More than half businesses expect to increase their social media marketing efforts significantly in the next two to three years. Add to that the 21.1% that plan to increase their activity slightly and you’re looking at 73.7% of businesses planning to market more on social media.
For social media marketing agencies, this means loads more work potentially coming their way in the next few years. To help handle the workload and headaches like communication and reporting that come with taking on more clients, here are five of the best social media tools that cater specifically towards marketing agencies.
5 Tools for SMM Agencies:
1. Agorapulse
Channels: Facebook, X, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, Google Business Profile
Notable Clients: Ogilvy, WebFX, Dove
Agorapulse is used by thousands of agencies on a daily basis. Rated as one of the best social media posting apps for mid-sized agencies, it offers time-saving tools for scheduling, editing, collaboration, and publishing.
Features that agencies specifically would appreciate include an asset library, a shared calendar, and internal approval workflows. It also includes bulk approval and publishing, saved replies, one-click translations, and inbox filters to streamline collaboration and communication further.
In terms of reporting, you can use Agorapulse to track the performance of your clients as well as your own team. Depending on your plan, you can get access to a basic report, social media ROI reports, advanced power reports, and white-label reports.
Features like the saved replies and built-in reporting features have helped Moov Media Group, which manages over 100 social media profiles for dozens of brands, to reduce manual tasks. On top of that, they could also improve their average response time by 17 hours.
The reporting function has also played a role in improving their response times and overall productivity. Now, they can get a quick overview of their community managers’ workload and assign extra resources when their responsibilities pick up.
Key Features:
- Instagram product tagging
- A unified calendar with calendar notes
- Content queues
- An advanced social inbox
- Integration with Google Analytics and Canva
Pricing Plans:
After a generous free 30-day trial, pricing starts at about $110 per month for access to a plan with collaboration features.
2. Sprout Social
Channels: Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, YouTube, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Pinterest
Notable Clients: Brafton, Salesforce, Digital Natives Group
Sprout Social is an all-in-one tool that covers all crucial areas where agencies need to perform — publishing, monitoring, collaboration, reporting, and insights.
Included in its core features are standard features like content review and approval workflows, a shared content calendar, custom user roles, and reporting. It also includes features like optimal send times and message spike alerts in its core offering.
Sprout’s approval feature in particular deserves special praise. Brafton, one of the most well-known B2B content marketing agencies, now rely on this feature instead of spreadsheets to manage approvals.
Combine this with the platform’s group functionality and their agency has managed to save loads of time all while reducing human error. What’s more, during the time that Brafton’s social media team started using Sprout’s approval workflows, they also managed to grow clients’ follower growth by nearly 60% across LinkedIn, Facebook, and X.
When it comes to reporting, it also takes it one step further by offering post-level reporting and competitor reports. Both these reports make it easier to identify content that resonates with target audiences and uncover which channels present better growth opportunities.
One unique feature that sets it apart from other popular social media marketing tools aimed at agencies is its Agency Partner Program (APP). Basically, it’s a hub with resources and support. Partners gain access to exclusive content like templates and training opportunities.
While Sprout Social is slightly more expensive than similar tools, it offers a variety of packages. Based on the size of our team, budget, and requirements, you can find a custom package which could end up working out more cost-effectively.
Key Features:
- Calendar link sharing
- Custom user roles and permissions
- Social listening
- A smart inbox
Pricing Plans:
After a generous free 30-day trial, pricing starts at $199 per seat per month.
3. Zoho Social
Channels: Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google Business Profile, YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok, Mastodon
Notable Clients: No Bullshit Marketing (formerly called ASMM Digital), Creative 7 Designs, Wundertre, KPMG, Suzuki
Zoho Social for Agencies is an all-in-one agency platform that agencies of all sizes can use to invite their social media team and onboard clients. While it was voted as the best social media management software for individual creators by Forbes Advisor, it’s equally capable to help marketing agencies streamline their operations.
It takes a slightly different approach to some of the other tools in this category. For each client, you create a “Brand” under which you can then organize all of their social media accounts.
This way, you can get a unique dashboard view for all your individual clients. It further lets you customize your interactions with clients by letting you create custom roles for team members and assigning these to specific clients.
It’s this feature that Wundertre, an online marketing agency in Texas, has highlighted as a favorite feature. It adds to the overall simplicity of the software, without taking anything away from its capabilities. Instead of first having to place all your clients into one big group and then use tags to separate them, you can start immediately.
Then, to ensure that your branding matches the part, you can add elements like your business logo, agency domain name, and favicon. Another way that it lets you customize your branded reports is by selecting which data you want to include.
Key Features:
- Approval workflows
- A content calendar
- Social metrics monitoring
- Real-time analytics
- An AI assistant that can share hashtag and picture recommendations and repurpose content
- Integration with Canva and Zoho CRM
Pricing Plans:
After a free 15-day trial, pricing starts at $275 per month for agencies.
4. Buffer
Channels: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Mastodon, YouTube, Google, Pinterest
Notable Clients: Influence Media, WebFX, Marketeering Group, Campaign Monitor
Buffer is hands down one of the best social media marketing tools. Along with Zoho Social, it’s rated as one of the best agency software solutions for social media management specifically.
It’s one of the few tools that offer a truly free plan, making it a popular choice for individuals. That said, it’s equally powerful and popular among agencies. Plus, as it offers agency-friendly pricing, it remains a cost-effective tool for bigger teams.
From creation to publishing to engagement to analytics, it has enough features for all the phases involved. Features that agencies specifically will like include tags to organize campaigns and a hashtag manager which you can use to create hashtag groups for certain clients.
Then, to help you manage what gets posted when, it offers essential team management features. These include custom access and permissions, approval workflow tools, and internal comments.
It also shines in the reporting department. You can, for example, automatically generate a cover page and add a custom logo to all your reports to help maintain professionalism.
In terms of intuitiveness, your team should have no problem. Switching between different accounts and channels is easy, eliminating the need to log in and out. Not only is the actual platform user-friendly, but learning how to use the different features is uncomplicated too.
In fact, it’s Buffer’s user-friendliness that big agencies like WebFX and small marketing agencies like Tempt have praised as the dealbreaker. For example, Tempt, a UK-based agency working with the lifestyle, hospitality and retail industries, uses it for scheduling, engaging and generating analytics reports on a daily basis. It has become their go-to tool for scheduling, analytics and reporting, with its analytics tool listed as a favorite feature.
Key Features:
- An AI assistant that can create new posts, repurpose old ones, and suggest ideas
- Post previews
- Custom schedules
- Tailored posts for each channel
- First-comment scheduling for Instagram and LinkedIn posts
- Historical data access
- Audience demographics
- Custom and branded reports
- Unlimited users
- Dozens of third-party integrations
Pricing Plans:
After a free 14-day trial, agency pricing starts at $120 per month for the first 10 channels. For extra channels, it’s $6 per month per additional channel.
5. Sendible
Channels: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile, YouTube, WordPress
Unlike Buffer that’s geared towards freelancers, teams, as well as agencies, Sendible takes a more agency-centric focus. In total, it has three plans aimed at agencies across their growth journey, including a white-label plan and custom plan for large agencies.
It offers collaboration features like content approvals and shared content libraries as well as a client management dashboard to ensure that everyone stays on the same page and looped in. Plus, who that “everyone” is, you get to determine with custom user permission groups.
What makes the dashboard such an asset is that it provides a central place from where you can manage comments and DMs or assign a specific thread to another team member. Depending on your plan, you can also add custom colors, a business logo, tabs, and pages. These elements can also be applied to create branded reports allowing you to showcase your branding across multiple touch points.
For example, VOIMA, a small ad agency in Zurich, has found that Sendible’s white-label solution has helped them to improve their credibility. This, in return, has enabled them to sell their services with a good margin and charge a premium for all of their services.
Sendible also offers great flexibility. So, if you have clients that want to create some of their own posts, you can set up the approval process to accommodate this. The flexible approval process has also helped VOIMA to increase the volume of work that they can handle.
Key Features:
- Tailored posts for each channel
- Post previews
- A built-in image editor
- Smart queues
- A priority inbox that gives an aggregated overview of alerts that need a response
Pricing Plans:
After a free 14-day trial, agency pricing starts at $89 per month for four users and 24 social profiles.
Top Features to Look for in SMM Agency Tools
Doing social media marketing for your own brand versus for dozens of clients requires a different approach. Not only will you need to be able to add more team members and channels, but features to help you with collaboration, analytics, and reporting will become non-negotiables.
Collaboration
You’ll need the ability to streamline communication and processes internally among team members as well as loop in your clients at certain stages. This can get tricky if specific team members should only be privy to certain information, not only from a privacy point of view but also to avoid confusion.
As such, it’s essential that your tool lets you set custom roles and permissions. This way, you can easily restrict processes like edits or scheduling to certain team members.
Sprout Social, for instance, offers advanced team collaboration tools that ensure that only the appropriate personnel can view, edit, or schedule content, reducing confusion and privacy risks.
Analytics and reporting
Sure, communication plays a big part in whether clients choose to retain your services. However, at the end of the day, your main responsibility is to grow your clients’ presence on social media platforms.
Businesses mainly rely on social media platform analytics over Google Analytics. The key performance indicators (KPIs) that most businesses prioritize include engagement metrics (such as likes, shares, and comments) and conversions. So double-check that the tool includes these analytics at least.
Whether the focus is on vanity social media metrics like the number of social media followers or you’re tasked to dig deeper and boost click-through rates, you’ll need access to data. Not only should the tool give you access to key numbers, but it should also make it easy to make sense of all the information.
Then, you’ll want the ability to create customized reports to share these results with your clients. Even better yet, if you can create white-label reports. Being able to add elements like your logo can add that touch of credibility that can add more weight to the results.
AI
According to our Digital Marketing Benchmark Report for 2024, 53.8% of companies are planning to adopt AI and machine learning tools in the next two to three years. The smart move is to invest in a tool that already has AI features like Buffer or Zoho Social.
Both these tools have AI assistants that can help with content creation, the main use for which AI is currently used in social media marketing.
TLDR: Key Takeaways
Even though the digital marketing landscape is changing at the speed that viral posts gain views, social media marketing remains a primary strategy for most businesses. There’s no lack of work for marketing agencies. You just need the tool(s) to automate manual processes so that you have enough time to take on more clients.
Which introduces the question of whether or not you should go the AI route. At the end of the day, you’re also competing against other social media marketing agencies. Leveraging AI features can keep you agile. It makes you more efficient.
The future belongs to those social media marketing agencies that are ready to welcome change and find ways to combine tech with creativity. Your tech stack is more than just a set of tools to improve efficiency. It reveals what your mindset is like — poised for growth or happy to stay with the status quo.
