8 must-have social media tools for 2022

I’m a social media consultant and have worked in the industry for over eight years. In that time I’ve sifted through the good from the bad when it comes to social media tools, whether that be for my own content creation, or when I’m working with small businesses at work.

Here are eight of the best tools which have helped me run successful marketing campaigns. I use most of them every day, from strategy creation to campaign implementation. The best bit? Most of them are free!

Don’t knock it! Canva has been known to divide many in the industry, but if we’re honest, social media is ever-changing - one of the most important things to be able to do is create content. Fast.

It has to be easy to use and easy to export and set live, and that’s exactly what Canva does.

Most of the time I’ll use Canva to edit images and short videos on my laptop, but the mobile app is pretty good too.

I’ve literally not touched Photoshop since starting my career - there’s been no need to. Canva is a creativity powerhouse every social media professional needs.

Splice is a mobile app I’ve had for a few years, it’s one of my secret weapons when it comes to editing videos.

I see myself as a mobile-first creator. I tend to find it easier and quicker to create content on my phone.

Splice quickly allows you to change your canvas size depending on where you’re planning on uploading your content, drag and drop clips, sounds, effects, you name it!

It’s great for creators who like to shoot their Instagram or TikTok content out-of-app first, before uploading it to the platform.

Accessibility on social is key. If you’re not adding captions, you’re alienating a huge percentage of your audience from the offset.

VEED is a great tool for podcasters. It’s got a great built-in transcription tool (perfect if you want to create sound bites for social, hello!) and honestly, that’s my main purpose with this tool.

I will use it for simple video edits and is a dream if you need to repurpose lots of content.

Fairly new to me, but now invaluable, it’s Figma. A large part of my day-to-day role is creating social media strategies, and clients need to be able to visualise what I’m suggesting before they’ll say yes.

Enter, Figma.

Figma’s a great, collaborative design tool that I use to create social media mockups. It’s perfect for strategy presentations, and I know some of my team use it for wireframes and site maps too.

Copy.ai is a new AI writing tool that can help you with writing social media posts, blog posts, or even just to avoid writers block.

It was created by the same company that developed Grammarly, which is one of the most popular grammar checkers in the world.

Copy.ai uses machine learning algorithms to suggest different combinations of words and phrases as you write. You can choose from a number of different options like:

I actually used it to write this whole paragraph. Pretty good, right? 😉

For creators or small businesses, you must have a social media scheduling tool. I’ve dabbled with so many. I have my favourites, and I have ones that I would avoid at all costs.

Later has just the right balance of keeping scheduling fun (let’s be honest, this task can get pretty tedious at times) with maximum functionality.

If you’re using platforms like Instagram and TikTok, Later will be particularly helpful.

If you’re a huge enterprise - you’ll definitely need something a lot more substantial. But for creators and small businesses, this is perfect.

Fairly new to me but now I can’t live without it.

Ever post an article on Twitter and then wonder why it’s pulled through the wrong image? That’s because you’ve not updated your open graph image.

This is a simple tool where you simply paste the link of your new article and check what image is displayed to your audience before you publish it for everyone to see. Now I double-check everything I post (especially for clients) using this tool.

One of my besties recommended NeonTools to me and it’s been an absolute lifesaver!

During the strategy stage of a social media campaign, it’s up to me to find the most relevant hashtags out there that our clients might need to use. NeonTools lets you create hashtag collections, as well we opening your eyes to the other popular tags being used in your niche.

It’s much quicker using NeonTools than it is manually sifting through. Trust me, manually will literally take you hours.

From there you can put your creative hat on and start generating content!