Social Media managers are faced with solutions and software options all the time. We’re inundated with calls from the latest tool in managing our posts, our community, or ourselves.

Here are five players who are really making a difference for your local social media and community managers.

1. Hootsuite

Where would we be without Hootsuite? It bought post scheduling and community management to the masses.

When ‘social media’ was still a term that was discussed with skepticism, Ryan Holmes was creating an empire of a tool which is now used by over 800 of the Fortune 1000.

2. Spredfast

Personally, I love Spredfast. The Austin, Texas based company is really mixing things up with advanced and more in-depth social analytics and community managing tool.

Their App Builder tool really makes Spredfast an all-in-one shop for a company’s Digital Communications dept.

Aside from the extreme usefulness of the tools they offer, Spredfast’s customer service and tech support team are some of the best in the business.

3. Trello 

We could all be a little more organized. Look no further than Trello. Get your to-do list set up and start checking them off as you go.

I used carry around a notebook and jot my notes down and have lists which I’d then have to flick back through to see which tasks I’d completed and which I’d forgotten.

With Trello, I can add links and photos, share my list with my team, manage it on my phone and keep myself accountable.

4. PopularPays

If your brand has a user-generated content strategy (and it really, really should), you should be focusing on the power of Instagram. Now all you have to do is to get some amazing photographers with huge, and highly engaged audiences to photograph your product and talk about you. Easy right? Nope.

Well, actually yes. PopularPays lets you set your brief and select which Instagrammers you’d like to use for your next campaign. You can see their audience size, their latest posts and how much they bid to get paid, to which you can counter-offer up to 60% of their price if you really want them.

5. RivalIQ

Sure you can see what your competitors are doing (when you remember to check), but with RivalIQ, you can really see their engagement levels, key posts and any updates they make to their social profiles.

Just set your company landscapes and let RivalIQ do the rest. You can have daily updates on what your competitors are up to, create reports that we could have only dreamed of having the time to create, and get the scoop when there is a new post which is smoking your own campaign.

Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments if I forgot to mention your favourite tool or community management solution.

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