Whether you’re managing one brand or multiple brands on social media, it’s virtually impossible to cover all aspects of your social media marketing without the help of third party tools.

We’ve compiled a list of the tools you need to be on top of your social media game

#1: Scheduling tool

A social media scheduling tool is arguably the biggest time saver when it comes to social media account management.

A scheduling tool allows you to schedule social media posts across all the different platforms in the one spot. It’s perfect for keeping track of what content is going out on any given day and helps you to plan ahead.

What scheduling tools should you use? There’s a number of different scheduling tools available, so it’s up to you to decide which one you prefer. Some of the more popular scheduling tools are Hootsuite, Sprout Social and Buffer.

#2: Reporting tool

How on earth are you meant to keep track of how your social media platforms are performing? With a social media reporting tool, of course. See how many followers you’ve acquired in any time period, find out the demographics of your audience, see how many people viewed and engaged with your content, and so much more.

A reporting tool is ideal for evolving your social media strategy and identifying areas that need improvement. See what content works and what doesn’t. What people are clicking on? What people are watching?

There’s a heap of different reporting tools out there for you to use. We recommend looking at Sprout Social or Buffer.

#3: Monitoring tool

Responding time is incredibly important on social media. Responding to a message or a comment within a particular time frame is critical to building a strong customer-brand relationship. Social media monitoring tools help you keep track of people are saying about your brand online and who is talking to your brand on social media.

If you manage multiple Facebook Pages, the Facebook Pages app is the perfect tool for you. You’ll be notified when someone comments, messages, likes or even shares content on your page.

If you’re managing brands across multiple platforms, we suggest taking a look at Hootsuite. It has its own Dashboard page where you can see each individual platform’s streams.

#4: Graphic design tool

It doesn’t matter if you’re a novice or an expert when it comes to graphic design. There’s a number of graphic design tools out there that cater to different levels of ability. Why do you need a graphic design tool for social media? Fun, eye catching graphics will instantly grab the attention of your audience as they scroll through their feed.

Canva is a brilliant free tool that lets you design graphics for all social media platforms.

#5: App creation tool

A Facebook App makes for a fun and engaging social media campaign. They can be used to ask your followers to vote for something, to share a story or even a simple sweepstakes. They can also be another way of adding to your email database.

Shortstack is an easy-to-use app creation tool. You can create your own designs and insert them into a variety of different templates which then gets installed to your Facebook Page.