Calendar: Buffer also has a social media calendar that enables you to see all your scheduled posts and thus helping you maintain a calendar view.

Team Collaboration: Through Buffer, team members can work together in terms of creating content and also in terms of posting and scheduling hence everyone is on the same page as far as the social media strategy is concerned.

Paid Add-Ons: Buffer has a rich free version that provides users with the basic set of features; however, for more functionality, such as analytics, more posting slots, etc., one has to upgrade to the paid version.

Due to Buffer’s simplicity and focus on social media posting and analytics, it is a must-have for marketers who want to efficiently schedule and evaluate their posts.

Recommended App Integration: Pablo

There is one more integration we would like to draw your attention to, Pablo by Buffer, an app for creating great social media graphics. Pablo allows you to create stunning images within a short span of time and there is a provision of stock photos along with other options for customization. If you are using visuals as your primary content type, then using Buffer in conjunction with Pablo would be wise.

Thus, using Buffer as the part of your social media marketing strategy, as well as utilizing Pablo as one of the integration options, can improve your outcomes and make your work more efficient.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• User-friendly scheduling and publishing.
• Custom scheduling options tailored to audience activity.
• Basic analytics to track performance.
• Integration with Pablo for creating visuals.

Cons:

• Advanced analytics and additional posting slots require paid add-ons.
• Recommendation: If you’re looking for a simple, effective way to schedule and analyze social media posts, Buffer is the best tool for you.

 

Which Social Media Management Tool is Best for You?

 

When choosing a social media management tool, it’s pivotal to consider your specific needs and goals. Each tool has its strengths, and the best choice depends on your specific needs:

Choose Hootsuite if you need a comprehensive, all-in-one solution for managing multiple social media accounts and integrating with various marketing tools.

Choose Canva if your focus is on creating stunning visual content quickly and maintaining brand consistency.

Choose Buffer if you want a straightforward, efficient tool for scheduling and publishing posts with basic analytics.

Evaluate your social media strategy, consider your team’s needs, and select the tool that best aligns with your goals.

When it comes to social media marketing and all the changes that occur in this area, the choice of the tool matters a lot. Whether you want a complex management solution, a robust design application, or a simple scheduler there is a solution for you.

Remember that since the user interface is a critical aspect of any tool, especially for mobile users, all three tools are well-designed for Android. 

Consider what you need most and choose the tool that is the most suitable for your social media strategy to enhance your marketing and optimize your processes.