Social media marketing is harder than it seems. To an outsider, it might seem like social media marketers just post great content to get likes and followers. But there’s a lot more that goes into it.

Marketers are competing in an industry that hosts over 4.2 billion users. At first glance, this seems like a great opportunity to gain recognition, but then you realize that more users also means more competition and less time for you to make an impact.

To make an impression on their followers and attract new ones, most marketers have turned to social media management apps.

These apps help social media managers juggle content planning and posting, engage with the audience, analyze how their content is performing, and make changes to boost results. They have specific features to cater to these needs and make your life a lot easier.

We know that many creators and companies can’t afford to splurge on premium tools, so we’ve created a handy guide of the 12 best free social media management tools to help you out. Here they are:

#1. Hootsuite

Best Free Social Media Management Tool For Overall Management

Hootsuite is arguably the best free social media management tool for individual users and businesses. The tool offers everything a social media manager needs in one place. From content planning to post scheduling and analytics, Hootsuite lets you do it all on their intuitive dashboard.

More than 18 million users rely on Hootsuite to schedule posts in advance, monitor activity across multiple accounts, and track trends to create content that caters to their audience.

The tool also shows you comments on your posts, likes, and social conversations revolving around trends you are interested in – all in one inbox. So brands can start, monitor, and respond to conversations to boost their credibility and build customer trust.

On the free plan, users can add two social accounts and schedule posts. The platform supports Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Pick the ones most important to your brand and connect them to Hootsuite. Once connected, you can schedule up to 5 posts at a time for both accounts.

If you want to spend minutes managing your social content rather than hours, Hootsuite is the right tool for you.

#2. Later

Best Free Social Media Management Tool For Scheduling Posts

Later makes planning and scheduling posts very easy and is a must-have social media scheduler.

The tool is primarily focused on Instagram marketing, but it allows scheduling across multiple social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn.

It aims to make creating and posting image-based posts easier for all users, whether they’re a brand or an individual.

Later’s best feature is its easy-to-use Visual Planner for Instagram that lets users see how their scheduled posts would look on their page. You can then drag and drop the scheduled images to create an ideal Instagram Feed. Once you’re done, the tool will automatically post content to match the order you decided on.

Free users get access to the Visual Planner. But it gets better. You can add an entire set of social profiles (one account each from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok) and schedule 30 posts on each of these profiles.

Content creators and brands also get access to analytics so they can track how their posts are performing. This helps create content that matches customers’ needs.

#3. Buffer

Best Free Social Media Management Tool For Multiple Accounts

Buffer is a well-known free social media manager that aims to drive meaningful engagement on social media. The platform has features that help you analyze your existing social profiles and content, create relevant content for future posts, schedule them, and then track engagement.

Buffer believes that the key to improved social media engagement is posting content that resonates with your audience. And they’re right. In a 2021 survey, 83% of successful content marketers attributed their success to the value their content provides to the audience.

While you don’t get Buffer’s analytics features with its Forever Free plan, you can up to 3 social accounts and schedule up to 10 posts per channel in your queue at once. They have no monthly or annual limits to the number of posts you can schedule.

Buffer works with Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Apart from scheduling, free users can seamlessly edit posts for each channel and get suggestions for Twitter hashtags and users to tag on your Facebook or Twitter posts.

Brands can also create landing pages that showcase all their most important content in one place. Buffer also integrates with 30+ third-party apps, including IFTTT, Zapier, Pocket, and Feedly.

#4. Agorapulse

Best Free Social Media Management Tool For Small Business

For individual creators and small businesses, Agorapulse is the free social media management tool to take control of your feed.

The all-in-one social media platform offers a social CRM tool for free. This feature aims to help users build their community, manage their existing followers, and attract new ones. 

You can view historical social interactions, use labels to group users, and track the most active users on your profile via automated ranking. You can also leave internal notes about followers within the platform.

Apart from the social CRM, users on the free plan can connect three social accounts and schedule 40 posts per month. You can also label posts to help you with campaign tracking.

Agorapulse also provides a Facebook ROI calculator that lets you set custom metrics and see how much your posts are earning.

#5. Crowdfire

Best Free Social Media Management Tool For Content Planning

Crowdfire is similar to most free social media post schedulers, but it goes a step beyond and curates content for your business page as well. 

As we said earlier, content is king for social media marketing, especially for small businesses. Crowdfire can help you find the best articles, images, videos, and more to share on your social profiles.

The platform lets you connect three social accounts and schedule 10 posts per account. However, you don’t just have to share your own brand’s content. You can provide value to your audience via unlimited curated articles and images related to your industry.

Posts are autotailored or customized for each platform, and you can preview them before posting. Social media managers also get hashtag recommendations and analytics for the past day.

Brands can curate content from their own blogs, YouTube videos, and e-commerce platforms, such as Shopify and Etsy.

#6. Canva

Best Free Social Media Management Tool For Creating Visuals

Every social media marketing campaign needs eye-catching creative assets to entice audiences. Canva is the one tool you need to create these visuals.

Creators and teams can get started instantly with 250,000+ templates and 100+ design types to choose from. These design types include specific templates for your social media posts. 

To ensure your posts truly reflect your brand, you can upload color palettes, brand fonts, and custom images. If you don’t have an image to start with, don’t worry. Canva has millions of free photos and graphics for every possible industry.

Canva is also one of the few free social media management tools that allow users to invite teams members to collaborate in real-time. Free users also get 5GB of cloud storage.

#7. Wistia

Best Free Social Media Management Tool For Video Content

Video currently rules social media and performs better most other types of content. Adding a visual element to a concept or product makes it more appealing for users, especially with attention spans getting shorter and shorter. 

This probably explains why 93% of brands got a new customer because of a video on social media, according to Animoto.

Wistia is the perfect platform to create these videos. It has a fully customizable player that lets you add links to videos. Once your video is ready, you can easily embed it on social media, your website, or in your emails. You can do all of this for free.

Teams can also add unlimited users into one account for effective collaboration. For a seamless video creation and sharing process, Wistia integrates with dozens of third-party apps, like Mailchimp and Keap.

#8. Google Campaign URL Builder

Best Free Social Media Management Tool For Campaign Tracking

Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) refers to a code that you add to the end of your URL. When you use UTM links, it helps you track where your traffic came from and how. 

This tool is handy for anyone running multiple social media campaigns, working with influencers, or collaborating with another company.

With Google’s Campaign URL Builder, you can add five parameters to your URLs – source, medium, term, content, and campaign. After you’ve created a UTM link, you can give it to the people you are collaborating with. 

So, whenever an influencer or marketing partner adds a link to your website, they’ll use the UTM link. You can also use a UTM link to track specific campaigns, like a New Years’ sale or a Christmas bundle.

By using this method, brands can find out which partner or campaign generates the most traffic for your site.

#9. GoDaddy Studio (formerly Over)

Best Free Social Media Management Tool For Instagram Stories

If Instagram is your primary channel for social media marketing and you rely on Instagram Stories, then GoDaddy Studio is the tool you need.

Over 500 million people use Instagram Stories every day, and it would be foolish not to take advantage of such a massive audience. Stories are perfect for general updates, ads, short videos, product links, and branded content.

But, creating Stories that speak for your brand isn’t easy. Your Stories need to be engaging enough for your followers, who will always scroll past boring, repetitive content. They also need to match your branding.

With GoDaddy Studio, you get thousands of ready-to-edit templates for Instagram Stories. You can pick a template and add text or change visual elements effortlessly. This helps create beautiful, branded content for your Instagram Stories instantly.

GoDaddy Studio also provides 24/7 customer support, so you’re never left hanging if things go awry.

#10. Creator Studio

Best Free Social Media Management Tool For Analytics

Facebook’s Creator Studio helps businesses, influencers, and content creators track their critical social metrics in one place. Facebook creators can schedule and manage their posts, along with their Facebook Pages.

Business and Creator profiles on Instagram can also use this platform to post content from their desktops and manage their feeds.

The tool provides detailed insights into your monthly earnings, video views, net followers, and engagement.

Facebook and Instagram are two of the biggest social media platforms, with 2.85 billion and 1.38 billion monthly active users, respectively. So a free publishing and analytics app like Creator Studio is essential to know what’s working and what isn’t.

Creator Studio offers the Brand Collabs Manager for individual creators to help them secure paid partnerships with brands.

#11. IFTTT

Best Free Social Media Management Tool For Automation

Social media marketers and creators can save time by eliminating mundane, low-impact tasks from their workflow using IFTTT. 

IFTTT or If This Then That is an app that helps integrate multiple apps and makes them work together. Users can create Applets or simple automation rules based on “if this, then that” logic. In this system, “this” is a trigger, and “that” is the consequent. 

For example, when you use a specific hashtag in your Instagram post’s caption (if this), the app will automatically create a Twitter post with the photos (then that).

Free users can build three custom Applets in IFTTT. This might seem low, but remember, you can make multiple social media apps work together with each Applet. In addition, you can use an unlimited number of IFTTT’s existing Applets.

IFTTT is among the best free social media management apps since it requires no coding knowledge to improve your work processes drastically.

#12. Linktree

Best Free Social Media Management Tool For Link in Bio Solution

In today’s fast-paced social media landscape, no one has the time to go looking for information about your brand or products. Moreover, social media platforms, like Instagram, allow only one link in the biography section.

So, how do you make the most of your one shot to impress your readers or followers? You use that link to its maximum potential!

Enter Linktree…

Linktree is a must-have free social media management tool. It allows you to showcase everything important about your brand with just one link. 

Individual creators and companies can use a Linktree link in their bio to lead users to their website. Blog, videos, other social platforms, product pages, music platforms, payment pages, and more.

Linktree is easy to understand. When a user clicks on your Linktree link, it opens a landing page with links to everything important. You can customize this landing page to match your brand. 

Even the Free plan on Linktree lets you add unlimited links, embed video content, customize your Linktree, and gain insights into how many total clicks and views your Linktreee has generated. 

Pro users get access to advanced features to make their followers’ foray into their brand a walk in the park.

Social media marketing is a complex field that requires skill, patience, in-depth strategies, and the right tools to excel. 

You cannot be a social media marketer who only relies on old-school tools and tactics to get the job done. You need the best apps to create and post engaging, relevant content for your target audience.

Rather than spending big and grabbing the first premium tool you find on Google, you can check out the free tools we’ve listed above. After trying them out, you can decide which ones are worth upgrading to a paid plan.

If you found this article useful, you can check out our blog to learn more about social media marketing