4 best social media management tools for SMEs

Manual social media management can be extremely time-consuming, whether it’s scheduling posts, replying to comments, or tracking performance. 

You might already have a small social media team (or person), or you may be a solopreneur spinning multiple plates. Either way, numerous social media management tools are available that can help alleviate a lot of the pressure and make social media a walk in the park. 

In this blog, we present our top four tried-and-tested social media management tools for SMEs (in no particular order). 

1. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is one of the most comprehensive social media management tools available. Ideal for SMEs, it is an all-in-one system with essential features like publishing and scheduling, analytics, and engagement. The best part is that you can manage all your social media channels in one place.

Key features

• Post scheduler: You can bulk-plan social media posts weeks and months in advance, which is ideal if you want to post over the weekend, in the evening, or when you’re away. Hootsuite also learns when you’re likely to generate the most engagement, to suggest the best times to post. 
• Analytics: With high-quality insights into your campaign performance, you can see what’s working and what isn’t. You can set performance goals, review the engagement generated, ‘boost’ posts to improve traffic, and more.
• Centralised engagement: To make community engagement seamless, keep all your social media messages, comments, and mentions in one place.  
• Social listening: Track 150 million websites, 30 social media channels, and over 180 languages, to monitor brand (and competitor) mentions, conduct keyword research, and keep an eye on relevant trends.
• Advertising: Schedule, run, and manage paid and organic ads within the Hootsuite dashboard.
• Hootsuite Amplify: This employee advocacy feature makes it easy for your staff members to share your pre-approved content with their followers and massively increases your organic reach.
• AI assistance: Whether you need a compelling caption or hashtag suggestions, simply provide a short description of what you want to say and specify your tone of voice (TOV), and the Hootsuite AI function will generate engaging copy for you. To maintain authenticity, we recommend using AI as a springboard only. And don’t forget to check it for spelling and grammar mistakes, especially US versus UK English.
• Review management: Monitor business reviews from across the web in one place.
• Influencer management: Manage influencer relationships and user-generated content (UGC) from the Hootsuite dashboard.
• Integrations: Add your favourite apps, including Google Business, Canva, and monday.com, to the Hootsuite dashboard. 

Pricing

Hootsuite offers a range of plans for different team sizes and budgets. 

• Professional: £89 per month for one user. Link up to 10 social accounts.
• Team: £249 per month for three users. Link up to 20 social accounts
• Enterprise: Custom pricing for a minimum of five users. Link 50+ social accounts.

While this is the most expensive social media management tool on our list, all plans come with a 30-day free trial, and you can get up to 50% off your first year. Hootsuite offers plenty of free social media tools, including caption and hashtag generators, social listening, and analytics. 

We recommend the Team plan for SMEs. Unsure which is best for your business? Take a look at the price comparison table on the Hootsuite website. 

Pros and cons

Here’s a snapshot of Hootsuite’s pros and cons, to help you decide if it’s the right social media management tool for you:

Pros	Cons
Manage all your social channels in one place	On the expensive side for a small business
Contains a comprehensive list of social media management features	The cheapest plan is limited to one user
Save time by scheduling posts well in advance	Many of its features may be unnecessary for SMEs
Includes a clever AI tool to help with your content creation
Centralised inbox for all your social media messages
Features a clean and simple but dynamic user interface, making it very easy to learn how to use it
Suggest the optimal posting time for your business and audience
Includes a multitude of free social media tools

 

Overall, Hootsuite is an industry-leading social media management platform chosen by countless organisations of all sizes in various industries. 

We recommend this social media management tool in terms of functionality. You might not use every feature right away, but as your business expands, Hootsuite has everything you need. 

2. SocialPilot

This social media management tool has a similar look and feel to Hootsuite, with a few differences. If you’ve used Hootsuite before, you’ll find it easy to understand how to use SocialPilot, so that’s a potential pro.

Key features

• Post scheduler: The AI-powered scheduler allows you to plan, schedule, and publish up to 500 posts simultaneously. You can also schedule posts according to your audience’s time zones, which is great if you have a global customer reach. 
• Custom fields: To ensure brand consistency, create personalised signatures, hashtags, disclaimers, and more for each social media account. 
• Collaboration: Create team workflows and Invite users to view and edit draft-level content. You can also apply in-app approval rights, to get work signed off efficiently. 
• Watermarks: Add watermarks to maintain ownership over your social media content.
• Reporting: Advanced reporting capabilities allow you to combine and compare multiple performance results.

Pricing

There are four SocialPilot plans to choose from:

• Professional: £25 per month, one user, up to 10 social media accounts
• Small Team: £42 per month, three users, 20 social media accounts
• Agency: £83 per month, six users, 30 social media accounts
• Agency+: £166 per month, unlimited users, unlimited social media accounts

We think the Small Team and Agency plans are most suitable for SMEs, depending on your social media team size. All plans are eligible for a 15% discount, a choice between monthly and annual billing, and include a 14-day free trial.

Pros and cons

Here’s what we like and dislike about SocialPilot:

Pros	Cons
A variety of budget-friendly pricing plans	Feels like a basic version of Hootsuite
Prices are more affordable than many competitors – suitable for SMEs
A simple, easy-to-use interface
Bulk scheduling
Team workflows make it easy for multiple people to work on content and campaigns together
Use the AI assistant for help with creating compelling captions and applying the right hashtags

 

3. Sendible

Sendible is an award-winning social media management tool, with Leader, Users Most Likely to Recommend, Best Usability, and Easiest to Use awards in 2024. 

Sendible is primarily designed for client-facing businesses, such as social media agencies. One of its main features is a separate client dashboard that allows you to manage multiple brands and their accounts effectively.

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Also, getting your team involved in shared projects is easy, with assigned roles and a holistic view of all social media campaigns. Don’t worry if you’re not an agency; Sendible has plenty of useful elements for all types of businesses. 

Key features

• Scheduling: Plan and schedule tailored social media content in one place. You can arrange it individually or in bulk, add it to queues, or see it in a comfortable calendar view.

• Client dashboards: Set up individual client dashboards for easy account management.

• Analytics: Get quick insights into your social media activity, including the best post and follower growth times.

• Engagement: Monitor and respond to messages in one place. 

• White label: Customise your Sendible dashboard with brand colours, personalised email notifications, and web domain.

• Drafts: Create draft posts for seasonal promotions or potential campaigns, or simply jot down ideas and finalise them later. 

• Post previews: See what your social posts will look like live before publishing them. 

Pricing

The Sendible social media management tool is competitively priced and one of the cheapest options available – great for SMEs. Here are the four pricing plans available:

• Creator: £18 per month, one user, six social profiles (best for freelancers)

• Traction: £56 per month, four users, 24 social profiles (best for start-ups)

• White label: £170 per month, 10 users, 60 social profiles (best for growing brands)

• White label+: £527 per month, 50 users, 300 social profiles (best for large organisations)

Based on this pricing structure, the Traction plan is most suitable for SMEs. If you own a micro-business, you might prefer the Creator option. 

Pros and cons

While it’s built for agencies, Sendible has much to offer SMEs. Here’s what we like most about this social media management tool and what we think it could do better:

Pros	Cons
Clean and simple user interface makes it easy to learn and quick to find what you’re looking for	Doesn’t include an AI assistant
Packed with clever social media management features and automations	Its features are slightly more basic compared to competitor apps
Personalise your dashboard with your own branded elements, adding professionalism to a client-facing business	Performance reports are not as detailed as competitor apps
See a realistic preview of your posts before they go live, so there are no nasty surprises
Add posts to a queue of pre-scheduled list of dates and/or times
Affordable pricing options (ideal for SMEs)

Overall, we think Sendible is a basic but excellent option. After all, SMEs are unlikely to need top-of-the-range social media management tools just yet. Most of all, it’s budget-friendly.

4. Loomly

Similar to Sendible, Loomly is somewhat of a stripped-back version of Hootsuite. It doesn’t have every social media management feature imaginable, but it covers the basics well for SMEs looking to get a couple of posts published a week. 

Loomly also won the 2023 Best Usability, Best Relationship, and Best Results for Small Businesses awards. 

Key features

• Post scheduling: Create, plan, and auto-post your social media content on every channel in one place.

• Access rich media: Browse millions of copyright-free photos and videos, to strengthen your social media posts, and edit them directly as needed within Loomly. 

• Content inspiration: Get relevant content suggestions (e.g. national calendar days) to keep your channels active.

• Collaboration: Keep teams and clients in the loop with managed access and approval options.

• Campaign tracking: View advanced reports to track and optimise your social media strategy.

• Creative tools: Canva, Unsplash, and Google Drive integrations allow you to find or create the perfect image or video for your post.

• Central inbox: Stay on top of all your social conversations with a unified inbox.

Pricing

Loomly charges in US Dollars and offers four pricing options:

• Base: $32 per month (roughly £25), two users, 10 social media accounts

• Standard: $60 per month (roughly £47), six users, 20 social media accounts

• Advanced: $131 per month (roughly £102 per month), 14 users, 35 social media accounts

• Premium: $277 per month (roughly £216), 30 users, 50 social media accounts

The above costs are based on an annual plan, which offers 25% off compared to the monthly one. Loomly also offers a 15-day free trial. 

Pros and cons

Here are our main pros and cons of Loomly:

Pros	Cons
Simple but effective, and it does exactly what it needs to for a small to medium-sized business	Lacks a lot of the features that other apps on this list have
Each social channel has its own scheduling calendar, making it easy to keep track of your upcoming posts
Affordable
Get suggested content if you run out of ideas
Browse and edit images and videos in the app

While Loomly isn’t quite as advanced as the other social media management tools on our list, it’s still a great choice for a small business scheduling one or two weekly posts.

Conclusion

We’ve cherry-picked these four social media management tools based on their features, affordability, and ease of use. If you run a small business where you’re the social media manager, we think Loomly or Sendible are great options. 

However, we recommend Hootsuite if you have a social media team where several people need social media management account access. If Hootsuite exceeds your budget, Sendible is an excellent alternative. 

We hope you found this blog helpful in choosing a suitable social media management app for your small business. If you have any comments or questions, please share them with us below.