Imagine your work as a SoMe manager without social media marketing apps. You simply can't, right?
All social media professionals benefit from utilizing practical tools on an everyday basis. Some applications are more popular than others. Often it's not because the tool is not the right fit or worse in terms of functionalities. Mainstream brands have big marketing budgets and tend to gather more traffic.
In this article, you'll find a list of helpful lesser-known apps often overlooked by social media professionals. While looking for specific functionality, turning to niche tools can only be a plus. There's no one app to fit all the needs, so checking the ones listed below can help you drive better results and achieve your goals more quickly.
Social media platforms seem complete: they offer every possible function to complete the most popular tasks:
And that's enough in most cases.
Until you, as a social media professional, encounter a specific challenge by using just the native social media platforms. Or the most promoted social media tools available.
You may need to schedule your posts widely because you cater to an international audience. Just imagine running 16 Facebook profiles and 8 Instagram accounts, having to enter each post into a native scheduling tool.
Or you may struggle while creating aesthetically pleasing Instagram Stories, which might take hours of your team's time. You'd like to take some burden off their shoulders and provide ready templates they can use.
You may also manage a large team of social media marketers and don't want to grant direct access to your social platforms to all of them.
Once you realize your challenges, you'll know what solutions would benefit you and your team and start looking into the lesser-known social media apps.
This is when you start to realize Hey; this tool is actually better for my business! Take a look at the list below, and maybe you'll find your new favorite app among them.
So, without further ado, what are the 10 most overlooked social media apps to help your social media marketing efforts?
I don't know about you, but answering the incoming messages from all the social accounts was always a struggle. Especially when a client wants to cover all their bases and informs about their issue via every possible platform.
With NapoleonCat, you have all social media in one place: interactions (comments, messages, reviews) from all major social networks and platforms in a unified inbox. What's convenient is the assign option: when the question is not for you, assign it to another person on the team who knows the answer. Collaboration is the key.
By adding users and granting them access to specific platforms and moderation options, you track who has access and covers each platform. Especially practical in bigger teams.
via NapoleonCat
Aside from the inbox, NapoleonCat's in-depth analytics helps to discover the busy seasons and prepare for them in advance. Monitor moderation statistics: how many customers queries you received, responded to, who responded to how many comments, messages, and other conversations.
Use NapoleonCat also for amplifying organic engagement, delivering social media customer support, and managing social media in teams.
ClickUp is an interesting platform for a task and team organization. Let's say you use:
Whoa... that's a lot of platforms to follow. And it is a reality for most businesses out there. Moreover, some companies try to build their management systems to improve the employee experience, and that's a costly and time-consuming solution.
ClickUp will save you time managing your social media strategies and social media advertising with its all-in-one productivity platform. It helps social media managers bring together teams, tasks, and tools together in one place. That's their official brand promise.
via ClickUp
Work without having to track all the annoying notifications from all the platforms? Improving team communication? Sign me up!
Use ClickUp for free. No credit card required.
The Plann app is simply gold for all the creative buffs. Its primary focus is visual social media marketing apps like Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest.
Every creator's dream is to have a visual grid planner, integrated space for the files, and the option to edit graphics in one place. With Plann, it is possible.
via Loren Jackson
The app has integrations with Canva, CloudSpot, Pexels, Unsplash, and Pixabay.
It's one of the first apps I've seen to help organize and schedule TikToks and Reels. How cool is that?
If you have a content calendar prepared in advance in Google Drive, it's possible to automate the scheduling and add your pre-made calendars in the app. Very nice.
Amplifr is an exciting tool with AI-powered post scheduling. Aside from the usual channels, the app has the option to post messages to Telegram channels and Viber public chats.
What's cool is that you don't need a phone for that, and Amplifr lets you do it from the same place you would schedule regular posts for the Gram or Facebook.
By analyzing audience metrics, this app can suggest the best post publishing time and rank the best posts, so you know what content gains traction.
via Daniel Sokolovskiy
Do you also need to measure conversions in Google Analytics? You can, with Amplirf.
Content curation can be effortless if you have a process and the proper tool. Quuu happens to be one of the tools that are not well-known but powerful.
via G2
By signing up to Quuu, you gain your personal AI assistant Robin. You mark the interests and niches that are most relevant to your business. Robin analyzes the content in blogs, videos, podcasts, and discussions all over the web to give you suitable suggestions to post about.
Then, you can automate the content posting and use Quuu to post automatically or not. Up to you. Time-freeing features are always a plus in my book.
Last but not least, Quuu offers a free plan to test out the tool and ensure you get the best of the web in all categories that interest you most.
Envato is a brilliant source for visuals, videos, graphic assets, and branding templates for social media posts and videos. If you need to design for social media, Envato is the place to go.
For someone who enjoys creative subscriptions, Envato Elements gives the option to download any amount of essential assets.
via Envato
Envato Market (Themeforest) is the best solution if you're into project-based business. Need a ready-made template for social media or website? There you go. Millions to choose from.
Envato Placeit is more chilled, I'd say, for someone who is not a master video or graphic maker but has some skill. Assets and ready-made templates to DIY anything you need. Easy, peasy, and affordable.
Haiilo is a tool for HR professionals and Employer Branding marketers who face the challenge of engaging employees internally and externally.
Building an employee advocacy program can have its pitfalls: people will say it's hard to follow company messages, not easy to share on social media, or a lack of copywriting skills stops them.
Haiilo solves all of the above.
Sharing content is a matter of a few clicks, all company social media channels are connected in one place, and brand marketer provides a few useful captions for anyone who worries about having no writing skills.
via Haiilo
Happy employees are the best brand advocates and help spread the word about the company and its products. Use this power right and get better engagement, more reach, and positive brand sentiment.
Brain.fm app is built to enhance the focus. It may not be a social media marketing app, per se. But it will help to focus on the work instead of the annoying distractions that usually come with the radio or musical playlists. And the world of social media is distracting enough, so you need something to stop the infinite scrolling or lengthy discussions in comments.
via Brain.fm
Anyone who has their favorites turned on while working will relate to it: one minute, you are focused on tasks and managing workflows, and the next, you're researching the most popular songs from your high school years. Work sits there, not done.
But not with Brain.fm.
Music from the app is suggested and based on science. Try it out and feel the difference in productivity.
Drip campaigns are well-known in the email marketing world. But not many companies have heard about drip social media campaigns.
Missingletter app can help you to integrate and automate specific messages on social media that are sent as social media drip campaigns. Based on the days between brand and customer interaction, you can create automatic workflows with particular content to be shared with your audience.
via Missinglettr
The content can be anything from all your online places, as Missingletter integrates the platforms to make the drips easy to create and follow.
An excellent addition is a feature that helps to analyze the content you create and pulls the best quotes out of it. Thus, the most engaging parts of the content get shared and spread across your social media channels.
Many marketers struggle with identifying their best audience. It's common to share content with the wrong segments and then wonder why it was not engaging for them. Audiense stands out as a social media marketing app that narrows down specific customer segments, no matter how narrow the target audience can be.
via G2
With machine learning, Audiense shapes up and shows connections between people in your target groups. Knowing the similarities and differences helps you form messages that resonate with different segments.
Moreover, within the audiences, you can identify the real influencers and engage with them or partner up for the best business results. Influencer marketing is a vital part of marketing strategy, and Audiense makes it easier and more effective.
Nonprofit Organizations: Nonprofits can use a social media plan to spread their message and attract new donors or volunteers. It can help them engage with their current supporters, build an online presence, and raise awareness about their cause.
Political Campaigns: Political campaigns can use a social media plan to outline goals and strategies, track results, and measure their success. It can help them create messages that resonate with voters and engage their existing supporters.
Social media marketing apps are here to stay. The abundance of data coming from social channels can be overwhelming. The time needed to understand and correctly use each platform is getting higher as SoMe platforms release new features that you need to follow and know.
With the right tools, you can identify the best platforms to work with, curate content that resonates with your audience, and save time on switching between many platforms that your business uses.
When looking for the right fit and tool for scaling your business, take a more expansive approach: look for specifics that make the difference for you, not everyone else.
Identify your challenge and choose the social media management tool based on your specific need. Chances are, the lesser-known apps already have all the essential features, but the specific one will make you instantly click with the new tool.
What's your struggle as a social media professional? Share your thoughts in the comments and recommend your lifesaver app.
About the author:
Kasia Slonawska is a passionate content marketer and growth hacker at NapoleonCat, a social media management tool. With three years of experience in the social media niche and an educational background in writing, she’s eager to share tips that help businesses grow on – and through – social media.