As part of our 2023 Community Manager Survey, we asked social media experts to share with us their favorite tools for practicing their profession and increasing productivity. With the boom in AI, we also asked them for generative AI tools like ChatGPT or Midjourney. Discover CM nuggets without further ado!
1. Social media management tools
Above all, it is important to underline that many community managers rely on the native tools of social platforms and, in this context, CMs naturally mention the Meta Business Suite which allows them to manage different Facebook and Instagram accounts. For more advanced features, social media experts turn to social media management solutions. This year Hootsuite confirms its number 1 position, Swello occupies second place on the podium, followed closely by Agorapulse. Metricool and Buffer close the top 5. Next we find Later, Iconosquare and Facelift. Note that other tools, which were not present in the proposals, were mentioned several times such as Emplifi, Sprinklr, HubSpot and Loomly.
2. Tools for creating and retouching images
The top three remain unchanged from last year: Canva, Photoshop and Illustrator. It is not surprising to see Canva in the number 1 position, the tool is a reference among CMs and has the advantage of being accessible to all levels thanks to its intuitive editor and ready-to-use templates. From 2nd to 5th place are the tools of the Adobe suite, with Photoshop in the lead, which remains the cutting-edge software for creating images or retouching photos. The use of Adobe software, such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, highlights that social media experts have real design skills. At the bottom of the ranking we find Pixlr and Microsoft Designer, Canva’s latest competitor. Keep in mind that Figma, the collaborative design tool, was also mentioned by many CMs (even though it wasn’t offered on our list).
3. Tools for making video edits
In 2023, 90% of CMs report posting videos to the accounts they manage. But they don’t just publish them, many of them also do the editing. And for this they mainly rely on Premiere Pro, Adobe’s video editing software which is a reference for industry experts. In another register we find CapCut in 2nd position. This is the official TikTok application for quickly editing videos on mobile devices and PC. CMs especially use it to add subtitles. On the last step of the podium we find Adobe’s After Effects, a tool that allows you to add special effects to your videos. Finally, InShot (via mobile application) and iMovie (on Mac) close the top 5. Note that many CMs also mention Canva which has a video editing tool integrated into its platform.
4. Productivity tools to manage all your projects
Are CMs more “team Google” or “team Microsoft”? The answer is: both! To carry out their daily tasks, community managers rely on both the Google Workspace suite (Documents, Sheets, Slides) and the Office suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint). When it comes to messaging, Microsoft Teams leads ahead of Slack. What about project management? Trello seems unstoppable from first place… even if it is closely followed by Notion, the productivity tool par excellence. Next in the ranking are Asana and monday.com, two well-known tools to facilitate project management. Please note that ClickUp and Wrike have been mentioned several times.
5. Social listening solutions
It should be noted that less than half of the CMs interviewed use a dedicated social listening solution or, in other words, a social monitoring platform to monitor their brand and that of their competitors. This is easy to say: some already rely on their own social network management tool which may have a monitoring function, others prefer to use tools like Feedly, Google Alert or TweetDeck (recently renamed X Pro). For those using a social listening solution, Mention is the best. The tool is recognized in the field of media monitoring and also allows you to schedule your posts. Well known on the market, Talkwalker is the 2nd most cited by CMs, followed by Meltwater, a platform dedicated to PR and social media. Digimind and Visibrain close the top 5, followed by Brandwatch, BuzzSumo and Brand24.
6. Influencer marketing tools
Like last year, according to our survey only a third of CMs will work with influencers in 2023. There are therefore still few people using an influencer marketing platform. As a reminder, these solutions allow brands to find influencers and measure the performance of their influencer campaigns. The 3 platforms most cited by interested CMs are Findly, Kolsquare and Favikon, followed closely by HypeAvisor and Influence4You. Next we find Upfluence, Stellar and Hivency.
7. Generative artificial intelligence tools
To the question: “As part of your work, what generative AI tools do you use? », more than half responded to ChatGPT. Since its launch to the general public in November 2022, the OpenAI text generator has continued to be in the spotlight, so it makes sense to see it cited mostly by CMs. In 2nd position we find the Magic Writing tool which allows you to generate new ideas directly in Canva Docs. In 3rd position we then find Midjourney who impresses with the rendering of the images of him generated by artificial intelligence. Far fewer CMs mention DALL-E, which is OpenAI’s image generator. At the bottom of the package we find Bing Image Creator and Bing Chat. It is clear that Microsoft’s tools have not yet been as successful as hoped. Note that some CMs also mentioned Firefly, the artificial intelligence developed by Adobe that allows you to generate images, text effects, color variations from a simple prompt, but also to extend the frame of an existing image.
Methodology: survey conducted online by BDM, from 20 June to 17 July 2023, among 1,142 community managers and social media managers practicing their profession in France.
