With 4 billion people using social media, you can’t afford to ignore it. But with so many different platforms and inconsistent engagement trends across them, managing your account becomes a herculean task! You need to be social media savvy or risk falling behind.
Almost every social media platform offers built-in scheduling tools. But what if you want more features? What if you’re going to schedule posts for multiple platforms at once? Or bulk upload images?
Thankfully, there are a variety of both free and paid social media scheduling tools out there to meet your needs.
This post is designed to walk you through the basics of some of the most popular options. So, whether you’re an intern looking to consolidate your workload or a small business owner wanting to save time, read on to find the best tool.
What is a Social Media Scheduling Tool?
By allowing users to pre-schedule their posts, social networking scheduling tools help social media marketers/ managers manage social media accounts and save time against guessing when to post, and help ensure that content is released regularly.
In addition, most scheduling tools offer a range of features, such as tracking engagement and analyzing analytics, that can help users fine-tune their social media strategy.
To save time and streamline your social media efforts, a scheduling tool may be just what you need.
How Do Social Media Scheduling Tools Help?
Social network scheduling tools help users save time and maximize efficiency when posting content online.
These tools can help take the guesswork out of when and how often to post. In addition, These tools can help ensure that content is posted consistently, even when users are away from their computers or phones.
As a result, these tools can be an invaluable asset for businesses and individuals who want to make the most of their social media presence.
Here are a few ways social media scheduling tools help your business.
1. Automatically post at the best times:
With a scheduling tool, you can automatically post your content at the best times for engagement. This means you don’t have to be online all the time to ensure your content is being seen.
2. Get more done in less time:
Scheduling tools help you get more content published in less time. This is because you can batch-create content and schedule it all at once. This is a great time saver, especially if you have much content to publish.
3. Free up time for other tasks:
By scheduling your content, you free up time to do other tasks. This could be engagement tasks such as responding to comments and messages. Or, it could be other marketing tasks such as working on your website or creating new products.
4. Consistency is key:
Scheduling tools help you maintain a consistent posting schedule. This is important because it enables you to build a following and keep people engaged. If you’re inconsistent with your posting, people will quickly lose interest.
5. Schedule evergreen content:
Evergreen content is always relevant and doesn’t go out of date. With a scheduling tool, you can schedule evergreen content in advance, so it’s continuously being published even when you’re not around.
6. Reach a wider audience:
By scheduling your content, you can reach people in different time zones. You can schedule your content to be published at other times, depending on where your audience is located.
7. Take a break:
Scheduling tools allow you to take a break from social media. This is because you can schedule your content in advance and then take some time off. This is especially helpful if you need a break but don’t want to stop publishing content.
8. Help you find content to share:
A big part of social media is sharing content. This helps build relationships and get your name out there. But it can be time-consuming to find good content to share. A social media post planner can help you find and automatically share content.
9. Track your analytics:
It’s essential to track your analytics so that you know what’s working and what isn’t. A scheduling tool can help you by monitoring your analytics and giving you reports. This way, you can see what’s working and adjust your strategy accordingly.
10. Manage multiple accounts:
Managing multiple social media accounts is difficult. Apps to schedule posts can help by managing all of your accounts for you. This way, you can focus on other tasks and know that your accounts are being taken care of.
11. Give you insights into what’s working well:
Scheduling tools can give you insights into what content is performing well and what isn’t. This way, you can adjust your strategy accordingly and ensure you’re always putting out your best content.
12. Collaborate with others:
A social media posting tool can help you by allowing you to share content and collaborate with others.
Best Social Media Scheduling Tools
Brandwatch
Brandwatch is a monitoring and analytics platform that enables users to track online conversations, analyze sentiment, and measure brand reputation on social media.
The platform offers a suite of tools for managing social media accounts, scheduling posts, filtering content, and analyzing data. It also provides insights into trending topics and emerging trends. Brandwatch is used by businesses of all sizes to monitor their brand reputation and social media presence.
Brandwatch’s Essential plan is designed for single users and small teams who want a content calendar and campaign planner with advanced analytics.
The Full Suite adds social media advertising options in addition to competitor benchmarking features when taken all together, which makes it more than just an Engagement Software company. It rather offers solutions that cater to marketers’ needs at every stage.
With its structured features, Brandwatch helps you listen and engage with your audience while measuring their appetite for content on various platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and YouTube to make sure that what they’re interested in doesn’t just disappear but rather finds its way into other channels where it can have greater impact.
Best For – Medium-sized to enterprise companies
Pros
- The ability to monitor multiple social media platforms simultaneously
- A user-friendly interface that makes it easy to find and analyze data
- Detailed reporting features that provide insights into online conversations
Cons
- The cost of the tool can be prohibitive for some businesses
- It can be difficult to use the tool if you’re not familiar with social media monitoring.
- Some reporting metrics are missing.
Pricing: $108
Buffer
Buffer enables users to publish and schedule content across multiple social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Users get analytics tools to help them track the performance of their posts and optimize their social media strategy. The tool enables users to create content in advance and then schedule it to be published later.
Buffer has a range of features to help users customize their posts, such as the ability to add images, videos, and links. In addition, users can also use Buffer’s “Power Scheduler” to automatically publish new content at specific times and days of the week.
The freemium model of this social media tool allows anyone to try their services for free before deciding whether they want a paid plan. This gives new users ample opportunities to see if automation is the right fit based on what’s available in the package while still allowing more experienced ones access with higher limits or via subscription fees.
It also provides ample opportunity for beginners to learn whether or not they want the service–and, if so, how much value there is from using such a platform as part of their marketing strategy.
With Buffer’s seamless integration with WordPress and Chrome, you can schedule social media posts from your smartphone! No need to ever miss an update again.
Best For – Medium-sized to enterprise companies
Pros
- Buffer offers a simple user experience that allows users to browse the site.
- With their customized posts function, this social posting tool allows you to modify your posts for each social site.
- If you have any problems, customer service will respond immediately.
Cons
- Buffer lacks critical functionality, such as a Content Curation ability for discovering new and popular content.
- Buffer offers its own solutions, such as Buffer Reply and Buffer Analyze, which need a fee to manage your social discussions and social media analytics in addition to Buffer Publish.
Pricing: Free to $120 depending on the package
Hootsuite
With Hootsuite, businesses can better monitor social media conversations, track brand mentions and keywords, and get real-time insights into how their social media campaigns are performing. This helps companies create more meaningful connections with their customers and foster trust and loyalty.
Hootsuite also offers powerful tools to help businesses automate their social media publishing. This includes features like post-scheduling, multi-account management, and conversion tracking. Automating these tasks frees enterprises to focus on more important things, like creating great content and engaging with their customers.
It’s extremely versatile. It is a great asset for businesses of all sizes, from small businesses to enterprise organizations. And it’s also suitable for a wide range of industries, including e-commerce, healthcare, education, and more.
Finally, Hootsuite is a great tool for businesses that want to get more out of their social media marketing. Through its powerful features and integrations, Hootsuite allows businesses to create truly exceptional digital experiences for their customers.
Best For – Medium-sized to enterprise companies
Pros
- Its “social streams” function allows you to communicate with your audience and monitor your social accounts directly from the Hootsuite dashboard.
- Hootsuite provides social media analytics for your account.
- Through Hootsuite’s app directory, users may connect to over 150 apps.
- You may browse and select applications that will improve your collaboration.
Cons
- This social network publishing tool is far too expensive.
- It is also tough for novice customers to handle their complex dashboards.
- Extra feature, such as access to particular social media account metrics, customizable reports, and URL shorteners other than owl.ly, requires a fee.
- Customer service is slow. Furthermore, you will be charged extra for expedited support.
Pricing: $49 / month
Social Pilot
With features like customization, monitoring and reporting, white-label reports, and more, it’s easy to see why Social Pilot is a popular choice for social media management. And with the bulk scheduling and content curation features, you can easily keep your content strategy on track.
You can create customized posts for each individual social platform. This ensures that your content is relevant and engaging for your audience. With Social Pilot’s powerful analytics, you can track your social media performance and see what’s working well and what needs improvement. You can also monitor your competition to see how you stack up.
Social Pilot makes it easy to generate white-label reports so you can show your clients exactly what you’ve been doing for them. Its social inbox feature allows you to quickly and easily engage with your audience. You can see all of your mentions in one place, so you never miss a beat.
The collaboration features make it easy to keep everyone on the same page and moving forward. If you have more than one client, Social Pilot makes it easy to manage all of their accounts from one central location.
Social Pilot makes it easy to manage your ad campaigns and boosted posts. You can track your results and make changes as needed to ensure your campaigns are successful. Along with that, the content curation feature provides you with new content suggestions so you can keep your feed fresh and engaging.
The RSS feed automation makes it easy to keep your followers up to date on your latest content, and the bulk scheduling feature allows you to upload 500 posts at once. This makes it easy to get ahead of your social media marketing to focus on other things.
Social Pilot’s social media calendar helps you keep on track and ensure you’re posting the right content at the right time. With the URL shortener feature, you can create shorter links that are more likely to be clicked on.
Best For – Small businesses- Medium-sized to enterprise companies
Pros
- Social Pilot has a lot of features that can help you save time and be more productive with your social media marketing.
- The platform is very user-friendly and easy to navigate.
- Social Pilot offers great customer support.
Cons
- Some users have reported issues with the platform’s scheduling feature
Pricing: $30 – $150
Coschedule
Coschedule is designed to help you publish and optimize your content, schedule social media posts, and track your content’s performance across all your social media channels.
With Coschedule, you can simply drag and drop projects in the calendar.
Creating, scheduling, and publishing social campaigns has never been easier. Plus, you can analyze the results with social reports. And if you need to add interns, coworkers, or other contributors to your marketing calendar, Coschedule makes it easy to assign tasks and priorities.
For repetitive or recurring tasks, Coschedule can automatically assign them so you can focus on what matters most. Plus, you can quickly duplicate any existing project to add new ones to your calendar.
These tools let you see how many people engage with your content, what kind of response it’s getting, and where it’s being shared. Coschedule is an essential tool for any business that wants to succeed in social media marketing.
Best For – Medium-sized to enterprise companies
Pros
- If you don’t publish on social media on time, it will automatically fill in the gaps with your best posts.
- CoSchedule includes a Kanban Project dashboard that shows you what your team is working on and how far along they are at each step.
- Workflows can be assigned statuses based on how your team operates.
Cons
- It lacks enterprise-level functionality, such as social listening and monitoring.
- CoSchedule lacks numerous connections and collaborations with other applications, making it inefficient when working with a team and optimizing operations.
- The ReQueue tool is useful, but it has certain restrictions. It allows you to queue your posts just twice.
Pricing: Free – $29
Later
Later is ideal for businesses that rely significantly on visual material, such as images and videos. You may quickly construct a visually appealing feed that will pique your audience’s interest.
Later’s Quick Schedule tool allows you to drag & drop posts into your schedule. You can easily drag and drop media assets onto your calendar once you’ve set up a weekly time slot for posting content. Media material is automatically added to your next time frame.
When you utilize Later, you may publish to different social networks, although Instagram is the most popular. Unlike many other applications for publishing and scheduling on social media, Later posts begin with pictures rather than words. After you’ve uploaded the photo to Later, you’ll need to write a caption for it.
Because of Instagram’s new API, it may be difficult to set up Later to publish directly to Instagram at first. Changing your Instagram account to a Business or Creator account makes the procedure considerably easier.
Later is centered on the Media Library. You may add photographs to your Media Library when you create a post. Later saves any designs or images for future use. If you want to call attention to a particular image, you may add a star to it.
If you pay for a Later plan, you may publish and share videos. It’s easy to upload Stories and create new ones using Later.
You may manage Instagram comments directly in Later by using the Conversations feature.
Best For – Medium-sized to enterprise companies
Pros
- Ease of scheduling posts, rearranging, and timing items for the feed and stories.
- Later has a feature called Linkin.bio that sends traffic from Instagram to a website.
- When you schedule social media posts, you can create hashtags and tags.
Cons
- Some users have reported issues with the platform’s scheduling feature.
- It doesn’t let you save some publications as drafts.
- It can be frustrating to lose published information because of system errors or web problems.
Pricing: $15 – $80
Tweetdeck
TweetDeck would be a great choice, given that it is free and that Twitter is your primary social media scheduling need. You may use it to schedule tweets across a variety of Twitter accounts. It is currently part of Twitter.
Using its comprehensive dashboard, you may browse tweets in an account’s Home feed, Notifications, Messages, Activity, and Mentions.
Real-time updates are made to these. Lists, collections, likes, followers, scheduled posts, and other features may have columns.
Before it is published, a planned Tweet can be changed. Additionally, it’s simple to add images and GIFs to your messages.
Best For – Small to Medium-sized to enterprise companies
Pros
- Tweetdeck offers a more robust and customizable interface.
- You can add multiple accounts, create custom columns, and manage your timeline more effectively.
- Tweetdeck is more reliable than other clients and rarely crashes or experiences downtime.
Cons
- Keeping track of all the different columns and streams can be challenging if you’re following many people or topics.
- It’s focused on Twitter. It doesn’t offer as much integration with other platforms like Facebook or Instagram.
Pricing: Free
Crowdfire
With the Crowdfire Social media scheduling app, you can automatically discover new content to share and easily customize your posts for all your social profiles.
TikTok uploading is now supported by Crowdfire, which bills itself as the first social media management program to do so. Every major social network may be used with Crowdfire, a wide range of blogging platforms, online stores, and video sites like YouTube and Twitch.
Content curation is a primary focus. When you tell Crowdfire what subjects interest you, it proposes a wide selection of articles, photographs, postings (yours, including your YouTube videos), and RSS feeds that you may find interesting or useful. Sharing these or alerting Crowdfire’s AI that you aren’t interested in a certain content source is a simple way to help Crowdfire.
Crowdfire maintains a queue of material and distributes your postings according to the best periods for your audience. If you wish, you may set these times yourself. Crowdfire allows you to set your best times manually, network-by-network, and day to day. Keep track of how many posts you still have to make in the next week, you use a Queue Meter.
Higher subscriptions provide additional advanced analytics, such as Mentions (social listening) and competition research, as well as the ability to construct bespoke reports based on your criteria.
Best For Small- Medium-sized to enterprise companies
Pros
- Easy to use.
- It makes scheduling social media posts effortless.
- You can leave written posts or download fun or relevant images or memes.
- There is a free trial to allow newcomers to see if this software is a good fit for them before committing to it.
- You can use it on Android, but it is also available for iPhone.
Cons
- The overlay for the Chrome extension requires at least three clicks to choose a social network and then choose a time to post.
- There’s no queue in the free tier as in every other tool.
- There’s no preview of what will post in the extension overlay, so whether or not the extension succeeded in grabbing an image can only be confirmed after the post was shared.
Pricing: Free – $99.99
SocialOomph
Socialoomph has excellent scheduling and queueing features, but its user interface is less user-friendly than many of its rivals. This application might be quite helpful for social media marketers with above-average computing and programming skills.
It could be difficult to link your Socialoomph accounts to those on LinkedIn and Facebook. Therefore, you’ll need to create a Facebook (or LinkedIn) application and get it authorized by the development staff of each social network. Like many other social schedule organizers available, connecting to Twitter is simple and automatic.
Instagram is noticeably absent from Socialoomph’s list of sites for scheduling. However, you can use it to plan content on several less popular channels, including Reddit, Pinterest, Shopify, Mastodon, and StockTwits.
You can also schedule and plan social media posts on Shopify, Tumblr, WordPress.com, and WordPress.org blogs. You can even use webhooks to automate posting to your blog and social media publishing platform.
You can manage many social media accounts for clients from a single account, but you may separate the accounts if you’d like. Ensuring that the proper team members have access to each social media account is simple.
For Socialoomph, queues are a fantastic tool. Every social media account may have an automatically populated queue.
Best For – Social media marketers with above-average computer skills.
Pros
- Plenty of integrations
- The lifetime of the account for free
- Competitive features for post-scheduling and publishing and more.
- The bulk content scheduling feature
Cons
- Fast billing cycle every 2 weeks
- Lack of detailed reporting features for some platforms
Pricing: Free to $594
Post planner
Marketing professionals may manage social media campaigns with Post Planner, an online and mobile software that integrates seamlessly with Facebook and Twitter. The software is also useful for other social networking sites, including Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
The simplicity of Post Planner is one of its benefits. Five objectives are intended to be achieved by its features: connect, curate, write, schedule, and analyze.
You may integrate all of your social media accounts with Post Planner to create one tool. This implies that with this app, all information and content for all profiles is available. You may use its curating tool to look for content trends and other insights across 2.5 million Reddit subreddits, 200 million Twitter profiles, and over 60 million Facebook pages. You may alter and produce a single stream of material using the opinions of your chosen rivals or industry insiders.
Post Planner also offers streamlined composing, reviewing, scheduling, and publishing options to simplify content management. You choose and create the pictures, movies, GIFs, status updates, and links you wish to share. With this software, a month’s worth of social media material may be produced in a couple of hours.
Post Planner provides a function that automatically converts time so that your posts appear at the same time, no matter where in the globe your audience is located. Therefore, regardless of time zone, all of your 11:00 AM entries will be posted at that time.
Last but not least, Post Planner offers a dashboard where you can create analytics reports and monitor how well particular posts are performing according to your defined KPIs.
Best For Social media marketers with above-average computer skills.
Pros
- Easy to use
- Tons of features for content creation all in one app.
- It has Helpful videos.
- Advanced scheduled posting and recycling and re-post options.
Cons
- There is some learning curve when setting up your schedule and maintaining your queue.
Pricing: $6 – $79
Free Social Media Scheduling Tools Provided By Social Media Platforms
Popular social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all offer their own Social media scheduling platforms to help users post content at the optimal time. Here is a list of some of the most popular ones:
Facebook: Facebook’s scheduling tool is called “Creative Hub.” Creative Hub allows you to create, edit, and schedule your posts from a single platform. The main benefit of using Creative Hub is that it makes it easy to manage your content calendar and ensure that your posts are published at the best time for maximum engagement.
Twitter: Twitter’s scheduling tool TweetDeck allows you to manage multiple Twitter accounts from one platform and schedule tweets in advance. You can bulk schedule tweets, so you don’t have to do it manually every time.
Instagram: Instagram’s Planoly allows you to plan, schedule visually, and publish your posts from a single platform. The main benefit of using Planoly is that it helps you better understand how your feed will look before you post anything, so you can make sure everything is cohesive and aesthetically pleasing. “Instagram Scheduler” also allows users to plan and publish posts and track results.
Similarly, Tiktok and YouTube have their Creator Studio that helps users manage their accounts, create and edit videos, and track results.
There are many other social media scheduling tools available, but these are just a few of the most popular ones offered by the major platforms. If you’re looking to save time and get the most out of your social media presence, consider using one of these tools to help you schedule and publish your content.
Conclusion
Whether you’re a social media novice or an experienced pro, there’s no doubt that the best social media scheduler can save you time and hassle. Not only will you be able to spend more time engaging with your audience, but your posts will look more polished and professional.
Are there any other social network scheduling tools that you love?
FAQS
What are social media scheduling tools?
These scheduling tools allow users to automate the process of posting content to social media networks.
What are the benefits of using social network scheduling tools?
Social network scheduling tools offer many benefits, including:
- Allowing users to schedule posts in advance means they can remain active on social media even when they cannot post in real time.
- Helping users to better measure and analyze the performance of their social media content by providing insights and analytics.
- Enabling users to manage multiple social media accounts from one central platform.
What features should you look for in a social media scheduling tool?
When choosing a social media scheduling tool, you should look for a platform that offers the following features:
- The ability to post to multiple social media accounts from one central platform.
- A user-friendly interface that is easy to navigate.
- Insights and analytics to help you measure the performance of your content.
- The ability to schedule posts in advance.
How much do social media scheduling tools cost?
Social network scheduling tools vary in price, with some platforms offering free plans and others needing users to pay a monthly subscription fee.
Which social media scheduling tool is right for me?
The best Social media scheduler for you will depend on your specific needs and requirements.
- The number of social media accounts you need to manage.
- The frequency with which you post content to social media.
- The types of features and insights you require.
- Your budget.
How do I get started using a social media scheduling tool?
Getting started with a social media scheduling tool is typically very straightforward. Most platforms offer easy-to-follow instructions that will walk you through setting up your account and connecting your social media profiles.
What are some common mistakes people make when using social media scheduling tools?
Some common mistakes people make when using these scheduling tools include:
- Not taking advantage of all the features and insights the platform has to offer.
- Posting too much content can lead to followers becoming overwhelmed or tuning out your posts altogether.
- Not scheduling enough variety into your content calendar can make your social media presence stale.
How often should I post to social media?
There is no magic number regarding how often you should be posting to social media. However, it’s generally advisable to post 1-2 times per day on each platform you’re active on.
What are some best practices for using social media scheduling tools?
Some best practices for using social network scheduling tools include:
- Create a social media content calendar to help you plan and schedule your posts in advance.
- Mixing up the types of content you post, including images, videos, articles, and blog posts.
- Keep an eye on your analytics to see which types of content perform the best and adjust your strategy accordingly.
- Posting at different times throughout the day to reach a wider audience.
Do I need to use social media scheduling tools?
The answer depends on the size and goals of your business. You may not need to use social network scheduling tools if you have a small business with limited resources.
However, if you have a large company with multiple goals for your social media presence, you may find that scheduling tools are a valuable asset.
Social network scheduling tools can help you save time by allowing you to bulk schedule content, measure the success of your posts, and more.