Pros and Cons of the Top Social Media Management Platforms

One of my favorite aspects of marketing is social media. We create content calendars, engage with trending topics, start conversations around our clients’ work, and prove our social successes through reporting.

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How Do We Stay on Top of It?

Thankfully, there are a bunch of awesome social media management tools available to help us stay organized. These tools can streamline workflows, help save some time and even ensure your organization’s content reaches the right audience at the right time.

With so many great tools out there, we at Aerospace Marketing Lab thought it would be helpful to name the pros and cons of our four favorite social media management tools:

 Platform

Pros

Cons

Hubspot: Hubspot is a CRM, sales, and services tool - meaning its range is wider than social media management. But full transparency, Aerospace Marketing Lab uses Hubspot. So obviously, it is our number one. 

  • HubSpot integrates all your marketing efforts (such as social media, email, SEO, and CRM) into a single platform
  • Clear indication of ROI and reporting
  • Assists in building and maintaining relationships with social media followers
  • Because this tool is more inclusive, it is costlier than other tools on this list
  • No in-depth follower and audience demographic data
  • Mobile app isn’t too user-friendly 

Hootsuite: Hootsuite is a social media management platform that covers almost every aspect of a social media manager's role. With just one platform, users are able to do the simple stuff like create content, schedule posts, manage your team, and track analytics.

  • Comprehensive platform
  • The ability to monitor multiple accounts as well as keywords
  • Bulk-schedule social media posts
  • Solid mobile apps for Android, iOS, and BlackBerry
  • Training costs money - “Hootsuite University”
  • Can get a bit pricey if paying for all the extras
  • Forced to use Owly short links
  • No ability to pause your scheduled post queue
  • Post previews can be buggy
  • No digital assets library

Sprout Social: Sprout Social is a social media management and optimization platform for brands and agencies of all sizes. The platform gives you a single hub for social media publishing, analytics and engagement across all of your social profiles.

  • Amazing reporting options
  • Customer service is readily available, thorough, and considerate
  • Well organized dashboard
  • Built-in CRM
  • Digital asset library
  • The pricing is the main pain point that turns away many businesses
  • The number of social networks are limited (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn)

Buffer: Buffer is a software application for the web and mobile, designed to manage accounts in social networks, by providing the means for a user to schedule posts, as well as analyze their results and engage with their community.

  • Clean, organized look
  • Intuitive tools
  • Friendly (and timely) customer support
  • It’ll help you find the best times to post and automatically time your posts to get maximum engagement
  • You can integrate blog feeds to give you sources of content to post out
  •  A free image creation tool
  • Pause queue option
  • No monitoring tools for mentions, searches, and hashtags, so you’ll have to monitor these from another tool or through the networks themselves
  • Having a paid plan with Buffer is the best way to go for scheduling multiple social media posts daily


If you’re looking for an all-inclusive digital marketing solution then HubSpot is an excellent option. However, if you’re looking for a standalone tool for just scheduling social media posts then there are many different and cheaper options out there.

Still having trouble navigating the social media management world? We would love to help you out! Contact Aerospace Marketing Lab here and we’ll get you up and running.

About Aerospace Marketing Lab

Aerospace Marketing Lab brings more than 20 years of complex aerospace marketing, sales, branding, and strategy development experience and insight to every customer. We understand aerospace’s complex marketing and sales models. We use this insider knowledge to break boundaries and raise aerospace and defense clients to the next level.