The right social media apps will save you time, help you create better content, and connect with the right audience.
Here, we list the best apps and most essential tools so you can do your job more effectively and efficiently.
The 4 most essential social media apps
1. Facebook
2. Twitter
3. YouTube
4. Instagram
These are the four social media apps that are the bare minimum for any social media marketer. They represent the biggest social platforms out there right now.
They are:
- YouTube
Let’s be honest: If you aren’t using them, are you really a social media marketer?
If you already know about these apps, feel free to skip to the tools section. If not, let’s dive in.
1. Facebook
iOS
Android
The largest social media platform on this list — and by a large margin.
Facebook allows users to connect with friends, family, and acquaintances across the globe. And with more than 2 billion active monthly users (yes, billion with a B), this is likely preaching to the choir since you’re probably already on the site.
Dive deeper: If your business is interested in leveraging Facebook as a marketing tool, be sure to check out our complete guide on advertising with Facebook.
2. Twitter
iOS
Android
Twitter is a social platform that allows brands and users to communicate via short messages — also known as “tweets.” Though the messages are limited to 280 characters or less, they can be powerful ways to market your business.
And with more than 336 million monthly active users, your business should be able to find your market niche within the social media platform.
Dive deeper: If you’re interested in leveraging Twitter for your marketing campaign, be sure to check out our Twitter marketing guide for businesses.
3. YouTube
iOS
Android
Though it’s had some contenders, YouTube remains the largest and most popular video-sharing platform in the world with more than 1.8 billion monthly active users.
The platform is great for sharing videos and music as well as live streaming content across the web. It’s a powerhouse for any of your video needs.
Dive deeper: If you want to elevate your brand’s YouTube presence, check out our comprehensive guide on YouTube marketing.
4. Instagram
iOS
Android
After being purchased by Facebook for an eye-popping $1 billion in 2012, Instagram has grown to a billion active users a month.
The social media platform allows users to share photos and videos, and even hosts live streaming capabilities. The app is also rich in tools for marketers to advertise and promote their brands.
Dive deeper: Leverage the photo and video sharing app for your brand with our complete guide to using Instagram for business.
17 of the best social media apps and tools for marketers
1. Planoly
2. Crello
3. Facebook Pages Manager
4. Fastory
5. Captiona
6. Storyheap
7. Hootsuite Composer
8. Botletter
9. Canva
10. Story Slicer
11. Apple Clips
12. Campsite
13. CutStory for Instagram Stories
14. Adobe Premiere Clip
15. Keyhole
16. Hootsuite Analytics
17. Hemingway App
The right social media platform coupled with the right tools makes for powerful campaigns. Below, you’ll find the 17 best tools to help you promote your brand today across any of the platforms above.
Note: I’ve included an iOS and Android link if the social media tools included a mobile application.
1. Planoly
iOS
Android
Recommended by Hootsuite’s social marketing team lead Amanda Wood, Planoly is a visual planner for Instagram. The app lets you see how your individual posts will look as a grid before you post, while also providing data and engagement rates for each post.
The result is a more cohesive Instagram feed and a clear, visual style for your brand.
2. Crello
Crello helps social media managers create beautiful images and animations to their brand’s accounts.
3. Facebook Pages Manager App
iOS
Android
Managing a Facebook page—or multiple pages—from a mobile device is a tricky task. Luckily there’s the Facebook Pages Manager App, which lets you manage up to 50 separate Facebook business pages from a smartphone or tablet.
Keep your audience updated no matter where you are.
4. Fastory
Fastory allows digital marketers to create branded content for their Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and Facebook stories. They don’t just do images either. Fastory has a robust menu of content options including:
- Games
- Quizzes
- Articles
- Videos
- Chatbots
- Surveys
Fastory can help any marketer elevate their story content today.
5. Captiona
iOS
Captiona is a fantastic caption suggestion tool for Instagram and Snapchat.
With the most popular brands on Instagram posting around five times per week, generating compelling captions can be difficult day after day.
6. Storyheap
Marketers looking for a great way to view their Instagram and Snapchat analytics on one dashboard can look no further than Storyheap.
7. Hootsuite Composer
iOS
Android
Hootsuite is a social media management platform that enables you to create, schedule, and publish messages to all the major social networks from one single dashboard. Composer is the tool within Hootsuite that helps with the “create” part of this equation.
With Composer, you can not only write a caption and attach an image to your post as you normally would natively, but you can edit, add logos, and resize images to the exact proportions you need. Composer even provides prebuilt image specs for every social network.
8. Botletter
Botletter allows you to send newsletters and drip campaigns through Facebook Messenger.
That’s right. Facebook Messenger.
9. Canva
Canva is an intuitive design app for photo editing and graphic creation.
Social media moves fast, which means that you might not always have a graphic designer at your disposal. Canva, a cloud-based design tool with web and mobile versions, fills that gap.
10. Story Slicer
iOS
Story Slicer gives marketers the ability to post cut and edit videos for Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp, or VK stories. Whether it’s a video you already have or one that you’re shooting directly onto Story Slicer, you’ll be able to edit videos of any size for your story.
Its intuitive design and interface allows for a seamless editing process.
Bonus: There’s no watermark or ads so your brand can remain on point.
11. Apple Clips
iOS
Apple Clips is a video editing app that lets users create and share short videos complete with special effects, text, and graphics.
One of the more interesting features of Clips is Live Titles, which let you create animated captions by talking as you record.
On Facebook, users play up to 85 percent of videos without sound, making this one of the more valuable video social media tools for boosting engagement rates.
12. Campsite
One of the biggest issues marketers encounter with Instagram is having only ONE link on the account — limiting your ability to link to different products, sites, and pages.
Enter Campsite.
13. CutStory for Instagram Stories
iOS
CutStory is a video editing app for Instagram Stories. It makes it easy to chop a longer video up into the required length for Instagram Stories (15 seconds maximum per clip).
14. Adobe Premiere Clip
87 percent of online marketers are investing in video content, and there’s no sign of this trend slowing down.
If you’re looking for a way to easily create professional-looking videos, Adobe Premiere Clip is a must-download app.
The free video app gives you advanced features including editing capabilities, soundtrack support, and custom lighting and aesthetic options.
15. Keyhole
Keyhole is a social media monitoring tool that has both a desktop and mobile version. The app lets users enter keywords, hashtags, and URLs to track their performance across social platforms.
16. Hootsuite Analytics
The Hootsuite Analytics platform is a customizable social media tool that collects social media insights and exports them into readable, actionable intelligence for social marketers.
17.Hemingway app
The Hemingway app will make you a better writer. Period.
It will show you how to cut out jargon. Same for long sentences, unnecessary adverbs, superlative adjectives, and passive phrases.
It’s super easy to use, too:
- Simply paste your writing into the Hemingway app
- Visually see what works, what doesn’t
- Make your changes, to do more of what does work
- Publish your polished piece
Use Hemingway app often to build your writing skills. After a bit you’ll need it less. Though I still use it often to keep me in check. An amazing tool.
And that’s our roundup of the best and most essential social media apps for 2020.
Want one more? Okay, here’s a bonus mention…
Increase your productivity with the Hootsuite mobile app. The easy-to-use social media app allows you to schedule, publish, and monitor conversations from anywhere.
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