Struggling to cut down the time you spend managing your social media campaigns? Wondering what tools to use to automate your social media?
In this article, I’ll show you 11 absolutely amazing social media automation tools that will help you:
- Save time on creating and scheduling social media content
- Analyzing performance
- Drawing conclusions, improving campaigns, and more.
In fact, these are the tools all top content creators use to automate their social media management and create and promote their content without spending a lot of time doing it.
But before we get to the good stuff, we need to understand something…
What exactly is social media automation?
The reason we start with this is because of a common misconception about social media automation.
There is a misconception that automating social media means having tools to do almost all the work for you—creating content, growing your audience, engaging them, and driving them closer to your brand.
Well, that’s not how it works.
Not. At. All.
So, what is social media automation, then?
When we use the term - social media automation - we typically refer to the process of using software and tools to streamline the most common and, coincidentally, most time-consuming tasks:
- Scheduling posts,
- Curating content,
- Generating performance reports, or
- Managing social media accounts.
Note that I said it is the most common and most time-consuming.
These two terms are the key to understanding what social media automation tools do.
You see - The goal of using those tools isn’t to replace you completely. These platforms won’t magically make your “social media happen,” either. Nor will they help you skip interacting with fans or followers or engaging them in any other way.
However, these tools will help you significantly reduce the time you need to spend on them by streamlining those time-consuming tasks.
With social media automation tools, instead of spending hours researching ideas for your next batch of posts or an equal amount of time copying and pasting performance data from various platforms to Excel to try and make sense of it all, you can have the tool to assist.
For example:
A social media calendar tool will help you schedule your content months in advance across all social media platforms. Once you have done this, the platform will publish the content at a pre-defined time, not you.
Hell, in many cases, it will even decide for you when is the best time to post on a given platform.
Content research tools will help you overcome writer’s block and develop ideas for your content. Many tools will also help you craft engaging titles and captions for your posts.
Data and analytics capabilities will generate detailed reports on social media performance, helping you track engagement, reach, and other social media statistics.
What is the role of AI in social media automation?
I admit - AI is usually the first thing we think of when it comes to automation. And yes, AI plays a crucial part in social media automation, too.
However, once again, it cannot do your work.
Nope.
But it can help you automate and scale many aspects of your social media presence.
Here’s how.
Content creation
First of all, AI is a great brainstorming tool.
Granted, it can help create content, too. But the biggest benefit of using AI in social media automation tools is that it can help you, the human, overcome writer's block and think up new ways to say something.
But it should always be you - the human - who has to make the final decision.
(AI-driven YouTube Shorts title generator in Postpone)
Social scheduling
Many platforms, like my tool, Postpone, for example, offer AI capabilities that help with scheduling content and delivering winning social media campaigns.
This happens in several ways:
- Best time to post recommendations driven by AI-based analysis
- Smart rescheduling
- Subreddit recommendations and discovery
- Performance analysis to deliver insights to improve the strategy and more.
(Best time to post analytics in Postpone)
Content repurposing
Many social media automation platforms also use artificial intelligence to analyze past content performance, identify high-engagement posts, and repurpose them for different platforms and formats.
Their AI algorithms can also adapt content to suit various audience preferences and trends to ensure that the content remains relevant and will achieve maximum reach.
Reporting and analytics
If there’s one thing every content creator dreads, it's compiling large data sets about their posts' performance. This can take so much time that it’s almost borderline crazy!
Social media automation platforms use AI to analyze post performance for you. They can generate anything from high-level overviews of content’s performance to detailed analytics for each piece of content, the number of clicks, shares, and the level of engagement it achieved, and more.
(Post upvotes report in Postpone)
With all that in mind, let’s see what platforms you should use to automate social media.
11 Absolutely Best Social Media Automation Tools
#1. Postpone
Type: All-in-one social media automation and management platform
Social media automation capabilities:
- Social media scheduling
- Content ideas generation
- Inbox automation and automated replies
- Reporting and analytics automation
Supported networks:
- X (formerly, Twitter)
- Facebook Pages
- YouTube Shorts
- TikTok
- Bluesky
- Mastodon
- Tumblr
Overview:
Postpone (disclaimer - this is my tool) is the world’s first social media automation tool built for image and video content creators.
The idea behind Postpone is exactly to help content creators put their content in front of millions of social media users without having to spend an awful lot of time doing it.
As a result, Postpone is packed with features to help you automate various aspects of your social media management - from scheduling and content creation (for each of the platforms we support individually!) to performance analysis and even recommendations on how to take your campaigns further.
Other features:
- Powerful content library where you can upload, store, and edit images, videos, and GIFs.
- Customize your content for each platform, too.
- Bulk import posts from spreadsheets.
- Smart rescheduling.
- Built-in image editor to tweak and perfect your images before scheduling them for publication.
- DM automation to automate follower engagement.
- Bulk content upload from the apps you already use: Google Drive, Google Photos, Dropbox, Instagram, Flickr, Imgur, and more.
- Privacy features: automatic removal of geolocation metadata, blurring faces on images, and more.
AI capabilities:
- Content creation
- Best time to post analytics
- Data and performance analysis
Free trial: Yes
#2. Sprout Social
Type: Social media management platform
Social media automation capabilities:
- Post scheduling
- Content curation
- Social listening
- Automated customer responses
- Reporting
Supported networks:
- YouTube
- TikTok
Overview:
Sprout Social is one of the leading social media management platforms with advanced automation capabilities. For one, it offers the ViralPost feature that will help you identify and optimize send times based on engagement.
Sprout Social also features several AI-based capabilities, such as content suggestions, automated message prioritization, and more.
Core AI capabilities:
- Content suggestions
- Reporting
- Sentiment analysis
- Automated responses
Free trial: Yes
#3. Buffer
Type: Social media management platform
Social media automation capabilities:
- Post scheduling
- Content curation
- Reporting and analysis
- Trend analysis
- Content repurposing
Supported networks:
- Twitter (X)
- Google Business Profile
- Mastodon
- TikTok
- YouTube
- Shopify
Overview:
Buffer is by far one of the most recognized social media automation tools today. No surprise. Buffer has been a massive success story, although the company had experienced its share of difficulties, too.
Nonetheless, Buffer is a solid automation tool focusing on scheduling and automated posting across various social media platforms.
With Buffer, you can plan your social posting queue, create and plan social media campaigns, gain insights into the performance of each post, and use AI to help you create content, too.
Core AI capabilities:
- Content suggestions
- Reporting
- Sentiment analysis
- Content repurposing
- Post inspiration
Free trial: Yes
#4. Hootsuite
Type: Social media management platform
Social media automation capabilities:
- Social media calendar
- Content curation
- Social media ad management
- Reporting
- DM automation
Supported networks:
- Twitter (X)
- YouTube
- TikTok
Overview:
Hootsuite is another giant in the industry with a feature set similar to Buffer.
However, Hootsuite focuses more on brands and agencies than content creators. Granted, its feature set probably contains everything a creator would need to get started with automation, it’s also possible that in the future, Hootsuite might be launching tools that deliver value to brands instead.
Core AI capabilities:
- Social listening (via Talkwalker’s BlueSilk AI)
- Reporting
- Sentiment analysis
- Content generation
- Visual recognition in social listening
Free trial: Yes
#5. Sendible
Type: Social media automation tool for agencies
Social media automation capabilities:
- Post scheduling
- Content curation
- Automated reporting
- Social listening
- Automated responses
- Trend analysis
- Bulk scheduling
- RSS auto-posting
Supported networks:
- Twitter (X)
- Google Business Profile
- YouTube
- TikTok
Overview:
Sendible is dedicated to scale. What I mean is that the tool focuses primarily on delivering automation at a level usually required by companies or publishers with many profiles to manage - Agencies, publications, large brands, etc.
And Sendible offers quite a robust feature set, including content scheduling, automated reports, content customization, collaboration, and soon-to-be-launched AI assistance.
Core AI capabilities:
- AI-driven social listening
- Automated reporting
- Sentiment Analysis
- Trend Analysis
Free trial: Yes
#6. SocialPilot
Type: Social media automation and management platform
Social media automation capabilities:
- Social Calendar
- Reporting
- Content curation
- Inbox automation
Supported networks:
- Twitter (X)
- Google Business Profile
- YouTube
- TikTok
- Tumblr
Overview:
SocialPilot is another robust social media automation platform that focuses primarily on serving the needs of small—to medium-sized businesses and digital agencies.
The platform offers all the usual automation features, such as bulk scheduling, a content library that allows you to reuse social media assets, a social inbox, analytics, and an AI assistant to help generate engaging content.
Core AI capabilities:
- AI-generated content ideas
- AI content assistant
- Trend analysis
Free trial: Yes
#7. Iconosquare
Type: Social media management tool
Social media automation capabilities:
- Post scheduling
- Reporting
- Social listening
- Content curation and content inspiration
- Social caption generation
Supported networks:
- Twitter (X)
- TikTok
Overview:
Iconosquare is another platform that can do it all—help you create content, publish it, and even listen to your audience.
With Iconosquare, you can access a content calendar for easy planning and scheduling of your social media posts. The social listening feature lets you automatically monitor for brand mentions.
Plus, with Iconosquare, you can also set up automatic responses to comments, follow new people on autopilot, and more.
Core AI capabilities:
- AI content inspiration
- AI caption generation
- Trend analysis
Free trial: Yes
#8. Talkwalker
Type: Consumer intelligence and social media analytics platform
Social media automation capabilities:
- Social listening
- Media monitoring
- Automated reporting
- Social benchmarking
- Trend analysis
- Customer feedback analytics
Supported networks:
- Twitter (X)
- TikTok
Overview:
Talkwalker is actually a consumer intelligence platform owned by Hootsuite. With Talkwalker, you can monitor customer’s conversations on social media and other media and dive deep into audience insights and data.
If you’re looking to take your content promotion to a whole new level, Talkwalker can deliver a whole range of data, also on your competitors, to drive new ideas and campaigns.
Core AI capabilities:
- Blue Silk™ AI for insights
- Predictive analytics
- Trend analysis
- Sentiment analysis
Free trial: Yes
#9. Contentstudio
Type: Social media automation and content marketing platform
Social media automation capabilities:
- Social Calendar
- Social listening
- Content curation
- Content and caption generation
- RSS feed publishing
- Evergreen content recycling
Supported networks:
- Twitter (X)
- Google Business Profile
- YouTube
- TikTok
- Tumblr
Overview:
ContentStudio is another social media management platform for writing, curating, scheduling, publishing, and analyzing social media content. ContentStudio offers powerful social media automation tools so that you can streamline all those efforts and conduct competitor analytics to help you identify new ways to take your campaigns further.
Core AI capabilities:
- AI writer
- Content suggestions
- Hashtag Generation
- Image generation
Free trial: Yes
#10. Oktopost
Type: Social media management tool
Social media automation capabilities:
- Social media scheduling
- Social listening
- Content curation
- Social selling
Supported networks:
- Twitter (X)
- TikTok
Overview:
Oktopost is a powerful platform for managing social media activities, from content creation and publishing to social listening and more. With Oktopost, you can measure the impact of your social efforts on your business, discover industry trends, manage your entire social content, and more.
Core AI capabilities:
- AI-powered social listening
- Predictive analytics
- Trend analysis
- Sentiment analysis
- Social content recommendations
Free trial: Yes
#11. CoSchedule
Type: Marketing management platform
Social media automation capabilities:
- Social scheduling
- Reporting
- AI content generation
- Automated publishing
- Content recycling
Supported networks:
- Twitter (X)
- YouTube
- TikTok
Overview:
CoSchedule started as a typical social media calendar tool, but overtime, it evolved to incorporate other channels and strategies. Today, the tool helps creators organize their entire marketing activities in one palace, social media publication, content schedule, and more.
The tool is perfect if you need to coordinate all your marketing activities and processes, and manage them with your teams and collaborators.
Core AI capabilities:
- AI content ideas generation
- AI-powered headline writing
- AI content assistant
- Content optimization
Free trial: Yes
And there you have it…
Eleven absolutely amazing social media automation tools for content creators.
All that’s left for you is to review them closely and test the tools that match your requirements the most.
Good luck!