Top 10 Apps for Managing Social Media

As social media managers, we’re always searching for the best apps for managing social media accounts. Whether it be free or for a low cost - - you need an app (or multiple apps) that can tie it all together for you! You’ll need videos, text-based apps, gif, layout strategy, and scheduling abilities to manage multiple social media account. This is my very own, personal list of apps for managing social media accounts, across different platforms, for myself and for my clients. I’m sure some of these may even surprise you! Disclaimer: This blog nor myself are sponsored by any of the apps mentioned in this article.

Spark Post

Our first app on the list is one that you should check out, literally right away. This app gives you the ability to add your brands’ colors, and logo to it, making it easy to get those hex codes of your brand colors and logo into your next social media post. It also has a variety of fonts built into the app, as well as royalty-free images, and even some vector artwork!

Although you can’t schedule posts ahead of time with this app, it’s a great way to create professional posts on the go. It has built-in post formats for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. Already saving you time from having to revisit Google Search to find the best dimensions for your post. It also allows you to create really neat video effects. You can add video effects to your text and images giving you the ability to create some really eye-catching content!

This is a paid app, however, it’s included in your Creative Cloud subscription, which I do recommend if you’re a graphic designer, or working heavily in content creation.

Spark Video

Spark video, another Adobe app, is really a great way to create quality videos at an extremely low price. I believe it’s around $10 per month, or if you’re a Creative Cloud subscribers it’s included in your subscription. You can create a completely customized video when starting from scratch. Add some images from the Spark Video library, and even some royalty-free music.

You can even choose from the various video templates available within the app, and follow their guidelines. You can choose from things like product launch videos, about us videos, and more. The possibilities for your videos are really endless with this app. Although, there are some limitations in terms of video editing, you can still come out of it with a really great video!

Overvideo

I’ve used Over video a handful of times, and it is exactly what it sounds like. It gives you the ability to add various text and fonts to any video you put in. This app is integrated with Unsplash and Pixabay, two royalty-free image libraries. They’ve recently had an update so you can now create and save your own templates to the app.

Magisto

The Magisto app is another video editing tool, that actually takes your footage, your choice of royalty-free music, and choose your theme and the app will actually do the work for you! The app is free, and it comes with templates for you to choose from. However, there is a paid version that allows you to create longer videos and add more photos and videos to your final video clip. This app is great and is built to have some of the most amazing video editing skills I have seen in any app anywhere. It will completely create your video for you, and it will do a pretty good job matching action, and transitions with the music you’ve selected.

I’ve actually had the opportunity to work on music videos for some of my clients, and this is a very time-consuming job. I wouldn’t replace my hands-on work on my client’s music videos using Premiere Pro with Magisto. However, it is definitely something to consider when you have to make a video quickly!

Planoly

Planoly will allow you to plan out your social Instagram’s visual layout prior to posting anything live. You can also, easily moe images around within the Planoly app to get your layout just perfect! You can use this app to upload posts, and stories to your brand’s Instagram page. You can also view metrics like impressions, likes, comments, engagements, and growth. There is a free and paid version for the app. The free version allows you to review your metrics within the last 30 days, while the paid version allows you to view metrics over the last year!

Hootsuite

Hootsuite was actually the first app I used for scheduling posts across various social media platforms. Hootsuite has both paid and free versions. However, if you’re looking, just to schedule posts with limited analytics this is the best place to start. Their free version will allow you to post to three different channels and create lists to watch hashtags and see how people are talking about your brand, product, or service. The paid versions can be a bit pricey - but I feel that you can get a lot done with the free version!

Preview

Preview is my pick for planning the layout strategy of your Instagram page. It allows you to upload images, that you plan to post on Instagram, into the Preview app. At this point, you can rearrange your images in the Preview app to get them just the right way! It’s a great way to explore your layout before making anything public.

Not only does it allow you to plan your layout strategy ahead of time, but it also allows you to schedule posts in bulk. This will be a crucial part of managing any Instagram account. The busier you become the more you will need to schedule posts ahead of time. Use this app to plan your layout and then schedule posts! You’ll also be able to see your Instagram metrics within the Preview app. You’ll get insights like the best time to post on Instagram, the best days, and your best hashtags, as well as impression rates, engagement, most liked and most commented.

You’ll be able to use this data to make better-informed posting decisions and reach your max potential for growth on Instagram.

Vsco

Vsco has a wide range of filter packs that you can choose from. This makes it extremely easy to get the look and feel of your images to match up and for your social media posts to remain consistent with each other and your brand. I have used this app previously; however, most of the filter packs require you to make a purchase. If you’re familiar with photo editing software and are a little comfortable with colors you can really just purchase the one filter pack you need and see if you can duplicate that on your own. This way, you’ll be able to remain consistent across your images and brand identity using photoshop. However, if you’re managing multiple social media accounts this might be a good idea to keep around. It will remove the leg work of creating new, or re-creating old filters for photos. Onboarding a new brand can possibly mean just purchasing another filter pack - as long as the client likes it. This would be worth it terms of dollars and time.

Adobe Capture

For those of you who aren’t afraid to admit, and who are like the most of us you understand the difficulty in selecting the colors of your brand! I get it, it’s a really big decision. Colors that you plan to stick with for a long time, as you grow your business. It’s almost like a marriage. So, you need to make sure you’re selecting the right color palette. Adobe’s app, Adobe Capture is a great starting place. You can upload images that you’ve taken yourself or images you’ve found online and Adobe Capture will spit out color pallets taken directly from the image. This is a great way to discover and define your color palette, and all it takes is your uploading an image that you already like.  

VideoLeap 

 Videoleap, our last app for now, and definitely another video editing app worth checking out. This app allows you to upload multiple video clips at the same time. The video editing feature is a little more enhanced than other video apps. You’re actually to trim videos from the beginning and the end of the clip, but you’re also able to split the video to cut-out the middle of the video.

This is actually huge since none of the other apps we’ve mentioned have this ability. Unless they’ve made some updates after the publishing of this update. You also have the power of CTRL + Z, for those of you who don’t work in the graphic design space, this is basically the undo feature. So, if you ever remove something you still want you can always just go back a step.

Those are my top 10 apps for managing social media accounts. Some of them will help streamline the content creation process, and others will help you schedule and manage the business aspects of your social media accounts. Are you currently using any of these apps? Let me know your thoughts! Using apps that I didn’t mention? Leave a comment below to let your fellow readers know about other apps that might help them with their work!

Be Social