Which social media management tools are worth your time? We get asked this constantly, and it depends less on a platform’s feature list than on how much friction it adds to your day. On a recent episode of the Marketing Blender Show, our Marketing Specialist Kylie Scarborough and Social Media Specialist SaMaria Boyd sat down to talk through the platforms they rely on every day, from content creation to scheduling to the AI tools that help them move faster. Here’s their unfiltered take, without the polish you’d expect from a sponsored review.
Start With The Bare Bones
Before you invest in anything fancy, it helps to know that some of the most useful social media management tools in our workflow are almost embarrassingly simple. We track our social content in Google Sheets. It is not glamorous, and it will not win any design awards, but it works, and it keeps our team aligned on what is going out and when. If you are just getting started, do not feel pressure to buy your way into a complicated system before you understand what you need to track.
Canva Is Still A Content Creation Workhorse
When it comes to building graphics, Canva remains one of the most popular starting points for marketers, and for good reason. It gives people without formal graphic design training a real shot at producing content that looks polished. SaMaria put it simply:
“I think, I just have to say, if the Philadelphia Eagles marketing team was using Canva at some point, I think we’re all good to keep using Canva.”
Canva’s usefulness goes beyond templates. It includes:
- Brand kits that keep colors, fonts, and logos consistent across a team
- Built-in scheduling, so you don’t always need a separate platform
- Whiteboarding tools for planning and collaboration
- A design school with classes on both design and social media strategy
For a solo marketer or a lean team, that combination means fewer subscriptions and less time hunting for the right tool. The tradeoff is that Canva graphics can start to look recognizably “Canva” if you lean too hard on default templates. Use them as a jumping-off point for your own ideas rather than the finished product.
Video Editing Tools Worth Testing
For video, our team splits its attention between a few different apps depending on the task. Descript is useful for trimming down raw footage quickly, especially when a deadline is tight. CapCut remains a favorite for mobile editing and trending templates, though its free version leaves a watermark on exports even for paying users, which is a real limitation if you need clean, downloadable files. Meta’s newer tool, Edits, has become a strong alternative for Instagram-first creators. SaMaria described the appeal in three words: “It’s a beautiful, beautiful experience.”
Edits stands out for a few reasons:
- Watermark-free downloads when you use royalty-free sound
- More transition options than the native Instagram editor
- In-app analytics, even when those numbers are humbling
If you post video regularly on Instagram, it is worth a real test drive before assuming CapCut is your only option.
How We Use AI Tools Like Claude For Social Media Content Creation
If you’re wondering whether AI belongs in your social media management tools stack, it does, but only within real boundaries. Claude is the platform Kylie leans on most for ideation, particularly when she’s stuck on copy direction or needs a fresh angle for a post. Even so, she’s clear about where it stops being useful:
“It’s never, in my mind, gonna be able to truly replace human creativity… social media is forming a relationship between a brand and a consumer, and AI is never gonna be able to complete that relationship.”
SaMaria’s caution comes from a different angle. As she puts it, “You have to reread it. You have to edit it. You have to make sure that it sounds human, and it sounds like something that your brand would actually say.”
Their practical advice for using AI responsibly:
- Give your AI tool a real brand voice instead of a vague prompt
- Feed it examples of tone and specific topics to avoid, the same way you’d train a new hire
- Watch for repetitive sentence structures and overused buzzwords
- Avoid stacking several short declarative sentences in a row, a common tell of unedited AI output
- Aim for roughly 90 percent human, 10 percent AI, as SaMaria puts it
What Is The Best Social Media Management Platform For Scheduling?
This is the question we hear most often, and “best” really just depends on what frustrates you least. Our team’s first experience with content scheduling was Meta Business Suite, and it did not go well. Kylie summed it up this way: “I called it the smartest, the dumbest smart platform ever.”
The frustrations are structural, not just a matter of taste:
- Navigation gets rearranged frequently, which slows down routine tasks
- Admin access is split: you can grant someone access to a Facebook page without giving them access to the Business Suite itself
- Personal accounts absorb business notifications, creating unnecessary noise for anyone managing multiple clients
We also tested Sprout Social for a period of time, and while it is a capable platform, we ran into recurring account disconnection issues that required monthly reconnecting across every client. HubSpot and Hootsuite came up too, mainly as tools our clients already had in place, but both specialists found the analytics harder to read at a glance compared to what came next.
Why Metricool Is Our Favorite Social Media Management Tool
Among every option we tested, Metricool has become the clear favorite on our team, and it took over the role Sprout used to play. For SaMaria, one thing sold her on the switch: “Metricool is, I think, the easiest analytics-wise to read.”
Metricool’s day-to-day features include:
- Stock photos and videos you can pull directly into the platform
- Direct asset imports from Canva
- Drive account connection
- Campaign tracking across multiple posts in one place
- Client-ready reports exportable as PowerPoint or PDF
Ease of adoption mattered just as much to Kylie as any feature list: “I just appreciate how simple it is to use. You don’t have to jump through a lot of extra hoops to use it.”
That is a meaningful distinction among social media management platforms. Many scheduling tools offer similar core functions, but the difference tends to show up in the smaller details, like how quickly a new team member can get comfortable, or how clearly a client can understand a report without a walkthrough.
Building A Toolkit That Actually Fits Your Team
There is no universal answer to which social media management tools you should use. What worked for our team came from testing platforms against real friction points rather than feature checklists. Start with the basics, then layer in a design tool that matches your team’s skill level. Treat AI as an assistant rather than a replacement, and pick a scheduling platform based on how well it handles the part of your day that currently feels hardest. The right combination of social media management platforms will look different depending on your team size, your clients, and how much time you have to learn a new system.
If you are ready to build a social media strategy and toolkit that fits your business, contact The Marketing Blender. We’d love to help you figure out what belongs in your stack.
FAQs
What are the best social media management tools for a small team?
For small teams or solo marketers, start simple. A shared spreadsheet for tracking content, Canva for design, and a scheduling platform like Metricool cover most core needs without requiring a large budget or a steep learning curve.
Is Metricool better than Sprout Social or Hootsuite?
It depends on your priorities, but our team switched from Sprout to Metricool after repeated account disconnection issues, and we have found Metricool’s analytics and reporting easier to read and export than what we experienced with HubSpot or Hootsuite.
Should I use AI tools like Claude for social media content?
Yes, as long as you treat it as an ideation partner rather than a final draft generator. Give it clear brand voice instructions, and always edit for tone, sentence structure, and accuracy before anything goes live.
