8 Essential Social Media Collaboration Tools

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Here's a list of the best social media collaboration tools out there, including the ones we enjoy using here at Buffer.

Your tools can make or break productivity when you’re on a fully remote team. Thankfully, here at Buffer, we have the pick of the bunch.

Our suite of tools is extensive, especially on the Marketing team, and our curated selection helps us fill our queues, manage social channels, create graphics, and generally stay organized.

In this article, I’ve listed some of the tools we use that make collaboration on social media and content creation a breeze.

Centralized management: Use Buffer to coordinate social post approvals and maintain a unified content calendar.

Seamless communication: Slack and Zoom are essential for bridging the gap in remote teams through real-time and asynchronous chat.

Structured organization: Notion is our superpower for tracking high-level projects and task distribution.

Collaborative design: Canva and Figma allow team members of all skill levels to contribute to visual content creation.

Cloud storage: Google Workspace and Dropbox ensure all team members have instant access to brand assets and documentation.

At a glance: 8 essential social media collaboration tools for social media teams

Quick collaboration tips on sharing to social media as a team

Buffer — Best for all-in-one social media management

Google Workspace — Best for real-time document collaboration

Zoom — Best for live video meetings and screen shares

Of course, I have to mention Buffer as a top social media collaboration tool. Buffer actually does more than just social media management.

We've built collaboration into Buffer from the ground up, from adding content ideas into the Create space, where anyone with access to a Team account can pop in to view and comment, to the Publishing area, where social posts can go through as many levels of approval as you need. Buffer’s social media collaboration features include, but are not limited to:

Set permission levels for different users: Choose exactly who can post on each of your social media channels.

Set up an approval system: With these different permissions, certain users will require or can ask for approvals on their posts before they’re published, so you can always ensure quality and consistency.

Collaborate on ideas: Work together on social media content in Create, a dedicated space for all your ideas.

Leave notes for team members: Make comments or suggestions for other users on your plan.

Best for asynchronous communication on social media ideas

Slack is basically a chat room that helps teams communicate. And thousands of teams use it in all kinds of ways.

We gather material for employee advocacy, coordinating simply over Slack or in combination with another tool

Teammates can drop fun and interesting links into one of the channels for others to check out.

We use it to brainstorm ideas and strategies in public and private channels.

Another favorite of social media teams is Google Workspace, especially Google Drive. I highlight Drive specifically because it holds everything from our spreadsheets to presentations to forms. In Google’s vast suite of products, you can collaborate together, live, on the same work with your internal and external team.

Best collaboration tool for file sharing of all kinds

Dropbox is a great tool for us at Buffer, as we can use it to share everything from images to templates to documentation.

For example, we used Dropbox to store the videos recorded by different teammates for our new employee onboarding video project. Since everyone was able to easily access the Dropbox folder to upload their videos, the project went ahead without a hitch.

Best collaboration tool for overall project management

Notion is one of our superpowers as a Marketing team and a top recommendation for successful social media collaboration. Its robust set of features helps us achieve many goals from our different locations across the world, including but not limited to:

Holding our big-picture project database across different teams

Clarifying task management and distribution across team members

We work with Canva extensively on the Marketing team and use it to power through design needs so that even the most artistically challenged of us (that’s me, hello) can throw together decent-looking images like the one at the top of this list.

Best collaboration tool for complex graphic design projects

On the other end of the design spectrum is a tool more geared toward professionals. In Figma, you can create mockups of social media images along with other design-related tasks.

Whenever we have a project that requires a design that we just can’t achieve in Canva, our graphic designer graciously shares mockups and visual content for us on the Marketing team to review, approve, and share.

Even with a tiny learning curve, I find Figma an intuitive tool for collaboration that allows the entire team to contribute to the design process, regardless of their skill level.

We also use Figma for brainstorming on the Marketing team, using it to visualize our thoughts and contributions during team meetings.

As a remote team, synchronous Zoom calls make up a major part of social media collaboration for us.

Here's something we do a lot: We take screenshots, clips, and chats from our Zoom calls and turn them into social media content. There have been a few gems brought out of these, shared across our social media. Our culture of transparency helps here — we share both the wins and the struggles.

There’s a lot to consider when sharing together as a social media team – whether that be a team of two, 10, or more.

Here are some tips to help you when collaborating as a social media team:

Give everyone the right access (contributors vs. managers)

What tools do you use to work together on social media marketing?

A social media collaboration tool is software that lets several people plan, create, review, and publish posts in one shared workspace. Everyone sees the same drafts, feedback, and schedules, so work moves faster, and nothing gets lost in email threads.

What are the four main types of collaboration tools?

Most teams use a mix of tools to stay organized and work smoothly together. Project management tools help you assign tasks and track progress. Cloud storage tools give everyone access to shared files. Document collaboration tools let you write and edit together in real time. And chat and video tools keep communication quick and easy, whether you’re meeting live or sharing updates async.

How can I pick the right social media collaboration tool for my team?

Can I collaborate with teammates for free in Buffer?

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