The Ultimate Time-Saver: Social Media Scheduling Tools
Managing social media effectively is more than just posting regularly; it involves strategic planning, consistent engagement, and creativity. Enter social media scheduling tools—marketers' best friends. These tools ensure teams stay consistent and efficient, freeing up time to focus on creating new ways to engage with their audience.
Key Features of a Social Media Scheduler
There are numerous social media scheduling tools available online, each offering unique features to streamline your social media management. Here are four key features to look for:
Visual Content Calendar: A visual content calendar is the backbone of any social media scheduling tool. It helps marketers organize and plan posts visually, ensuring a holistic view of the content schedule. This prevents overlapping posts and ensures a consistent posting frequency. Some advanced tools also offer AI-driven suggestions to enhance your content strategy.
Collaboration Tools: Effective collaboration is crucial for a successful social media strategy. The best scheduling tools allow teams to create content together, share feedback, and make edits in real-time. This feature is especially valuable for marketing agencies that need to share posts with clients for approval.
Approval Workflow with Auto-Posting: A customizable approval workflow streamlines the process of getting posts approved by internal teams or clients. Once approved, the tool can automatically publish the content, reducing the need for back-and-forth emails and manual posting.
Platform Integration: A good scheduling tool should support multiple social media platforms, allowing you to post across all channels from one place. Whether you’re focusing on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or exploring newer platforms like TikTok, having comprehensive integration options is essential for growing businesses.
Top Social Media Scheduling Tools
Here are nine of the best social media scheduling tools to consider, catering to various needs and budgets:
Hootsuite: A classic tool for social media scheduling, Hootsuite offers comprehensive features for managing multiple accounts, although it comes with a higher price tag starting at $99/month.
Sprout Social: Ideal for large teams, Sprout Social provides robust features like social listening, in-depth analytics, and extensive platform integration. However, it’s on the pricier side with plans starting at $249/month.
Buffer: Perfect for eCommerce brands, Buffer focuses on content scheduling and offers integrations with platforms like Shopify. Plans start at $6/month per channel.
CoSchedule: Great for small businesses, CoSchedule offers a marketing calendar and simple scheduling tools, with plans starting at $29/month per user.
Later: Best for visual content, Later excels at scheduling for Instagram and Pinterest. It’s free for basic use, with paid plans starting at $18/month.
Planable: Best for collaboration and approval workflows, Planable offers a visual calendar, multi-layered approvals, and AI-driven content suggestions. It’s free for up to 50 posts, with paid plans starting at $11/month.
Zoho Social: Known for its complex analytics, Zoho Social is suitable for businesses and agencies looking for data-driven insights. It offers a free plan and paid options starting at $15/month.
Agorapulse: An affordable all-in-one scheduler, Agorapulse supports multiple platforms and offers features like social inbox and analytics. Paid plans start at $49/month.
Sendible: Best for medium-sized agencies, Sendible offers scheduling, reporting, and content recommendations, with plans starting at $24/month.
Conclusion
Social media scheduling tools are essential for maintaining a consistent and engaging online presence. By choosing the right tool, you can save time, enhance collaboration, and streamline your content strategy. Whether you’re a small business or a large marketing agency, there’s a scheduling tool out there to fit your needs and budget.
Want more than scheduling? Hire a social media manager from the 360 Marketing Team to get the full package for your social media, including content strategy, graphic design, video editing and so much more.
With prices starting from just £500/month, we can boost your social media with our proven strategy.
Contact us today to find out more, email info@360marketing.team.
Read how we helped one recent client see a reach of 100,000 people and over 350,000 views here.
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