Top Ten Free Social Media Tools for 2018

1. Crowdfire

If managing multiple social media accounts overwhelms and confuses you, then you need a tool like Crowdfire. It contains a number of useful features that help make managing and growing your social media followings far easier.

For example, you can quickly sync up your Instagram and Twitter accounts and then receive help in following and unfollowing the right people. You can even adjust the limits for how many people you follow and unfollow within a given time period to avoid your account becoming restricted.

They also have content creation and content management features, like the ability to schedule upcoming posts across your accounts. The app is free to download and use, but there are paid features as well, which are useful as your number of profiles and accounts grow. This is one of the top social media tools around.

2. Buffer

Buffer has long been a favourite amongst free social media tools, and their popularity isn’t slowing down anytime soon. They have a streamlined and easy to use interface which allows users to sync up multiple social media accounts and take away much of the day-to-day stress of managing them.

When using Buffer, you can quickly craft social posts and then share them across multiple platforms all at once. They also offer analytical reporting which shows you how effective you are being and what sort of engagement you are getting.

This allows you to improve future performance quickly and easily. The free version of Buffer lets you sync up 3 accounts and schedule up to 10 posts at a time. You can pay to upgrade these limits, and their pricing is very reasonable.

3. Canva

With over a million fonts, graphics and photographs, Canva is an incredibly useful graphic design tool. From individuals right through up to larger businesses, Canva helps you to create professional-quality graphics ready to be shared across social media.

Their easy-to-use online design tool allows people with no design experience to quickly create exactly what they need. Better yet, they offer a number of different sizes of canvas which, when finished, will fit perfectly based on the exact social platform you need it for.

Their free option is perfect for individuals and small business owners, as they have a huge variety of free images and fonts to choose from. If you want to get a bit more serious and add in more users to the account, then their pricing plans are incredibly cheap for what you get.

4. HootSuite

HootSuite is another social media management software, however, it aims to take things a step further. Its mission is to help individuals and businesses to expand upon traditional messaging and social messaging and build actual meaningful relationships.

It offers a whole host of tools to help users achieve this goal and lets you combine numerous social accounts from more than 35 platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ and LinkedIn. It lets users handle everything in-house from creating, scheduling and sharing posts through to messaging customers.

You can then use more than 30 report modules to analyse the success of your campaigns and to really drill down into who is actually engaging with you. Their free plan is limited to just one user, but if you are a small business then the minimal $19.99 a month is well worth paying. One of the most popular social media tools for 2018.

5. SocialOomph

This Canada-born tool was initially created for Twitter, and its ability to utilise this social network is still one of its key USPs. However, it has now expanded to include other social media platforms as well, allowing you to bring all of your accounts under one roof.

Though it is great for the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Plurk and LinkedIn, SocialOomph can also handle your blog activity as well. You can even take personal emails you have sent from your account and quickly turn them into social media updates.

The free version of SocialOomph allows you quite a bit of flexibility, but for a small monthly fee, you can access all of their professional features as well. It is well worth trialling if you are looking to automate much of your day-to-day sharing activity.

6. Likeable hub

Likeable Hub is another social media management application that aims to differentiate itself from the masses. They aim to help with all social media challenges that small business owners face, such as lead generation, creating content, referral marketing and amplifying their content.

The idea is that Likeable Hub helps small business owners get a solid grasp on the exact ROI they are getting from their social campaigns. In particular, they focus on three of the most rewarding social platforms, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

For a monthly fee, you can take your journey with Likeable Hub one step further and receive a number of incredibly useful perks. Perhaps best of all is the fact they help you with curating and building your own content by providing you with daily content ideas.

7. Klout

Understanding the success of your campaigns and the ROI you are getting is one of the most challenging aspects of social media marketing. Well, Klout is a great free tool that allows you to do exactly that!

They track and assess your social media performance and give you a regularly updated Klout Score which ranges from 1 to 100. This allows you to see what impact you are having on the market and how well your social reach is performing.

Over time, the information it provides is invaluable in helping you see which topics and individuals are proving most influential. You can then honestly see how big or small your social influence really is and how you can best grow it.

8. SocialPilot

In recent years, SocialPilot has grown to become an incredibly popular social media marketing and scheduling tool that is used by more than 75,000 individuals. It helps users to reduce the amount of time and money they spend on their social media campaigns, and to ultimately make the whole marketing process more streamlined.

Their free-forever plan lets you connect up to 3 profiles and schedule up to 30 posts in a queue. For a small monthly fee, you can then access a wide range of other useful features. One being the ability to mass-upload posts all in one go rather than creating them one by one.

Their calendar is a useful visualisation tool that helps teams collaborate together and better understand the upcoming posting schedule. They have an app available that helps you to manage all of your accounts on the go, as well as a browser extension for quickly sharing useful content you find elsewhere on your desktop.

9. TweetDeck

TweetDeck is a unique free social media management tool in that it is designed exclusively for managing Twitter accounts. In fact, it is so specific and useful that it was eventually purchased by Twitter Inc themselves and is now managed by the social network in-house.

This specific focus on just one platform means it is possibly the most powerful and easy-to-use Twitter management tool available. It allows you to schedule and monitor tweets as well as to mark tweets that have already been read.

This free social media tool even allows you to combine multiple Twitter accounts all under one TweetDeck profile. In turn, you can manage multiple accounts on-the-go all quickly and easily from one user interface.

10. Zoho Social

Zoho Social is a publishing tool best suited towards helping small businesses grow their social presence in an easier fashion. They offer a number of unique features compared to other free social media tools, such as the ability to track spending on each platform.

Though their free feature is limited to just one user, it can help you get a feel for the application and decide if it is best suited to your needs. Zoho Social focuses on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ and LinkedIn as it believes this is where it can be most useful to businesses.

Other benefits they offer is the opportunity to listen and engage with your followers in real time. Furthermore, their in-depth analytical tools are extremely useful for businesses who want an accurate idea of how much they are actually spending on social media marketing and what returns are being achieved as a result.