What are my top five favorite schedulers for social media? I'm gonna give you the low down. Stay tuned for this article in the end. A question that comes up almost every single day is Rachel, what is the best social media scheduler? Now before we dive into my five favorite scheduling platforms, I'm going to offer to you an alternate theory. Now the schedulers can be great. There are some theories that schedulers decrease engagement and reach. I'm here to tell you that this is not the case. The reason that sometimes scheduled content doesn't perform as well as manually posted content is not because of the platform that you're using. Instead, it's because of the mindset surrounding people who use schedulers. They have a set it and forget it methodology where they just push out content and they don't take the time to check-in and make sure that it's working.
To tweak their strategies, to see what's working and do more of that. See what isn't working and do way less than that. Schedulers work if you put in the work to make sure that your content is awesome, engaging and wonderful. So let's dive into my five favorite platforms for scheduling content.
Social Media Scheduling tools exist to make your social media marketing that much easier, quicker and effective and who wouldn’t want that? So, social scheduling, the process of streamlining your social media efforts to save you countless man-hours. The organization is one of the keys to success in marketing, so it’s no wonder why social management tools are taking off more than ever. Not only does using a social media management tool make your life substantially easier, but it also doesn’t have to break the bank either! There are loads of useful, cost-efficient and even free tools out there to help you accomplish all of your social media goals. Social management platforms really help you to manage multiple social media profiles in one place, schedule posts in advance, allowing you to plan ahead, run contests, track analytics and statistics across platforms the list really does go on. These tools really can be game-changers for your social strategy!
#1. Post Planner
Hands down, this is my favorite platform for scheduling content. It is amazing because it suggests to you all of the different content that's performed on other people's profiles. It gives you great ideas if you can't think of what is going to entertain, engage or educate your audience. I also love post planner because you can manage groups. You can manage multiple pages. You can manage your Twitter and you're able to recycle content. So if you have some cornerstone content that you like to use regularly. Maybe its theme days in a Facebook group, or maybe it's certain blog posts that you want to show up every so often in your content strategy, you're able to do it all with post planner. Hands down, this one gets my favorite platform for scheduling.
#2. ContentCal
Now, ContentCal comes into a close second for my favorite platform because it has some capabilities that post planner simply does not. For example, if you work with a team, or if you have clients who feel the need to review all of your content before you send it out, you have the ability to build in a content calendar and go through an approval process. You can use it internally with your team members so you can quality control all of the work that comes out under your name. Or if your client has a strict approval process, which can be common in financial industries or medical industries, your client can ultimately have the final say so that you aren't liable for anything going out that doesn't make sense with their industry.
#3. Planoly
Now this one's a little bit controversial. Not everybody loves this scheduler platform because it's not a true posting platform. Planoly is an awesome platform for planning out a visually appealing Instagram feed. Now the thing about Planoly is that you can't actually post to Instagram from it which is why this is a controversial pick. Instead, it sends a reminder to your phone and you actually have to manually hit the post. But, the ability to create a cohesive, branded Instagram with a visual planner is so helpful that you're going to fall absolutely in love with Planoly.
#4. Iconosquare
I have to tell you, if Iconosquare was not so darn expensive, this one would have pulled into my number one position. Hands down, it's my favorite with an asterisk because it is really expensive. Iconsquare gives you access to beautiful visual reporting, in-depth insights into your target market, hashtags, your keywords, your content, what is performing and what isn't. It really cuts out a lot of the guesswork and makes reporting super easy with clients. If it were a little more affordable, I would say this is hands down my number one favorite scheduling platform. But for the reason of price alone, it's gonna pull in at number four.
#5. Buffer and Hootsuite
This one is a tie. Simply because of the functionality, the affordability, the versatility of these two platforms. Buffer and Hootsuite come head to head. They have great functionalities, the ability to upload bulk content. Buffer and Hootsuite are two that I don't personally use but are major, major platforms that many social media managers absolutely love. I couldn't choose between these two because I don't have a preference. But, dive on into these two and you'll see that you have two heavy-duty cost-effective scheduling platforms that make your job significantly easier.
Hootsuite As with all these “social media management systems”, Hootsuite allows you to keep track and manage a mix of social media. It’s a great social listening tool, and no, that doesn’t mean it’s listening to you. Instead, it means you can monitor what people are saying about your brand and track specific topics relevant to you. Using Hootsuite means you can respond directly to these bits you’ve spied on without leaving the tool. Social sleuth level: 100 Hootsuite allows you to connect multiple networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, meaning you have one centralized place to smash it. It’s great for delegation too, so if you have multiple people managing your social networks, Hootsuite's the place for you, and its internal messaging features, private messaging and general security means it is fantastic for large businesses. As with most things in life, you’re going to have to cough up if you want to get some higher-end features. But just so you know, Hootsuite's free plan is pretty friendly, giving you the ability to: Manage three social profiles in one place Schedule thirty posts in advance and even track basic analytics such as followers and various growth and content statistics Not too shabby!
Buffer has been on the scene for quite some time now and is probably the one you’ve heard of most from the tools I’m talking about today. It has a few overlapping features to Hootsuite, allowing you to manage multiple social profiles with ease. One of my personal favorite features to Buffer, the ability to schedule content whilst browsing the web with their Chrome extension. It also very cleverly suggests the perfect moment to post based on your follower activity that’s pretty neat. Just like Hootsuite, Buffer's free plan is generous but definitely aimed at slightly smaller businesses, allowing you to: Manage three profiles Schedule up to ten posts at a time Utilise a browser extension Create and schedule content and even shorten and track links Not impressed so far?
#6. Sprout Social
Sprout Social Always save the best for last, right? Not to fanboy too hard, but seriously… Sprout Social represents a solution that meets the needs of big businesses and small brands alike. Sprout’s interface is pretty handsome and the "easy-to-use-ness" of it really sets it apart from the pack. Similar to Hootsuite, it’s an awesome tool for collaborating amongst others in your marketing team giving user-level permissions for added security amongst your accounts. Along with the usual of managing multiple accounts and scheduling multiple posts, Sprout Social allows you to: Use the calendar feature to provide a bird’s eye view of what’s being published and promoted any given day Build trend reports to clue you in on how to grow your following Get suggestions for optimal posting times Build super in-depth analytical reports on various engagement metrics There are so many more awesome features, but I would highly recommend Sprout Social if you’re looking to really learn as you go and have absolutely everything in one centralized location. Not convinced as to how useful these social management tools can be? Well here’s a little fact for you from Sprout Social themselves: The average consumer expects a response to a query through social media in less than four hours. The average brand response is actually ten hours. 10 hours?? 10? The social listening and monitoring tools available in these schedulers mean you can beat that average and aim to satisfy your customers.
After all, isn’t everything about customer service? I hope I’ve managed to prove to you how useful social schedulers can actually be towards your marketing efforts. They save you so much time and some allow you to get a much deeper insight into analytics. It’s a win-win. Let us know what your favorite scheduler or social media tool is and why in the comments below.
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