Top Tier Free and Paid Social Scheduling Tools for Businesses
August 13th, 2019 by
With social media as the major port for business-to-customer (and customer-to-business) interactions, it’s more important now than ever for businesses to ensure their social pages and profiles are relevant, engaging, and most importantly… constantly updated. Inconsistent posting may lead to dedicated customers and followers hopping behind a more active business.
However, with running a business and all the daily to-dos that come with it, remembering to constantly post on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn—the Big 4—can be daunting. This is where social media scheduling tools come into play.
A social scheduling tool is a one-stop-shop for scheduling posts on an array of social media platforms. But a good scheduling tool does more than that; allowing users to manage their social media presence as a whole, schedule posts in advance, and engage with customers. An even better tool will offer users unique features that are hard to find anywhere else.
These social media savvy tools help save time and keep users organized so they can focus on wowing their customers in other ways.
The Top Paid Platforms
Sprout Social
Sprout Social offers users a comprehensive social media management platform, meaning it allows you to post to social media, monitor your profile, and analyze social data gathered from follower-behavior and post-engagement. This tool hits the major social media platforms—Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn—plus Pinterest and Facebook Messenger.
Sprout Social’s unique offering: It has customer relationship management (CRM) capability. So you can message and respond to customers on their respective platforms without leaving Sprout Social through their Smart Inbox feature.
This tool is great for businesses with a team dedicated to running their social media, as it features filters that can turn a Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter message into a task and offers real-time updates of which team member is working on any specific task.
All of this comes at a pretty hefty starting price of $99, making it one of the more expensive social media scheduling tools.
PromoRepublic
PromoRepublic allows users to post to several social media accounts all at once. Post to one or all of the Big 4 and then use this tool’s post-performance capability to learn how your content is doing while it’s in front of your customers.
Fresh out of new and creative post ideas? Que PromoRepublic’s special feature! This tool offers users an idea library with over 6000 post templates. It also boasts an entire calendar dedicated to current trends, unique holidays (i.e. National Cat Month), history facts, sports events, and celebrity birthdays.
PromoRepublic’s packages start at $9 a month.
CoSchedule
CoSchedule is great for businesses that value hyper-organization, as this tool allows users to map out an entire social campaign in a timeline view. With drag and drop capabilities, CoSchedule makes scheduling for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn simple and quick.
Use this tool’s Best Time Scheduling to schedule posts during peak traffic times for individual social platforms and create custom content promotion templates to reuse whenever new content is on the horizon.
CoSchedule’s unique gift? It is way more than a social media scheduling tool. It works as a content organizer as well; it even has a WordPress plugin.
This software’s starting price is $100 per month.
The Top Free Platforms
Buffer
Buffer has something for teams of all sizes—whether you’re a business, an agency, or an individual.
Users can create custom post templates for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter or create fresh, new posts every time. It also gives a calendar view of all scheduled content.
This interface has collaborative features, like the ability to assign specific social conversations to a specific person and to leave notes on particular conversations for later review. It even empowers teams to stay super organized with folders, keyboard shortcuts, and saved replies for FAQs.
Aside from the future-publishing and analytical capabilities, Buffer allows users to see everything in one dashboard. This tool’s unique feature is that users can view scheduled content from all platforms on one screen. It also allows users to view Facebook and Instagram analytics on one screen.
One user can manage three social accounts absolutely free.
Hootsuite
Not only is Hootsuite posting on the Big 4, but it’s also allowing businesses to reach customers on YouTube, Pinterest, and many more. This tool’s wide range of social media compatibility may be connected with a wide range of users. Millions of people use Hootsuite, including a slew of Fortune 1000 companies.
It has all the bells and whistles of other social media scheduling tools, but it really shines when it comes to analytics. Hootsuite pulls from over 200 factors to determine how well your content is performing.
While Hootsuite offers paid plans, users can start slow with the free plan, which allows one user to manage three social media profiles.
Later
Much like the Internet, Later favors and focuses on visuals. While it’s geared towards Instagram, this tool allows post scheduling for other photo-loving platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest as well.
Users can schedule posts with photos or videos to compatible platforms while simultaneously altering each caption based on the platform it’s headed. Later also makes it easy to post during business-specific high engagement times by monitoring when a business’s followers are online.
Later’s unique trick? It has a visual drag and drop feature to easily schedule image-posts.
With so many tools to choose from, you may need some help deciding which platform is best for your business. Search Influence can get you started with a strategy consultation. Contact our team today.
Images
