Reviews of the Top Social Media Management Tools

Creating content, drafting captions, analyzing results, responding to consumers, running and monitoring advertisements… the list of day-to-day tasks for social media marketers could go on and on. Needless to say, when we find a tool or resource that saves us time and improves the results we’re getting for our clients, we jump all over it! So, we’re sharing our review of some of the top social media management tools we use at DMA to help you create efficiencies and improve your overall results.

Reviews of the Top Social Media Management Tools

Gain

Gain is DMA’s longest-running social media management software! This platform allows you to draft content, set up an approval process, and automatically schedule posts within the software so you don’t have to manually publish each post. Gain also recently rolled out a few reporting features to help you analyze content as well.

Pros:

  • The most affordable option we’ve worked with
  • User-friendly (for both the content drafter and approver)
  • Ability to set up as many approval processes as needed and schedule as far out in advance as you’d like
  • Ability to auto-publish
  • Constantly making improvements/updates to it’s reporting functionality 

Cons:

  • Because Gain isn’t connected with Facebook’s Ad Manager, the reporting feature is extremely limited. The results you’ll see won’t include any paid analytics. And, if you’re running regular social media ads, you know that without the paid results you won’t be seeing the full picture from your efforts.
  • Gain is primarily a scheduling platform, so there aren’t any “bonus” features like listening or responding capabilities that other platforms have.

A monthly calendar showing all types of marketing content in different days

(Gain)

Meltwater

You may have read about Meltwater in some of our public relations Core posts – that’s because Meltwater isn’t just a social media platform. In fact, Meltwater refers to itself as an “all-in-one media intelligence platform.” With Meltwater, you can explore social media listening, publishing, and scheduling along with media monitoring, consumer and audience insights, influencer management, and more.

Pros:

  • Many companies use this platform for news monitoring, so it can be cost-effective to have your social media management tool within the same platform.
  • You can set up as many approval processes as needed and schedule as far out in advance as you’d like.
  • Ability to auto-publish
  • You can gauge overall sentiment toward your brand and analyze the conversations surrounding it through the “listening” capability.

Cons:

  • Meltwater isn’t the most affordable option overall, especially if you’re planning to only use it for social media purposes.
  • In our opinion, this platform is not as user-friendly as some of the others we’ve used and we’ve experienced numerous glitches that interfere with our content, approval process, and analytics.
  • The analytics don’t clearly separate the paid results from the organic results.
  • The reporting section doesn’t give you the full number of engagements, impressions, etc. For example, if you received 546,734 Facebook impressions, Meltwater will show that you received 547k.

(Meltwater)

Sprout Social

And last but not least, our favorite and most recommend platform is Sprout Social. Our pros and cons list may seem a little biased but it’s only because we’ve seen such a benefit – not only for our internal social media team but for our clients and their brand’s overall analytics as a result of implementing this software a few years ago. If you’re looking for bonus features and can afford the higher price tag… this one is for you!

Pros:

  • User-friendly (for both the content drafter and approver)
  • Constantly evolving and adding new features
  • Ability to set up as many approval processes as needed and schedule as far out in advance as you’d like
  • Ability to auto-publish
  • You can respond and engage with consumers from every single social media platform all without having to leave Sprout! This feature is key for ensuring every comment or message is received and responded to – as opposed to wading through the endless pond of each platform’s notification section. 
  • Ability to gauge overall sentiment toward your brand and analyze the conversations surrounding it through the “listening” capability
  • Sprout has an “optimal send time” that will push your post live at the most optimal time based specifically on your audience, not industry standards.
  • Sprout can connect to Facebook’s Ad Manager so you’re able to see a breakdown of both organic and paid results. 

Cons:

  • Not the most affordable option
  • With more features, comes more of a learning curve! Depending on which tier you decide to purchase with Sprout Social, it can be easy to become overwhelmed with the amount of information you receive. However, rest assured – once you get the hang of it, Sprout will save you time in the long run. 

Sprout Social Product Image of Listening Performance Sentiment Summary

(Sprout Social)

Are you currently using a social media platform or are you trying to tackle everything solo? If you’re in need of some help, give us a call! We’d love to talk about social media with you and discuss which of these platforms might be the best fit for you and your brand.