Social media marketing is critical for brands looking to build an online presence. However, with so many social media platforms, it can be challenging to post content on time and engage the audience at the same time. This is where a social media scheduling tool can be a real life saver.
Social media platforms have different peak times, and brands that want to engage as many clients post fresh content during this time. Some platforms have peak posting times during business hours, while others have more users engaged during the wee hours of the night.
Creating content and finding the right time to post it can take a toll on a social media manager. Scheduling software have been developed to ease the burden helping marketers post content to all their social media platforms simultaneously.
The tools enable marketers to create content on time and deliver it at the peak times of each social media platform. This post uncovers 15 social media scheduling tools marketers can use.
1. AgoraPulse
It is one of the best social media scheduling tools for driving engagement and connecting with audience on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, and YouTube. Some key features of this software include:
- Comprehensive analytics: AgoraPulse provides similar analytics insight as Facebook but includes additional information regarding fan profiling, posting recommendations, page reviews, ROI analysis, and competitor analysis. As such, marketers get more details on the number of people viewing the business to reach and serve their target audience better
- Publishing: The software not only helps you publish content on social media platforms but also customizes the image, description, heading, and other features to your target audience. With its calendar style screen, you can view all the posts at once whether you have published them or not
- Moderation: With AgoraPulse you can modify the moderation rules on different social media platforms based on users’ comments
2. Sendible
Launching a social media campaign can be a waste of time without monitoring its effect on engagement. Sendible enables marketers to monitor the performance of a campaign using its dynamic reporting system that provides valuable analytic insight regarding a campaign. What’s more, it provides a one-stop-shop for all communication by creating a single dashboard for all your social media requirements. Sendible supports all social media and blogging platforms like Tumblr, WordPress, and Medium.
3. Hootsuite
With so many scheduling tools, marketers want to try the software before subscribing to actual plans. Hootsuite caters to such a market perfectly, by providing a free plan that works across all channels. The plan also offers basic analytics information.
As for scheduling, the free plan limits your posts to 30 at a time to three user-profiles, and you can manage them without logging into the separate accounts. An upgraded plan provides a wealth of features, including Hootlet, a browser extension that helps to schedule replies, retweets, and topic searches.
4. Loomly
This calendar-based tool is a pretty handy scheduling tool for small and medium-sized businesses. It has a widget-focused approach that organizes all the information in an easy-to-read dashboard. What’s more, it has an AI-based algorithm that generates suggestions based on trends, time of the day, and location.
Its collaborative features are also a major bonus. You can set up posts and share with clients or team members for approval. Edits made on the posts are also saved and displayed, which is great for feedback. Loomly also boasts Slack integration, a great feature for workflow automation. The feature enables marketers to modify a post’s format, description, links, and picture based on the social media medium.
5. Sprout Social
The software is a handy tool for small and larger corporations looking to manage their social media platforms. It enables marketers to manage all aspects regarding social media marketing, including publishing, content curation, reporting, scheduling, and analytics. Its range of automation tools is pretty useful for marketers managing social media platforms for a large company.
The Bot Builder, for example, enables you to create social chatbots that respond to direct messages on Facebook Messenger and Twitter. Another handy automation feature is the Sprout Queue for engaging an audience during peak times and ViralPost that analyzes audience engagement to determine the best time to post content.
6. Buffer
In social media marketing, there are two kinds of social media scheduling: curation scheduling and evergreen scheduling. The latter involves re-sharing new or evergreen content to draw the attention of a larger audience.
Marketers often maintain a list of such evergreen content as it is still relevant and provides great value. With Buffer, you can re-share evergreen content as it allows you to determine the exact time to share auto-scheduled posts for each network. What’s more, it comes with an extension for a range of browsers including Safari, Google Chrome, and Firefox, making it easy to use the software.
7. Everypost
The software is suitable for sharing visual content on Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Since its primary focus is on visual content, it enables users to obtain images from the said platforms to curate fresh content.
The tool also helps you schedule the best time to post content as well as publish it on company pages and personal profiles. What’s more, Everypost enables you to optimize content by customizing what to share across multiple social media platforms. For example, you can add photos, hashtags, videos, or mentions to customize the post for each network.
8. CoSchedule
The tool primarily focuses on making marketing teams more efficient by helping them identify relevant posts that can drive user engagement. You can publish and push content on various social media platforms too.
Its Top Content Report is one essential software features as it provides a comprehensive report on user engagement and social shares. Content creators can use such data to identify content that resonates with their readers.
Some messages are more appealing to readers than others. CoSchedule also helps marketers identify such content and repost it automatically. The result is a brand’s feed gets more fresh content.
9. MeetEdgar
A feature that stands out about this social media scheduling tool is its ability to automatically queue as much content as possible. As such, you can create posts for different types of content and use its social media calendar to schedule the time you want to post them.
MeetEdgar also makes reposting evergreen content easy as it recycles updates, so posts don’t go to waste after being published. Re-sharing evergreen content over time attracts more users, and different audiences interact with it without making a lot of searches.
Additionally, you can still publish the posts long after feeding the software with content. You can analyze posts and track clicks too, using Edgar’s URL shortener with in-app click tracking.
10. Later
The software primarily focuses on managing Instagram posts, but you can connect Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter accounts. What makes this tool stand out is its visual content calendar that enables you to drag and drop images for scheduling. It also has a free trial you can use on an Instagram account to connect to shoppable Instagram feeds, blog posts, and websites.
Later has a drag and drop interface that makes it easy to schedule posts. If using the software to manage Instagram accounts, you can upload Stories for manual posting using its mobile application or schedule posts to the feed for automatic posting.
The software provides several options for uploading media. You can upload images directly from a laptop, drag and drop them into the grid or upload them from Google Docs or DropBox.
11. TweetDeck
Are most of your social media scheduling needs restricted to Twitter? TweetDeck is an effective solution. The software helps marketers schedule tweets across several Twitter accounts. The dashboard displays tweets in an account’s Home Feed, Notifications, Mentions, and Activity in real-time.
Marketers can also add columns showing other metrics like Followers, Scheduled Posts, Lists, Columns, and modify scheduled Tweets before publishing them. You may also add GIFs and images to the posts.
12. Promo Republic
With Promo Republic, marketers can curate content for their social media platforms fast. It provides access to more than 6000 professional templates marketers can use to inspire a post. Access to such data makes the design process easier for businesses that don’t have an in-house design team.
Promo Republic also has a built-in image designer that makes editing pre-developed templates easier so you don’t need to use additional software. After curating content, businesses use the software to either post it on social media platforms or schedule it for posting in the future.
Additionally, the software provides essential analytics information that helps marketers determine the success of the post and get insight into the most appealing posts. As such, Promo Republic is suitable for businesses still learning to manage its social media channels from one platform. Marketing teams that want to do more will find these two products from Promo Republic useful:
- Intelligent Ads to enhance social advertising campaigns
- Social Monitoring to help keep track of social mentions and manage brand reputation
13. SocialOomph
It is another social media scheduling tool designed to manage Twitter accounts. The free version enables you to manage up to five Twitter accounts, but with the paid version, you can manage LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr among other accounts.
If Twitter is the primary focus, the free version should help you queue up Twitter posts in advance and set up a schedule for them to go live during peak times. The paid version provides access to additional tools, including keyword searches, to show you the primary users tweeting about a specific topic.
The keyword feature also allows you to add more users to a topic they have been tweeting about and link keywords to their contact lists. The primary benefit of using a paid-for plan is the ability to manage unlimited Twitter accounts from one platform.
Bloggers also find SocialOomph useful as they can link blogs directly to their social media accounts. They can also schedule blog posts the same way as social media posts as long as the blog has a built-in remote publishing API.
14. Tailwind
Looking for software to help you manage your Pinterest account? Tailwind is an excellent option. It has tools to help you schedule posts and monitor the performance of a brand on the platform. This makes it easy to upload images in bulk by dragging and dropping them from the desktop.
It also has a SmartLoop tab on the dashboard for automatically setting up a collection of Pins for posting. Tailwind shares similar features as other scheduling tools as it helps you determine the best time to post updates and maximize engagement.
It has other handy monitoring tools for managing a Pinterest account include pixel-matching, image recognition, performance indicators, and analytics reports. The software is also optimized for mobile use through its iOS app. You can draft and edit posts, re-order a schedule on the move, and queue content.
15. Crowdfire
While the software operates as other social media scheduling tools, one feature that makes it stand out is its ability to manage TikTok; a relatively new platform. Its primary emphasis is on content curation. You only need to suggest topics that interest you, and Crowdfire suggests a range of relatable posts, articles, images, and RSS feeds.
The software also maintains a queue of schedules and content to post during peak times for your audience. You can set the times manually or use Crowdfire to set the best times by network, and by day. Additionally, with its Queue Meter, you can determine the number of posts you need to make for the next week. The tool helps you manage other platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
Whether you have a small business, agency, or a large company social media scheduling tools help save time and optimize content for your audience. If looking for software that provides collaborative features, Sprout Social may be the best tool. However, if looking for an all-round software with an expanding list of compatible networks, Hootsuite is an excellent investment. Crowdfire, TweetDeck, and Tailwind are suitable for marketers looking to manage specific social media platforms.
