The 5 Best Free Social Media Tools

July 7, 2016
Graham Bowers

Free Social Media Tools

5 free social media tools that will help you keep on top of your feeds and help you manage your social media without breaking the bank.  All have paid options if you decide you want to go to the next level.

Buffer

The free version of Buffer only allows you to add one social media account, but I prefer it overall. It has two main advantages over Hootsuite; it offers a basic analytics service and it’s extension auto-grabs images. You can easily see which of your posts were most popular, and ‘re-buffer’ them. It also has smart scheduling – if you use both Twitter and Moz, you can link Buffer with Followerwonk to sync up with the schedules of your followers. Buffer also offers an image creation program called Pablo – but I tend to prefer Canva.

Hootsuite


Hootsuite-Dashboard

Hootsuite gives you the ability to schedule and post social media updates to 3 profiles (more with the paid version). It has a browser extension so you can add new stories straight from the internet, but you will need to save and add pictures manually. It does have the advantage of ‘smart auto-scheduling’ and the facility to search social media handles from within the program and extension.

Buzzsumo

You can use Buzzsumo to find interesting stories online Click To Tweet

Buzzsumo is a fantastic social media tool for discovering new content, especially since the free version of Trendspottr was retired. It’s worth creating a free account, otherwise your daily searches will be limited. Otherwise, just input a search term – e.g. “social media marketing” and you’ll find a list of the most shared posts, broken down by network. This is handy for finding content that will perform well across platforms.

Canva

Canva Editor | Free Social Media Tools


Canva is a fantastic free tool if you want to create social media graphics. They provide a selection of free templates, fonts, icons, illustrations and images. You can adapt a template or create your own design completely from scratch. It’s very simple to use, and they have a ‘Design School’ with free tutorials to help even the greenest designer. While Canva offers some free images, they aren’t comprehensive. If you need more…

Unsplash

Unsplash

Check out Unsplash. They offer a unique proposition; you can download photograph completely free, legally. Their photos are released under Creative Commons Zero, meaning no attribution is necessary, although it is encouraged. The photos can also be used for commercial purposes. The photographer gets a profile and a link on the Unsplash website. Buffer compiled a list of 53+ sources for free images here.

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