What is a social media management tool?

Managing social media to a high standard is more than just posting content on your preferred social media platform and hoping for the best. It involves scheduling, analytics, engaging with communities, dealing with messages and comments, deciphering other engagement and so much more.

And, you won’t just be doing all of this on one platform. It’s likely your organisation sits across multiple social media platforms, which each have their own best practices, slightly different tones of voice, audience segments, assets and so on.

This is where a social media management tool, like Orlo, comes in. It can help to take the strain off the day to day hassle of managing multiple social media accounts by making you and your team more efficient, more cohesive, more on top of performance and it can even help you achieve organisational objectives. 

A social media management tool, or platform, is a software solution that solves the problem of managing multiple social media accounts for one business or organisation. Typically it’s a tool that brings all of these accounts together in one place which streamlines day to day management and optimises campaign performance.

This can consist of multiple features such as:

• Social media scheduling and publishing posts across multiple platforms
• Monitoring engagement
• Performance tracking with analytics and reports
• Managing conversations through inboxes and comments effectively

The average person uses seven social media platforms per month. This means organisations need to efficiently manage their social media channels to ensure they engage with their audience effectively and consistently to achieve their objectives. 

A social media management tool can also combat issues such as tight deadlines, limited team members, and minimal budgets, all by bringing everything into one place. With the click of a button, social media management platforms can not only schedule content multiple times, months in advance, they can also pull real time stats so you can report on your posts, help you reply to comments or messages without having to log into every individual platform, and they even can allow you to monitor engagement more effectively. 

Social media is so much more than just posting content to keep up presence it requires strategic planning, audience engagement and real time responsiveness and a social media management platform is vital for this.

Without these powerful tools in place, organisations risk missing out on connecting with their audiences effectively which can put strain on their organisational goals.

A social media management tool brings everything together in one place as a centralised hub to manage your social media accounts and offers features to schedule posts, engage with your audience, manage campaigns and report on success effectively. This eliminates the need to log in to each platform separately. 

In essence, a social media management tool makes it easier for comms and marketing teams to go from being a reactive social media presence into a proactive, strategic communications powerhouse, allowing teams to operate more efficiently, maintain consistency, and gain deeper insights into their community’s needs and responses.

So, you’ve decided you need a social media management tool. But which one do you choose?

The most important thing here is that you need to make sure the platform has all of the tools you need to achieve your organisation’s goals and it’s even better if the provider is aligned with those goals themselves. When choosing you should look out for what kind of support is offered by customer service teams, which social media platforms the social media management tool integrates with, how often the platform is updated with new features, and what kind of security the platform provides.

You can read how to go about choosing the right social media management tool for you in our ‘best social media management platforms 2025′ blog.

Modern tools keep pushing for up to date technologies aligned that align with their target markets goals.

Say you want to be able to reach specific parts of your community through the neighboor app, Nextdoor. Nextdoor have developed a way that they can be integrated with social media management platforms, such as Orlo.

Social media management tools also develop based on issues or challenges they know organisations may be having. For example, Orlo is focused on helping organisations in the public sector with their social media efforts, so the tool is tailored around challenges the public sector face. From managing inbound messaging demand to reduce service time to tools specifically made to measure trust each social media management platform has tools designed to help the audiences they serve.

You can read more about what the best social media management platforms are in each industry here: Best social media management platforms 2025. This will help you choose a platform that is aligned with your organisation’s goals.

Social media management platforms are no longer just a nice-to-have luxury.

They’re an essential tool for all comms and marketing teams when it comes to successfully navigating the challenges of managing multiple social media channels effectively.

Scheduling, analytics, and engagement tools give teams confidence to work more efficiently and build trust with their online communities.

Orlo’s social media management tools are designed for organisations that operate within the public sector, however if you’re reading this and don’t fall into that category there are plenty of options out there which we’ve covered in our best social media management platforms in 2025 blog, linked above.

If you’re ready to take the next step in improving your social media management to build trust and engage your community, book a chat with us today to see if we’re the right fit for you.