10 Time-Saving Tools for Managing Your Social Media Following

Keeping up with emerging social media networks is challenging. It's easy to feel like you're spreading yourself thin.

That said, maintaining a healthy social media following on all of your networks is even more challenging. You can't help but want more followers, but if you're going to extreme lengths just to build up that number with empty names and faces, it's not worth the time and resources. After all, effective engagement occurs with real, interested followers, not eggs and inactive accounts. 

If you want to streamline your following and uncover analytics that can be used to refine your strategy, you need the right set of tools. Ones that actually work.  

To help, I've collected 10 tools that can help you keep on top of your social media following. All the tools vary in price and network specificity, so you're sure to find something that meets your team's unique needs. 

10 Time-Saving Tools for Managing Your Social Media Following

1) Crowdfire 

Price: Free

Applicable network(s): Twitter & Instagram

Crowdfire started with a simple desire that many Twitter users had: an easier way to manage your followers.

Nobody likes when someone follows you, only to unfollow you later to improve their follower to following ratio, am I right? It starts to feel like a vanity game.

Luckily, Crowdfire has created a tool to help you identify relevant users to follow -- like ones in your industry, or people who are interested in competitors. In doing so, it's become much easier to build a more meaningful audience. Here's what else the tool can do:

• Find inactive users and unfollowers
• Find relevant users to follow using “Copy Followers” feature
• Keep track of how your social media updates influence your follower/unfollower stats
• Compare the performance of two accounts using the Comparison tool

2) Commun.it

Price: Starts at $9.99/month

Applicable network(s): Twitter

Commun.it's main premise is that not all Twitter followers are the same. It's worth it to find “high value” followers -- people who are more likely to connect with your brand. The tool allows users to quickly and easily filter through all of the noise on Twitter so they can prioritize the interactions that really matter. Here are a few of the tools most noteworthy features:

• Sorts tasks by priority
• Identifies “high value” followers
• Automates insights from analytics into campaigns

3) FollowerWonk 

Price: Free for personal use, $99/month for Pro

Applicable network(s): Twitter

There is often key information about people in their Twitter bios that can be used to learn more about them. These short introductions to a person’s Twitter feed aim to distill the purpose of their Twitter existence into 160 characters. Often times, these bios are even search engine optimized. FollowerWonk helps you take advantage of those optimized bios and find the people who want to be found. Here's what you can expect:

• Search bios to turn up relevant Twitter users
• Track and sort followers
• Compare individual followers
• Match activities to gains and losses

4) SimplyMeasured

Price: Starts at $500/month

Applicable network(s): All

This social analytics tool has been designed with brand marketers and social teams in mind ... and it shows. SimplyMeasured's platform helps give businesses of all sizes more advanced insights into their social media -- from the major networks like Facebook to smaller networks like Vine. These insights can then be used to build out successful programs and strategies that draw in the right audience. Here are a few of the tool's most valuable features:

• Audience analysis across all platforms
• Customer service metrics measurement on Twitter
• Social and website traffic measurement from Google
• Unlimited data storage at no additional charge
• Data accessibility via Excel
• Customizable report themes

5) Social Quant 

Price: $50/month for single user account

Applicable network(s): Twitter

Social Quant’s claim to fame is having one of the best auto-follow algorithms out there. While autofollowing without intent can dilute your audience and make them less invested in your brand, Social Quant's algorithm is designed to find only the best people out there to follow. Here's more on what the tool does:

• Identifies real and relevant people on Twitter to follow
• Automatically synthesizes data of your own followers to refine your audience
• Finds people who are most likely to be engaged with your content

6) Iconosquare 

Price: Premium starts at $199/month

Applicable network(s): Instagram

Considering Instagram has only recently begun to widely incorporate functions specifically to businesses, the landscape of third-party platforms around the photo sharing app is a bit sparse. That said, Inconosquare is one of the most robust of those available. 

The tool gives users the ability to track follower growth, the unfollow rate, and how many reciprocal followers they have. In addition, the tool also makes it easy for users to:

• Track hashtag performance
• Track what the best times to post are
• Set up a plugin for posting Instagrams to your FB page
• Set up a vanity URL for your Instagram content

 

7) Tweepi 

Price: $7.49/month

Applicable network(s): Twitter

Getting rid of the unfollowers is pretty easy for Twitter tools nowadays, as it’s a common tactic for refining your base. However, there are some accounts that are following back that you probably don’t want. Sure, they make the follower count look great, but if they’re an unengaged bunch, it’s an empty number and it’s not helping your ROI in the end.

Tweepi helps you identify dormant accounts and flush them out. And, if there’s someone who’s blatantly offensive in your audience and you want to get rid of them, you can with Tweepi by forcing them to unfollow you. Here's a simple rundown of some of the tools most noteworthy features:

• Flush out inactive accounts
• Get rid of undesirable followers
• Search for users using geolocation capabilities

8) Social Inbox

Price: Included in all of HubSpot's plans starting at $200/month

Applicable network(s): Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin & Google+

Social media brings a human element back to marketing. Each platform provides businesses with an opportunity to interact, build relationships, and learn from those they follow ... but it can get noisy. HubSpot's Social Inbox App gives users the tools they need to manage their day-to-day interactions and engagement in a way that makes sense. Here's a quick look at some of Social Inbox's capabilities:

• Get a quick hit list of new followers and content that's resonating
• Schedule and publish posts informed by clicks and interactions data to keep your following engaged
• Tie interactions back to contacts in your HubSpot database
• Create targeted streams for simplified social monitoring

9) ManageFlitter 

Price: Free, starts at $12/month for business accounts

Applicable network(s): Twitter

One of the biggest challenges of social media, and especially Twitter, is finding out when people are online and looking at your content. ManageFlitter has a built in tool to take the guesswork completely out of finding when your followers are online. Here's a look a few important tasks you can accomplish with the tool:

• Make smart lists of followers/followees
• Search Twitter bios
• Find out when your followers are online the most

10) Likeable Hub 

Price: Free, premium plans start at $19.99/month after free trial

Applicable network(s): Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn

Managing social media can be a grind, and it takes time. No matter what tricks you have, nothing beats good content. Likeable Hub is all about helping businesses provide great content, and promote it effectively.

With customizable, industry-specific content, it makes for your business to attract a qualified following -- one that sees the value in your messages. The content is particularly meaningful because it’s not auto-generated, but instead carefully curated by real people. Here's a closer look at what the tool really does:

• Builds audience with Turbopost™ post amplification
• Tracks different topics on Twitter to find out what your audience cares about
• Tracks page growth and engagement
• Provides a content library to discover content that works best in your industry