In a perfect world, every post you make on Facebook would go wildly viral. Your audience would have you favorited and wait eagerly for new information about what your company or organization is doing.
Unfortunately, Facebook content rarely goes viral anymore without a solid plan, and to get your posts and messages in front of the right audience, you'll need tools to manage every aspect of the process.
We've compiled a list of our best recommendations for tools to help you and your team manage each component of your Facebook marketing strategy. Let's get started.
What is Facebook marketing?
Individual users usually post about what's happening in their day, updates on their lives, or opinions on just about anything. Companies, however, need a much more strategic and purposeful approach to succeed in social media marketing.
Facebook marketing includes all the tactics and best practices you use to attract your ideal audience to your posts. It's part of your digital marketing ecosystem (if your brand has a presence on Facebook) and can help generate leads and nurture relationships with customers.
The marketing process has multiple elements that have to sync together, so nothing feels disjointed. You'll run your Facebook content on your page as well as in Messenger. You'll decide whether to use Reels or integrate other social media platforms like Instagram.
Facebook has over three billion monthly active users, and over a quarter of the posts on their feeds, on average, are from sources unconnected to them. This is a massive opportunity for companies to get their products and services in front of new eyes.
Despite some noise online about the potential loss of engagement on Facebook posts, this platform remains a very strong option for brands:
- Facebook offers sophisticated targeting tools that allow businesses to reach specific demographics based on interests, behaviors, location, and more. This level of precision is invaluable for enterprises looking to optimize their marketing spend and increase the relevance of their ads.
- Its integration with Instagram and other platforms under the Meta umbrella allows for cross-platform advertising strategies. Enterprises can manage campaigns across multiple channels from a single interface, enhancing their visibility and engagement.
- Facebook is great about continually introducing new content formats and marketing features, such as augmented reality ads. These innovations can help enterprises engage users in novel ways.
- Facebook enables direct communication with customers through features like Messenger and comment interactions. This can be an effective way for enterprises to provide customer service, gather feedback, and nurture a sense of community.
- By monitoring trends, consumer behavior, and competitor activities on Facebook, enterprises can gain valuable insights to inform broader market strategies and product development. Even more, tools partnered with the platform can provide deeper historical data, offering more comprehensive insights.
- Facebook's powerful retargeting tools allow businesses to re-engage visitors who have interacted with their site or Facebook page, helping to increase conversion rates by popping back into messages with updates or announcements. Special settings in Messenger allow companies to respect the 24-hour rule while also reaching out to those who haven't interacted for longer than that.
Facebook tools for marketing
General marketing tools have everything teams need to orchestrate the entire marketing process, from creating engaging posts to connecting with users through direct messages.
Brandwatch
Brandwatch covers everything you need to manage a Facebook page and all its associated peripherals, including Messenger. You can create your content for Facebook alongside other social media platforms, view it in its entirety across your feeds, and consult the shared library for new ideas. Team members can communicate without resorting to email, which is good news for easy versioning and approvals.
Brandwatch has strong analytics, so you can track performance for both paid and organic content. It also has an influencer suite with a personalized customer relationship management tool. You can handle your relationships with other creators and track each post with customized insights. Social listening tools give you a better idea of how others perceive your business or brand on the site, and benchmarking against competitors provides opportunities for covering gaps (yours or theirs).
Meta Business Suite
Meta's Business Suite is a free tool that allows you to handle all aspects of your Facebook marketing strategy. You can schedule content and manage ads. You can see and respond to any messages you receive, as well as view analytics. It's available on mobile and desktop and gives you access to other tools like the help center.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social offers a centralized place to manage all your social media platforms, including Facebook. It lets you schedule posts and view your analytics, as well as track social listening mentions. This is a huge plus because you'll have a more accurate gauge of how your brand is perceived on Facebook overall, and not just through your organic or paid post interactions.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite connects to your Facebook page and gives you the opportunity to create and manage posts, measure their performance, and view analytics all from one place. It offers different AI tools to speed up content creation and connects with other platforms you might use, such as Canva.
Talkwalker
Talkwalker provides in-depth social listening capabilities so you can track exactly how people perceive your brand. You can monitor mentions across social media platforms and analyze sentiment. This gives you a chance to adjust your strategy based on real-time data and real-time opinions. You'll also gain a better understanding of how to handle a crisis if it comes up.
Facebook tools for analytics
Watching your analytics is a vital part of understanding what your audience wants. You'll need data to create posts that have value, know when to schedule them, and how to follow up with users.
Brandwatch Measure
Measure has customizable dashboards and not a spreadsheet in sight. It visualizes data through user-friendly charts and graphs and helps users quickly identify the things that are most important to know. You can compare content across different channels and see all your metrics in real time.
The platform includes established templates so you can quickly build a dashboard that works for exactly what you need, and you can share essential information with all stakeholders in a few clicks. It features over 100 post and channel-level metrics and absolutely unlimited reporting.
Meta Business Suite
Analytics in the free Business Suite are customizable. It includes insights for both organic and paid content (regular Facebook analytics only includes organic), audience demographics, and benchmarking so you can easily identify areas where you can improve. Once you log into your page, you'll be able to explore different sections of your analytics, such as engagement or reach.
Keyhole
Keyhole lets you monitor your own page as well as any other public pages to find out how you compare to others in your industry. You can track hashtags and campaigns, as well as perform sentiment analysis to see what people think of your site, products, offers, and whatever you need.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite gives you a comprehensive view of your analytics, as well as heat map visualizations of when followers are most likely to be online. It also gives you recommendations for the best times to post, using an easy-to-see range, and allows you to compare information between Facebook and other platforms like Instagram, where you also use Hootsuite.
Buffer
Buffer gives you a centralized dashboard where you can view all your analytics, including a detailed post analysis for each piece of content. It includes custom reports for a variety of different KPIs and helps you understand your audience demographics. You can view your Facebook analytics beside other platforms where you also use Buffer, and the platform features a ranking of the best time to post Facebook content.
Facebook automation tools
If you've been watching your analytics, you'll know when publishing a post will give you the most engagement. However, that ideal time might not align with when your team is actually working. Likewise, you may need to respond to direct messages quickly, but some of your audience might contact you from a different time zone. Automation helps support your team as complexity grows.
Brandwatch Engage
Brandwatch Engage includes automation for messaging and commenting, so each time a customer reaches out, they'll receive acknowledgment right away. It also uses a collaboration workflow with assignments, labels, and notes, so your team can keep track of conversations and quickly prioritize what needs attention. Engage allows groups to work together with automation so that humans handle higher-order tasks while scripted replies cover common questions and needs.
Social Champ
Social Champ features a variety of automation tools where you can create and schedule posts and engage with your customers. A unified inbox automatically sends messages to users who've reached out through Messenger or commented with interest on posts. It suggests the best time to schedule content based on AI-driven analysis of platform data. You can also set up content recycling, where automated routines give you the chance to repeat your best-performing posts at designated intervals.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite enables bulk uploading and lets you schedule posts weeks or months in advance with granular controls on time. You can analyze data to refine when you post and consult Hootsuite's recommendations for best engagement. Team members will be able to log in and co-manage Facebook creation, scheduling, and approvals.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social gives you detailed metrics over a variety of common benchmarks. It includes sections on audience demographics, post performance, and competitor analysis. Once you've pulled the data you need, Sprout Social allows you to visualize insights through graphs and charts, making it easier to see patterns and trends.
Social Pilot
Social Pilot lets you manage multiple Facebook accounts, create and bulk upload content, and visualize your feed with a unified calendar. It'll suggest the best times to post based on data and help you manage content across multiple pages on the platform.
Facebook scheduling tools
Once you've created a sequence of posts and ads, scheduling tools make sure they go live exactly when you need them to.
Brandwatch Publish
Publish allows you to manage Facebook content alongside other platforms. It features a complete calendar with mock-ups for each post so you can quickly see the overall story unfolding. You can handle publishing and scheduling from one dashboard, both organic and paid, and repurpose your best-performing content.
Teams work together without email to ensure correct versioning and adherence to brand voice and style. Agencies can give access permissions to clients for further collaboration, and teams can move to the mobile app when they're out of the office.
Later
Later features a visual planner so you can see exactly how your feed will look over a series of posts. It includes a media library so you can quickly flip through your saved images and set up approval workflows with auto-publishing. It features single post and bulk scheduling tools and will suggest optimal times to post.
Buffer
Buffer gives you the ability to connect multiple Facebook accounts to manage. It allows you to share Facebook content across multiple platforms, including Instagram and X, and queue posts using their scheduling tool. You can use its analytics to determine the best times to post and analyze your content to figure out what to repeat. You can also download a browser extension, so its tools are easier to find.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social features a compose tool designed to help you create better content through planning and data. It has a calendar where you can review posts and then schedule them based on optimal send times suggested by the site. It also lets you visualize your Facebook content alongside all other scheduled content from different platforms.
Facebook tools for video editing
Video editing tools help companies create engaging posts that utilize a highly popular form of media.
Animaker
Animaker is a free online tool that lets you choose from existing media or upload your videos. It includes royalty-free music and sound options (or, again, upload your own). You can add transitions and adjust the length of the video, preview it, and export it directly to Facebook with one button.
WeVideo
WeVideo lets you edit your videos to include text and captions, transitions, and royalty-free music. It includes stock visuals to help ease the creation process for multiple pages and auto-sizing for different social media platforms. There's a mobile and desktop version and different export options.
Renderforest
Renderforest gives you free templates to use to make your videos and tools for personalization. You can find sound in the music library or use the animation tool to create trendy animated videos. It supports publishing in multiple formats, and you can export videos to Facebook or share them on other platforms.
CapCut
CapCut is another free online tool with multiple features for creating, editing, and publishing videos. It includes filters, transition templates, and overlays. Single-click AI tools let you stabilize your video or remove backgrounds. While the main version is free, it does have a Pro option for more capabilities.
Frequently asked questions
Let's answer some final questions.
Why should businesses use Facebook tools for marketing?
Connecting with people on Facebook as a business is more complex today, so tools help you stay on track and understand what contributes to performance (good or bad). Facebook tools help you manage everything from creation to conversations.
What types of marketing strategies work best on Facebook?
Utilizing your data to target a specific audience is one of the best ways you can manage marketing on Facebook. Users demand personalization, and with Facebook analytics tools, you can determine what they're talking about and give them what they want to see.
Additionally, interactive content such as live videos, polls, and messenger conversations can help draw users to your page and potentially get them to engage on Messenger.
Are Facebook marketing tools free to use?
Some are free, but many of the business tools on our list are not. Free tools are helpful in the beginning when your budget is tight, but as your social media strategy matures, paid tools can provide more in-depth capabilities.
How can enterprises benefit from Facebook marketing tools?
Enterprises likely have complex marketing workflows with multiple customer touchpoints, including Facebook pages and Messenger. Tools give enterprises access to a unified dashboard where they can see insights from analytics, follow up on messages from customers, manage page content, and stay on top of publishing. That's a ton of actions all condensed down to a single platform.
How do you optimize your Facebook business page for better visibility?
Visibility requires you to closely watch your analytics to find out what your audience likes and doesn't. In general, interactive content like Facebook Lives and polls do really well. High-quality images also make it easier to grab attention, so you can start making important connections with followers.
