As announced, we hereby kick off our series of the most important content marketing tools an SMB will need in 2022. First, we have gathered social media planning or management tools. Since it has long been insufficient to just post on a single platform, any structured social media manager needs tools to manage all posts for the various platforms. We've sifted through various posts from OMR, LinkedIn, Hubspot, Influencer Marketing Hub and Social Media Academy, and have collected the five most mentioned and top rated tools.

1. Hootsuite
‍Hootsuite lets you schedule posts to publish at a preferred time, analyze data and handle internal workflows. It covers Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and Xing.
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‍Pricing
‍There are 4 different Hootsuite plans:

1. Professional (39 euros/month - 10 social media profiles; 1 user).
2. Team (109 euros/month - 20 social media profiles; 3 users).
3. Business (599 Euro/month - 35 social media profiles; 5 users)
4. Enterprise (individual price - individual solutions)

The Professional plan and the Team plan you can try for free for 30 days and for the other two you can request a demo.

To get more info about Hootsuite's different plans and their features click here.
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2. Agora Pulse
‍You can schedule posts here, as well as monitor and analyze your performance and manage messages. Agora Pulse includes Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn Twitter and YouTube platforms. However, the cheaper plans do not include all of these platforms, which along with the number of users is the main difference between the plans.

Pricing
‍Here you can choose between an annual or a monthly payment, saving 20% with the annual payment. Below we list the monthly prices for annual payments. There are three different plans.

1. pro (79 euro/month - 10 social media profiles; 2 users)
2. premium (159 euro/month - 20 social media profiles; 4 users)
3. Enterprise (price on demand - 40+ social media profiles; 8+ users)

You can try Agora Pulse for free for 30 days.

To learn more about Agora Pulse just click here and you will be taken to the website.
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3. Later
‍Later calls itself an Instagram marketing platform, but it also has features for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and TikTok. This tool lets you arrange and time posts exclusively in a visual planner. Cropping, editing images and adding text is also included.

‍Pricing
‍With Later, you can also choose between annual and monthly payment, saving 17% if you pay annually. Below we have summarized the monthly pricing for the annual payment option.

1. Free ($0/month - 10 posts á 6 social media profiles of the different platforms; 1 user). Platforms; 1 user)
2. Basics (6,67 dollars/month - 30 posts á 6 social media profiles of the different platforms; 1 user). Platforms; 1 user)
3. Starter (12,50 Dollar/Month - 60 Posts á 6 Social Media Profiles of the versch. Platforms; 1 user)
4. Growth (20,83 Dollar/Month - 150 Posts á 6 Social Media Profiles of the versch. Platforms; 3 users)
5. Advanced ($33.33/month - unlimited posts á 6 social media profiles of the different platforms; 6 users). platforms; 6 users)

If you want to learn more about Later just click here to go to the corresponding website.
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4. Buffer
‍Buffer includes the Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest platforms. For this, you can schedule, compile and share posts, which can then be posted at times suitable for your followers. The most suitable times are suggested to you by the tool. Analyzing your content is also possible with Buffer. Teamwork is simplified here, as feedback and sharing of colleagues is possible.

‍Pricing
‍There are two different plans. A free plan and an "Essentials" plan, which can be paid monthly or annually. With the yearly payment, you get two months free and save an additional one Euro per month. Below you can see the prices for a yearly payment.

1. free (up to 3 social media profiles; 1 user)
2. essentials (5 dollars/month per social media profile; 1 user + the possibility to add a team package for a total of 10 dollars/month per social media profile and thus have unlimited users)

You can schedule up to 10 posts with the free plan and up to 2000 posts with the Essentials plan.

Click here to visit Buffer's website for more information about the tool.
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‍5. Sprout Social
‍The last tool we want to introduce is Sprout Social. With this you can prepare, schedule and analyze posts. Profiles on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter can be managed here. This tool is also very good for collaboration in marketing teams, as you can set specific access for marketing managers, authors and everyone in between.

‍Pricing
‍You save $10 per month on the Standard package, $20 per month on the Professional package and $30 per month on the Advanced package if you pay annually instead of monthly. The following prices apply when paying annually.

1. standard (89 USD per user per month - 5 social media profiles)
2. professional ($149 per user per month - 10 social media profiles)
3. advanced (249 USD per user per month - 10 social media profiles plus some special features)

You can try Sprout Social for free for 30 days.

If you are interested just click here to get more information about Sprout Social.

Feel free to check out the tools listed above and test which one you and your team get along with best.  Our recommendation for dynamic teams that have a sufficient budget for scheduling tools would be Agora Pulse, as it is a very modern tool with all the necessary features. Especially for Startups this tool is really recommendable. If the budget here is not enough for Agora Pulse, our recommendation is Later, as it is a very cost-effective yet very efficient tool for scheduling social media posts. For large teams with sufficient budget, we definitely recommend Hootsuite and would rank Buffer 5th in our tool recommendations, as it is a somewhat outdated tool for content planning.

The preferences here are of course individual, as some may need a classic scheduling and publishing tool such as Later, and others still value that in the same tool several people can easily work and coordinate with each other or also the performance of the posts is analyzed, which, however, we will take a closer look at in our article on the most important social media data analysis tools.