Running a small business in today’s market can seem intimidating and challenging. With the global economy shifting now and then, small businesses can find it hard to stay up to date with the big players in the market, irrespective of how good their product/service may be.

However, with an effective marketing strategy, small businesses can effectively thrive in the market and expand their scope. A social media management tool can make any marketing strategy twice as effective and provide efficient management, saving you time, energy, and money.

Here are five social media design and management tools to help elevate your marketing and increase your orders.

1. Canva

• Most of it is free, but if you want more control and no watermarks, you’ll have to pay $6.50/month for the upgrade.
• Canva makes creating eye-catching visuals for Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, and more super simple!
• From Instagram stories to YouTube thumbnails, Canvas has ready-to-go templates that fit every platform perfectly.
• You can upload your brand colors, fonts, and logo so your content always looks polished and consistent.
• With Canva’s intuitive and simple content planner, you can view all your planned content in one place to avoid last-minute scrambling.
• Collaborations are also a breeze, which can help you get valuable input from your teammates without switching between apps.
• Even though Canva is a powerhouse for designing and creating content for social media marketing, it lacks heavy-duty management tools, and its content planner is also reasonably straightforward.
• You can use Canva for your visuals and pair it with tools like Later or Buffer for scheduling, analytics, and marketing magic, which can be the best of both worlds!

2. Hootsuite

• With its power-packed platform, Hootsuite can seriously deplete the pockets of most small business owners, starting at $99/month.
• Hootsuite eliminates the need to switch between apps, allowing you to schedule content, manage posts, check performance, and run ads from a single dashboard.
• The visual calendar makes it easy to map out your week or month. You’ll always know what’s going out and when.
• Set up custom streams to track trends, customer conversations, and what your ideal audience is buzzing about.
• Tools like OwlyWriter and AI content creators help you brainstorm post ideas based on topics you choose, ensuring your social media conversations and captions are always power-packed and on point.
• The AI writer and hashtag generator whip up catchy captions and trending tags in seconds, preventing creative blocks.
• The Blue Silk AI listening tool monitors social media so you can catch new trends early and stay ahead of the curve.

3. Buffer

• For only $5/month, Buffer can elevate your entire social media management game on a budget.
• Buffer gives you intelligent scheduling and AI-powered features without burning a hole in your budget.
• Its interface is simple, aesthetic, and easy to navigate (even if you’re not a tech whiz), making social media management easy.
• Whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn, Buffer syncs them up so you can post like a pro from one place.
• Once your accounts are connected, you’ll see all your past and upcoming posts clearly in the calendar view without any surprises.
• Posts go live at the perfect time, reducing the need for manual uploads or guessing when to upload and eliminating any last-minute hiccups.
• Buffer analyzes when your audience is most active and recommends the best time slots to get the most engagement.
• It helps you discover content gaps and suggests trending topics that are highly popular but low-competition, which is a win-win!
• From catchy captions to complete posts, Buffer’s AI assistant helps you brainstorm, write, and polish content quickly.
• The AI can repurpose your content for different platforms, helping to adjust tone, format, and style to suit each one perfectly.

4. Later

• You can access basic features of Later for $25/month, and the price goes up for added benefits, which can seem costly for some small businesses.
• It’s an all-in-one social media sidekick, especially if you’re running a small business and juggling a million things simultaneously.
• It allows you to easily create, tweak, and schedule content across all your platforms without breaking a sweat.
• Later figures out the perfect posting schedule for you and recommends the best times based on when your followers are online.
• An added benefit is that the built-in caption and hashtag tools can help quickly if you’re stuck on what to write.
• It connects with all the big platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, X (Twitter), Threads, and even Snapchat.
• Later helps you find creators who match your vibe, smooths out collabs, and tracks campaign performance so you’re not flying blind.
• Later’s social listening tools help you stay tuned in and ahead of the curve through its social listening, helping suggest trending content and topics in your industry.
• You can build a clean, clickable landing page in your Instagram bio, which is super helpful for sending followers to your shop, blog, or latest promo.

5. PosterMyWall

• Starting at $9.95/month, PosterMyWall can offer designing, management, and marketing tools, all under the same roof.
• PosterMyWall is an all-in-one platform perfect for small businesses looking for affordable solutions.
• Bouncing between apps is unnecessary since it offers everything in the same dashboard, such as creating social media posts, scheduling and managing email campaigns, and creating and managing a content calendar.
• The platform offers the freedom and tools to polish your content, strengthen your brand voice, write attention-grabbing captions, and add emojis and hashtags with ease, giving your content a humanistic touch.
• Eye-catching visuals made easy, with access to over 2 million design templates to kickstart your creations.
• Whatever your industry, you can easily choose from a massive library of free stock images and videos.
• The social media management tool streamlines scheduling and publishing across channels like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
• Team collaborations eliminate the chaos or the need for back-and-forth emails; feedback and edits are smooth.
• PosterMyWall is packed with AI features like AI background remover, AI Writer, AI Voice and much more to help you manage your content easily.
• Track your posts’ performance and easily check likes, comments, shares, and reach to see what’s working and what’s not.
• The resize tool automatically adjusts your designs to fit each platform perfectly, so you don’t have to stress about the details.
• You can even design and send email campaigns directly from the platform.

Final takeaway

Picking the right social media tool for your small business depends on your needs. If you’re all about creating stunning corporate visuals, Canva is a game-changer. With so many templates and endless design freedom,  it can whip up some amazing corporate marketing designs, but it doesn’t offer any management or marketing tools, so you will need help.

Buffer is excellent for scheduling posts and ensuring they go out at the right time. It’s super budget-friendly and simple to use. Later, it is like the Swiss Army knife for social media, with content creation, scheduling, and influencer management tools if required. Hootsuite has some pretty solid features, but it’s a little pricier and doesn’t have design tools.

Then there’s PosterMyWall, the superhero of social media tools for small businesses. You get design, scheduling, content planning, AI captions, and performance tracking in one affordable place. For a smooth, all-in-one experience that handles everything from content creation to tracking, PMW is the winner!