14 Best Facebook Tools for Marketing (2024)

Are you using Facebook as a tool to grow your business?

Or do you feel like it’s falling short of its potential?

If you’re like most businesses, your Facebook marketing could be a lot better.

For most, there is untapped potential because they aren’t aware of the available tools.

In this article, we’ll look at 14 of the best Facebook tools for marketing.

Let’s go!

14 of the best Facebook tools for marketing

Feel free to skip to the section that's most relevant to you! 😀

Table of Contents

• Why Facebook marketing is important
• 14 of the best Facebook tools for marketing
• How to use Post Planner to get more Facebook followers
• Frequently asked questions
• Conclusion

Why is Facebook marketing important?

Should you stick to more traditional forms of marketing, or should you invest in improving your Facebook presence?

Your Facebook has access to more possible connections than almost any other marketing platform you use.

Unfortunately, most businesses aren’t taking advantage of those marketing opportunities.

Here are 3 reasons WHY Facebook marketing is an opportunity your business can’t afford to miss!

Reason #1: Access a huge audience

Most businesses on Facebook instantly gain access to a much larger audience.

Facebook has about 3 billion active users, so it can give you access to people you can't reach anywhere else.

Other more traditional marketing platforms just don’t have the same reach as Facebook.

Reason #2: Find people who are already interested in your niche

Not only does Facebook offer a vast potential audience, but it also offers interested viewers.

When you invest in organic search methods on Google, you often target people who may only be casually interested in your business.

On Facebook, however, people discover and follow companies offering something they WANT.

In other words, Facebook normally brings people closer to the end of the sales funnel than other marketing methods.

Reason #3: Cheaper and more effective than traditional marketing

Just 20% of customers prefer to discover brands on TV, whereas social media is now customers’ #1 desired way to find brands.

In addition, Facebook marketing can be cheap!

If you use targeted ads, you only pay for clicks. That means you only pay for a lead who is already interested in your business.

In traditional marketing methods, you often pay to cast a large net even if it turns up empty!

14 of the best Facebook tools for marketing

There are TONS of tools out there that could be extremely beneficial for your Facebook marketing.

How do you know which ones to use?

In this article, we’ll look at 14 of the best Facebook tools for marketing.

This should give you a great place to start.

We’ll look at various tools to help you with different parts of Facebook marketing.

1. Post Planner

Post Planner is a social media scheduling tool to help you find, create, and schedule great Facebook marketing content.

Since Facebook content is one of your best marketing tools, it pays to do it well.

Post Planner’s scheduling features help you keep a consistent schedule of EXCELLENT content in front of your followers, increasing:

• Engagement
• Followers
• Conversions (AKA $$$)

Pros

• Massive time-saving benefits
• Easy to learn and use
• Helps keep your content consistent
• Scours the web for the best curated content (so you don’t have to)
• Cost-effective

Cons

• Limited analytics features
• Focused on social media management, so you may need another tool if you want to do email or other forms of marketing

Features

Post Planner is designed around 2 main features:

• Content discovery
• Content scheduling

You discover content within Post Planner’s content streams, which are available for almost any niche under the sun (and you can create your own if one isn’t available).

You can then quickly add your content to your posting queue, which will automatically post the Facebook post at the right time.

You can even use the bulk post creator tool to create dozens of posts simultaneously!

Using this process, you can easily schedule a month’s content in 30 minutes or an hour.

Then, you can use the analytics and recycling features to repost your best content to your future calendar.

Pricing

Post Planner is also a very cost-effective solution.

You can manage a single social media channel for only $3/mo. Or, you can upgrade and manage 3, 10, 25, or even 100 channels using Post Planner’s system.

Reviews

Post Planner gets high reviews for its time-saving features and the core functionality of quickly finding and posting a lot of great content to your Facebook.

Negative comments normally pertain to UI difficulties or dropped post time, which most often occur due to updates with the social media platform.

2. Canva

Canva is one of the most popular design tools on the internet for a reason. It’s a fantastic tool for designing engaging Facebook marketing images in a fraction of the time.

Let’s look at some reasons why Canva may (or may not) be on your shortlist of Facebook marketing tools.

Pros

• A great free plan with enough functionality to get you started
• Extremely easy to use — even for those with no design experience
• A range of features that allow you to create stunning images quickly
• Ready-made designs and templates
• Educational content for easy learning
• Free use of the pro version for non-profits and educational organizations

Cons

• Many essential features and templates are only available on the paid plans
• Customization can be limited if you want more options than Canva offers.

Features

The key feature of Canva is that it makes designing excellent Facebook posts easy.

It uses a super simple drag-and-drop format.

For those who aren’t very creative (guilty), Canva’s premade templates and designs make it easy.

Just select a design you like and edit a couple of things to fit your business!

Pricing

Canva’s free plan is pretty good for those who just need some simple design tools, but the pro plan takes it to the next level.

If you want the added functionality of the pro plan, it’s going to cost you $119.99/year or $12.99/month.

Reviews

Canva gets excellent reviews, with the main positive remark being the simplicity of Canva’s user interface.

The most common complaint is that the design features are sometimes limited. In other words, the platform's simplicity can seem limited compared to the limitless possibilities available in a program like Photoshop.

3. Meta Business Suite

Facebook’s Meta Business Suite is the platform’s built-in manager for your Facebook business pages.

From within the business suite, you can manage all your interactions with customers across Facebook and Instagram. As a result, it can be a valuable Facebook marketing tool for many users.

Pros

• FREE!
• Simplifies the use of Facebook’s business capabilities by putting everything in one place
• Easy to learn and use
• Free courses to help you learn how to use the tools effectively

Cons

• It doesn’t add much to your Facebook marketing experience — just makes it easier
• UX isn’t always user-friendly
• It won’t be your only tool, but it’s hard to complain about a free tool!

Features

The primary purpose of Meta Business Suite is to consolidate your business activity from Instagram and Facebook into one place.

With this tool, you can:

• Post on Facebook and Instagram
• Respond to messages
• Create ads
• Monitor key analytics
• Schedule posts

Pricing

Meta Business Suite is free! All you have to do is create a Facebook or Instagram business profile.

Reviews

The main positive review about Meta Business Suite is that it allows users to manage Facebook and Instagram without adding any extra costs.

The main complaints were about UX issues, specifically relating to drag-and-drop simplicity, which Meta Business Suite doesn’t offer. In addition, customer service got consistently low scores.

4. Facebook Ads

Many small businesses try to avoid using paid ads, but they can allow you to find customers you would never find otherwise.

As a result, Facebook Ads is one of the best platforms to market your business to a range of people on the platform.

Pros

• Reach people who aren’t actively looking for your business
• Easy to set up and manage
• Can be a cost-effective way to reach new customers (if done correctly)

Cons

• Conversion rates are often below 10%, meaning most clicks you pay for don’t result in a sale
• Casts a broad net, so many people who see your ad won’t be interested at all
• Can be expensive and ineffective if done poorly

Features

Really, Facebook ads only have one feature: showing your ad to people that Facebook thinks MIGHT be interested in your product.

For example, I cycle a lot, so I get shown cycling ads like this one even though I’m not in the market for a new bike.

You’re most likely to benefit from these ads if you're trying to grow your audience quickly without waiting on organic growth.

Pricing

Pricing for Facebook Ads is based on how many clicks you get, as you’ll be paying per click or per 1000 impressions.

Shopify studies show that the average cost per click is $0.94, and the average cost per 1000 impressions is $12.07.

Reviews

Reviews show that users are most pleased with how Facebook Ads help them rapidly grow their business. Customers are also happy with the ease of use.

The most common complaint, as with other Facebook tools, relates to customer service and UX. People have complained that the platform may randomly change or pause ad campaigns without notice.

5. Facebook Messenger

This may come as a surprise to many, but Facebook Messenger is one of the best free Facebook marketing tools available!

You can use Facebook Messenger in many different ways:

• Reaching out to customers for reviews
• Fielding customer questions
• Reaching out to potential customers with a link for a sale, new product launch, etc.

Pros

• FREE!
• Open rates are around 80%!
• Higher conversion rate than Facebook Ads
• Compatibility with automated chat engines like Customers.ai

Cons

• Some people won’t open messages from businesses they don’t know (although the number is pretty low).
• Messenger is limited in its uses, so you'll still need other marketing strategies as well

Features

Other than the main Messenger features of just sending messages, there are some other key features you should know about.

First, you can design ads to have a “Send Message” button that allows users to contact you directly from the ad.

Second, you can use Messenger with tools like Customer.ai and Meta Business Tools to maximize its power with AI, automation, and convenient access.

Pricing

If you use Facebook Messenger without any of the tools mentioned above, it’s FREE!

Of course, the ultimate price of Messenger marketing depends on how many other tools you pair it with.

Reviews

Since Facebook Messenger is a marketing tool within Facebook itself, it doesn’t have online reviews. However, I'm sure you have experience with Messenger to imagine how it could be used as a marketing tool similar to email.

6. Customers.ai (MobileMonkey)

Customers.ai (formerly called MobileMonkey) produces a tool called InstaChamp, which allows users to set up auto-responses to messages on Facebook and Instagram.

Using AI enables users to save time while still utilizing the marketing benefits of Facebook Messenger.

Pros

• Save time by responding to customer messages instantly
• Improve the power of Messenger with automation
• Increase engagement by using features like sending an automated message to everyone who comments on your posts

Cons

• Price can increase quickly with a larger audience
• Only solves one marketing problem (messaging), but doesn’t contribute to other issues like finding content and creating great posts

Features

The main feature of MobileMonkey is the social media autoresponder, but that feature allows you to do a few different things.

First, you can automatically respond to DMs by setting up the chatbot. That helps you save time on the most repetitive questions.

Second, you can set up automatic DMs to anyone who engages with your content in specified ways.

For example, you can send an automated DM to:

• Anyone who comments or likes a post
• Anyone who uses a particular keyphrase or hashtag
• Anyone who mentions your brand in a story

Pricing

InstaChamp starts at $19/month (at the time of writing, it was discounted to $9.95/month.

That gives you 500 branding-free sends and 1,000 contacts. You can buy branding-free sends for $5/1000 and contacts for $10/500.

Reviews

MobileMonkey gets almost exclusively good reviews, with the most common review mentioning the convenience and money-boosting effect of quickly responding to Facebook messages.

There are very few negative reviews. The only negative comment I could find was that the monthly price adds up quickly if you need to add more contacts.

7. ShortStack

Contests are one of the fastest ways to generate engagement on your social media channels (people love free stuff!).

Shortstack makes running contests and giveaways incredibly easy, which helps you get more likes and sales.

Pros

• Easily run contests that are proven to increase engagement
• Make your contests more engaging using pre-made contest ideas and templates
• Save time compared to running contests without a tool like ShortStack
• Run the same contest across multiple social media channels
• User-friendly UI

Cons

• No plans targeted toward smaller businesses, so it’s quite expensive
• Only does contests and games, so you have to run a lot of them to make your subscription worth it

Features

ShortStack isn’t limited to Facebook — it can help you run contests across ALL your social media channels.

One of the best features of ShortStack is that it doesn’t limit you to one type of contest. For example, you could run sweepstakes this month and a play-to-win quiz next month.

Mixing it up allows you to keep engagement high.

There are MANY different types of contests offered by ShortStack, and they walk you through the process to make it easy to get started.

Pricing

ShortStack starts at $99/mo, which allows up to 10,000 entries.

You can upgrade to plans with 50,000 or more entries if you need more.

Reviews

ShortStack’s reviews are primarily positive, with the most common positive remarks relating to increased engagement, customer service, and ease of use.

Even though many users commented on the ease of use, many negative reviews talk about a difficult learning curve. Others mentioned the platform's lack of API and flexibility, which will affect those who want to use their ShortStack data in other apps.

8. Sendinblue

Sendinblue is an all-in-one marketing solution offering powerful tools to help manage your Facebook ad campaigns.

Using Sendinblue for Facebook ads enables you to go beyond the standard Facebook ad experience and improve the quality and effectiveness of your ads.

Pros

• Ad builder makes creating the perfect ad quick and easy
• Helps you find new contacts based on your current contact list
• Helps you improve future ads with data and analytics
• Also offers many other marketing features outside of Facebook ads

Cons

• You don’t get access to the Facebook tools with the cheaper plans.
• Its only social media tool is for Facebook ads, so it’s limited.

Features

Sendinblue has many marketing features, but we’ll focus on the Facebook features.

The core of Sendinblue’s Facebook tool is the ad builder and lead generator.

The Facebook ad builder walks you through the process of building an effective ad. You can also tell the ad builder what your specific goal is to optimize that ad for that goal.

The lead generator helps you find new potential buyers by looking at your current contacts. It then comes up with a target group of people with similar interests and/or purchase histories to improve the performance of your ad.

Pricing

Sendinblue has a decent free plan, but you’ll have to spring for the $65/mo plan if you want access to the Facebook ads tool.

That'll also give you access to quite a few other marketing features.

Reviews

Sendinblue gets excellent reviews. Some of the most frequent positive comments discuss the ability to have unlimited contacts with any plan (even the free plan!).

Most negative comments refer to difficulties with contact management, price, or certain limitations on how many emails you can send. However, most customers report that these issues don’t impact their enjoyment of the tool.

9. Buffer

Buffer is designed to improve Facebook engagement by helping you schedule content and analyze your posts’ performance.

You can also use Buffer to post to ALL your social media accounts simultaneously, improving its usefulness even more.

Pros

• Save time with post scheduling
• Improve engagement by using an easy platform to reply to
  Facebook comments
• Easy to learn and use
• Great free plan (for up to 3 channels)

Cons

• No content discovery tool, which means you’ll have to source content from another platform
• Each channel costs more money, so the price can add up quickly

Features

The core functionality of Buffer is supported by publishing and analytics tools.

Buffer’s publishing tools help you come up with great posts with the help of an AI writing assistant. Then, you can schedule your social media posts for all your channels in the same place.

Buffer analytics allow you to quickly review old posts and see how well they performed. Understanding your old posts helps you make even more engaging posts in the future.

Pricing

Buffer is priced based on how many features you want and how many channels you’re managing.

The free plan allows you to manage up to 3 social media channels with the publishing tools but without analytics.

The essentials plan adds analytics and starts at $6 for 1 channel. Each additional channel costs an additional $6/mo.

Reviews

Buffer gets consistently high reviews, with most users commenting on the ease of use and the time-saving benefits of the tool.

The most common negative comments refer to weak analytics features and UI issues that slow people down.

10. KingSumo

KingSumo is another giveaway-focused social media tool. It'll help you host online giveaways for your business to grow your contact list and improve engagement.

KingSumo isn’t focused on social media, unlike the other tools on this list. However, you can easily use the tool for that purpose, which we’ll discuss in this section.

Pros

• Easy to set up and use
• Cheap for a lifetime plan
• Run unlimited giveaways at no cost

Cons

• Very basic feature set, with no tools to help you create better giveaways
• Free version is always branded with KingSumo’s logo
• Limited application compared to ShortStack, but the price is much lower

Features

The primary feature of KingSumo is the ability to run giveaways without being tied to a monthly subscription.

Really the only thing this tool does is allow you to create super simple giveaway forms like the one pictured above. You can then create a post on your Facebook with a link to your giveaway to collect contacts.

If running a simple giveaway with no bells and whistles is your goal, this is the tool for you!

Pricing

This tool is FREE if you don’t mind the branding and other limitations.

If you want the extra flexibility that comes with the paid plan, you can get a lifetime subscription for just $49 (at the time of writing — the regular price is $228, although I’m not sure how often you should expect the tool to be selling for full price).

Reviews

KingSumo gets mixed reviews compared to the other tools on this list, but most of the negative comments refer to the limited capabilities of the tool.

If you use the free version of the tool or buy the paid version with the awareness that it’s a limited tool, most people are satisfied.

11. Smash Balloon (Facebook Feed Pro)

Smash Balloon’s Facebook Feed Pro is a plugin that allows you to display your Facebook content on your website.

Putting Facebook content on your website can help drive your web traffic to your social media channels, converting them to followers.

Pros

• Drive content from your website to your social media channels
• Facebook content serves as website content, saving time
• Easy to use — even if you have limited technical knowledge
• Your embedded Facebook posts can help your website’s SEO
• Reasonable cost

Cons

• Only works on WordPress sites
• Doesn’t help you generate content, so you’ll need another tool for that
• Some users report slowed load times on their web pages

Features

Smash Balloon’s Facebook plugin is built around the idea of using your Facebook and website in conjunction with one another.

To do that, Smash Balloon allows you to quickly connect your Facebook to your WordPress site and customize your feed in about 60 seconds. Even better, you won’t need any technical knowledge to set it up.

All the other features of the Facebook Feed Pro plugin just support this fundamental function:

• Easy feed customization
• Display multiple feeds on the same website
• GDPR compliance

Pricing

You can get the Facebook feed plugin for only $49/year for 1 website. If you’re running more websites, you can upgrade your plan to run 4, 25, or more websites.

If you want to bundle other Smash Balloon social media plugins (Instagram, Twitter, YouTube), you must upgrade to the All-Access bundle.

That plan includes unlimited websites for $299/year at the time of writing. The stated normal price is $598/year.

Reviews

Smash Balloon gets excellent reviews. The most common positive reviews mention the time-saving benefits and the ease of use.

The most frequent negative reviews mentioned slower load times on the website. You can take steps to counteract that slow-down, but they take some technical knowledge.

12. Facebook Audience Insights

Facebook Audience Insights is a tool within the Meta Business Suite. It deserves its own section because of the unique insights it can give you about your audience.

Learning about your audience can help you use all the other tools on this list to target your audience better.

Pros

• Free
• Super easy to use
• Helps you tailor your posts to your audience’s demographic
• Easily exportable data

Cons

• Insights are limited to age, gender, location, and interest
• Doesn’t give you any advice on how to use your data

Features

Audience Insight is crazy easy to use. Just click on the Audience tab in your Meta Business Suite, and scroll through the different insights about your audience.

However, the most important thing is what you DO with this data.

If you have a mostly 25-34 female audience, you should take that to a tool like Post Planner and use it to find targeted content for that demographic.

If you find that your audience shares a certain interest, you can once again use that information to find great content using a tool like Post Planner.

Pricing

FREE! Just access this tool in the Meta Business Suite of your Facebook business profile.

13. A Facebook QR code in your physical store

One of the best ways to get people to follow you on Facebook is to put up a QR code in your physical store.

Whether it’s on the checkout counter, the receipts, or the front door — you might find customers are more than willing to follow you.

Pros

• Easy to do using online QR code tools like Vistaprint
• Free!
• Very easy to set up
• You can leave the QR code up forever to constantly generate more followers

Cons

• Probably isn’t the fastest way to get new followers

There aren’t many cons to this method because it’s free and easy! The worst that could happen is that it doesn’t generate followers as quickly as you hoped.

14. Other social media accounts

Finally, you NEED to be using your other social media accounts as lead generators for your Facebook.

For example, why not share a link with your most recent Facebook post to your Twitter account?

You can also repurpose your Facebook content for other social media platforms (using Post Planner 😉)!

Doing cross-posts like this can help strengthen your social media presence by ensuring that your followers are following you on multiple platforms.

You can also add a link to your Facebook in your Instagram or Twitter bios.

Be creative in how you connect your social channels!

Pros

• FREE!
• You’re already on multiple social channels — you might as well use them to benefit each other!
• Cross-posts can liven up your social media feed if done right

Cons

• If done poorly, this can seem like shameless self-promotion
• This strategy doesn’t generate new contacts. It just ensures your current contacts are following you on multiple channels

How to use Post Planner to get more Facebook followers

Now that we’ve looked at 14 of the best Facebook tools for marketing, let’s look more closely at our top Facebook tool: Post Planner.

Post Planner saves its customers tons of time finding and posting great content.

In this section, we’ll go through some of the main features that can help you do the same.

I highly recommend signing up for Post Planner’s free trial so you can follow along with this section!

Create a queue plan

To get started, you need to make a queue plan that tells Post Planner what type of content you want to post at which time.

You can connect a time slot to your buckets, which means that the time slot will only draw content from that bucket.

You can also leave a time slot open to your general queue, meaning it will draw content from posts that aren’t assigned to buckets.

Find content

After you’ve created your content queue plan, it’s time to fill it up with curated and owned content.

Use the Content tab to search for content streams relating to your niche. If there isn’t a content stream for the type of content you’re looking for, you can quickly create your own.

Creating a content stream involves assigning certain content feeds to a stream. Post Planner will then show you what those feeds have posted recently, allowing you to use their content in your queue plan.

Schedule content

When you’re looking at your content streams, you can select several posts that you want to add to your queue plans.

Click the “Create posts” button, and you’ll go to the Post Composer. Here, you can edit your posts for your audience and quickly add them to your posting plan.

Here, we’re optimizing 3 posts for 7 different channels, meaning we’ll quickly create 21 different posts at the same time!

Monitor analytics

Go to the History tab to look at how your previous posts have performed.

Here, you can see:

• The date and time when you posted your content
• What you posted
• How much engagement it got

Using this information, you can start to get a clearer picture of WHAT you should post and WHEN.

You can easily recycle your best content from this page as well.

Frequently asked questions

Before we wrap this up, let’s look at some of the most common questions people have about Facebook tools.

What business tools does Facebook have?

Meta Business Suite has tools to help with several key areas of Facebook marketing:

• Post analytics
• Audience Insights
• Ad composer
• Content scheduler
• Messenger tools

Are Facebook business tools free?

Facebook’s Meta Business Suite is totally free with a business profile.

However, we highly recommend working with other outside tools to boost your Facebook marketing performance even more. Some of those are paid tools.

How do I access Facebook business tools?

First, you have to have a Facebook business profile.

Then, simply go to business.facebook.com and connect your business profile. You'll be up and running in no time!

Ready for more Likes???

Getting your Facebook marketing strategy right can be a huge boost for your business, but it’s difficult (if not impossible) without the right tools.

After you check out the 14 tools on this list, you’ll be better equipped to improve your content and engagement.

Which will bring more followers and sales!

What other tools do you use to improve your Facebook marketing?

Let us know in the comments!