In this article, we're sharing our best free and paid-for tools for freelance social media marketers. These tools will save you time creating social media content, help you win clients and get better results.
We've personally used these tools for our freelance social media businesses, social media management, and Facebook Ads clients.
We've included some special offers, some of which may include affiliate links, which won't affect your purchase.
The best free tools for social media managers.
- Canva
- Kapwing
- Creator Studio
Canva
This online tool is a must for anyone creating content and we'd highly recommend ALL freelance social media managers invest in Canva Pro.
The free version of Canva is great, and many free templates are available to you there, however, Canva comes into its own when you upgrade to Pro. This is where you can upload brand colours and fonts and logos for your content creation.
Kapwing
Pronounced kpwing not kap-wing
I know, we were surprised too!
If you need to create, edit or reformat video for social media but don't have the technical know-how to use complicated editing software, then Kapwing is fantastic.
Click here to check out Kapwing. Their free plan offers some great features, but others require an upgrade to their paid plan, which we highly recommend if you need it.
Creator Studio
We would always recommend choosing a scheduling tool based on its features rather than the price. But if you do need a free platform to schedule content, then Creator Studio is free to use for Facebook and Instagram.
We find this glitchy sometimes, but if you want access to the latest features on Instagram and Facebook, then Creator Studio will usually offer that.
The best paid-for tools for social media managers.
- Canva Pro
- Agorapulse
- GroupFunnels
- Tailwind
- The Social Media Managers Toolkit
Agorapulse
There are so many options out there when it comes to scheduling tools for social media managers, and we've tried out many of them. We currently use Agorapulse and love all the features it offers.
As we mentioned earlier, we believe you should choose your tools based on features, not price, and while Agorapulse is a little more expensive than other tools, you also get more bang for your buck, which will save you time in the long run.
With Agorapulse, you'll get the typical features you'd want from a tool, but it also provides social listening and fantastic reporting.
We simply download the reports and send them straight to our clients without needing to edit them, which saves us a ton of time.
Give Agorapulse a try with a free 2-month trial.
Zapier
This is a great time-saving tool for social media managers. Zapier provides a way to link two tools together so you can automate tasks rather than manually complete them.
For example, if you wanted to record all your Twitter mentions or hashtag uses in a Google Sheet so you can use them for future content, Zapier will automate that for you.
You can use many features for free on Zapier, but you may need to upgrade for others.
GroupFunnels
If you manage a Facebook group for clients (or have one of your own), this tool is essential in our minds and will pay for itself in no time.
GroupFunnels collates the responses to your group joining questions in a spreadsheet each time you accept a new group member.
It's fantastic for growing email lists, and we've grown our list by about 7000 new subscribers since we started using it.
GroupFunnels can be applied to multiple Facebook groups for a one-time fee, so you can use it with multiple clients.
We'd highly recommend this if you manage groups and would advise you to pass the fee on to your clients to cover the additional benefits they'll be getting from you.
Tailwind
Tailwind is a Pinterest and Instagram scheduler and analytics platform which can save you tons of time with your pinning strategy.
Tailwind says you can create and schedule a week's worth of pins in 30 mins! They have a built-in pin creation feature and will advise on the best times for you to pin, and with Tailwind Tribes and SmartLoop, you can reach new audiences and easily automate your pins.
They also offer great analytics and support.
Click here to get a $30 credit at Tailwind.
The Social Media Managers Toolkit
This toolkit provides everything you need to find, win, onboard and work with clients as a social media manager.
It includes templates for writing a proposal, creating a strategy and carrying out audits. Training and advice to help you find clients, set your pricing and manage your accounts.
You'll also get bonus materials to help you create your website, use Google Analytics, get PR coverage and be more productive.
This comprehensive toolkit provides you with everything you need to set up your business as a freelance social media manager – and make it run more smoothly if you're already in business.
Find out about The Social Media Managers Toolkit here.
Final thoughts
These are just a few of our essential tools, we use tons of others to help us run our businesses and get better client results. We often discuss these in our free Facebook group, The Social Media Managers Hub.
