The Best Tools to Manage Your Facebook Page

Managing one or two Facebook pages may be a relatively easy and simple task that can be easily implemented into your daily routine, but regularly maintaining multiple Facebook pages is an entirely different story. While there are countless apps and tools available that supposedly allow you to get the job done in a quick and efficient manner, many are either overpriced or a complete waste of time.

Luckily, however, there are some diamonds in the rough that are both affordable and effective, allowing you to manage your Facebook pages easier than ever before. With the five following Facebook management tools, you can quickly and easily check activity, schedule posts, measure results, find influencers, and much more, opening up a world of marketing possibilities.

1. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is an excellent and wildly popular Facebook page management tool. With this invaluable tool you can effortlessly check page activity and engage with others. Hootsuite allows you to put all of your Facebook accounts, including profiles and pages, under one umbrella. Thanks to the streams feature, you are also able to view all of the various parts of a page in the same place. Hootsuite allows you to create four different streams: wall posts, scheduled posts, private messages, and events.

Since all of these streams can be placed in the same place, it saves you a ton of time by taking much of the hassle out of effective Facebook page management. For example, if you were on one of your Facebook pages and needed to check your private messages and issue responses, you would need to open up your inbox and respond to each one. However, if you were using Hootsuite to view your page, the stream for your private messages would be side-by-side with your wall posts stream, making it much easier for you to interact and engage with your fans.

Hootsuite can also be used to schedule the delivery of future posts. In fact, there is even a feature that will select the best times to send out your posts and automatically send them out on your behalf. You simply click ‘AutoSchedule’ and Hootsuite will share the post at the best time for maximum exposure and engagement. Hootsuite also provides a powerful analytics feature that measures the performance of your posts. This often overlooked feature can be used to improve all of your future posts.

2. PostRocket

While there are other buffering tools on the market, PostRocket is one of the most powerful as it can be used to continually post status updates that automatically become published at the best possible times, ensuring maximum fan interaction. While this alone is reason enough to add it to your arsenal of Facebook tools, it also has the ability to analyze your pages and make posting recommendations. PostRocket uses Facebook’s insights API to collect performance data about your pages and determine the types of posts that work best.

You can place an unlimited number of posts in your queue and the program will decide on the best time to post each one on your page. This can save you a heap of time, especially if you’re like many marketers or business owners that operate multiple Facebook pages. The unique ‘Smartlink Converter’ is another useful time-saving feature as it can convert a link into an image with only one click, and everyone knows how powerful images can be. The images shown are found within the actual link being shown, which may seem less than ideal. However, thanks to PostRocket’s image editor, your photos can be edited or re-touched before sharing or posting.

There is no charge to use PostRocket for the first three pages per account, but the free option lacks some of the tool’s advanced features, such as optimization analysis, collaboration, performance reports, and so on. The Pro license, however, includes all of the advanced features and is available for $9 per month for each page. That being said, PostRocket also offers a risk-free 30-day trial that allows you to test the service before investing in a paid plan.

3. SproutSocial

SproutSocial easily ranks among the best Facebook management tools. SproutSocial is jam-packed with helpful features that can be easily accessed via its attractive and intuitive interface. While small bloggers will certainly gain a number of benefits from using SproutSocial, the powerful social media management tool is ideal for small businesses and avid social media marketers, because its pricing policies and features are better suited for serious social media marketers and Facebook powerhouses.

Although SproutSocial includes a diverse range of powerful features, some of its most useful and key features include post scheduling, a single stream inbox, help desk, and brand monitoring. In addition to these tools, SproutSocial also offers competitive insight, contact management, analytics and reporting, lead generation, and more. All of these valuable features are packaged into an easy-to-use platform. While it may be evident that small bloggers may not find some of these features useful, if you consider yourself a social media marketer or run a small business, then this is hands down a must-have tool.

4. Buffer

Hootsuite’s ‘AutoSchedule’ feature may be helpful and save you some time, but it occasionally publishes posts without an adequate time interval between them, sometimes resulting in less than stellar results. It takes a minimum of three hours and seven minutes for Facebook posts to end their life cycle. Therefore, there must be a minimum time interval of three to four hours before sending out another post. This makes Buffer a better tool for post-scheduling alone.

Buffer allows you to pre-set publishing times for each and every Facebook post every day of the week. After your posts are added to Buffer, they will automatically be scheduled to be published at the designated times. However, rather than needing to take the time to schedule every single post, you can use other tools to identify the Facebook posting times that work best for you and set those times in your Buffer account. Doing so will ensure your posts will go out at the best possible times for maximum engagement and response. On a side note, both Buffer and Hootsuite can be used for Twitter as well.

5. Post Planner

If you’ve been content marketing or marketing via social media for any length of time, then you know that finding helpful and interesting content that elicits engagement, responses, shares, and likes is a painstaking and time-consuming task. Post Planner solves this dilemma by helping you discover engaging content to share.

The useful tool features a content engine that helps you quickly and easily find interesting and popular content in an array of subjects. The content can then be shared at pre-set times in a similar fashion to Buffer. Post Planner also has a unique feature that will ensure your posts are published in different regions at the same local times.

Bottom Line

Facebook has proven to be a unique and extremely lucrative marketing arena, but managing Facebook pages can be extremely tedious and take up far too much of your valuable time. Since time is money, you need powerful Facebook management tools that will streamline the process in an efficient and effective manner. Whether you’re a business owner devoted to using social media to grow an already rabid fan base or a social media marketer with dozens of pages to manage, these are the best tools in the game today.