Staying on top of social marketing is vital for successful campaigns. Your brand’s responsiveness, frequency, and message on social sites can be a lot of work to maintain. That’s why using a social media management tool might be a helpful solution to staying on top of things. We’ve chosen 5 platforms that serve different needs, they provide options for just about any scenario an agency may encounter.

Hootsuite is the most widely used tool for both individuals and businesses. It’s great for tracking conversations, and measuring results. Its best feature is definitely the single screen dashboard, which can feature up to 30 social profiles. The basic plan is free, but there are some hidden costs when you starting fishing for features such as analytic reports and the ability to host multiple users. The Pro plan ends up being $9.99/mo, and includes two user accounts and up to five social profiles.  However, the cost is well worth it for the peace of mind.

TweetDeck is a web and desktop solution that monitors your Twitter feeds. Its powerful filters help you find content that is relevant to your brand. TweetDeck is owned by Twitter, it is a free tool designed to simplify managing multiple accounts. Unlike Facebook Twitter doesn’t allow multiple accounts under one user, and TweetDeck is the solution to logging in and out multiple times to manage all of your profiles. As the name suggests this tool only works with Twitter. We would not advise using it if you are also managing Facebook, LinkedIn or Google+ pages.

Buddy Media is a very thorough tool for global agencies. You can effectively manage your global content with features that allow you to publish content by language, country, or target market. The powerful analytics and metrics can help agencies understand trends, demographics, and conversion rates. Also, a great tool that Buddy Media presents is the template feature that helps to maintain consistency throughout posts, and different sites. This is a tool really aimed towards big agencies with global clientele.

Radian6 is known for its comprehensive awesomeness. It offers social listening and engagement tools, and also has advertisement capabilities. Radian6 is made for big agencies with large teams and an established social media force. It is an ideal choice if your agency already has Salesforce, because it will seamlessly integrate social data with the Salesforce CRM. With packages starting at $600/mo for basic Radian6 is not a wise choice for smaller accounts.

Sprout Social is a great management tool known for its excellent user interface. It offers a single stream inbox that helps you to unify all your social channels and profiles into one feed. That way you can stay on top of all of your interactions and never miss a message/comment. This platform allows you to schedule posts and messages to LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. However, it is not yet compatible with Google+ or any email marketing tools. Sprout Social is also know for its feedback, after you have set up your account they pull together your follower demographics and make suggestions for improvement.