Which Social Media Scheduling
Tool is Right For You?
Our 6 Favorite Social Media Scheduling Tools of 2021
Have you ever looked at a brand’s social media and wondered how they post quality content so regularly? While social media is an absolutely integral part of building a strong brand, it can get tedious and overwhelming to manage, especially if you’re committed to posting content regularly. When you put it all together, you’re spending hours writing the copy, creating the graphics, researching hashtags, and posting. It’s a time-consuming process that isn’t going away anytime soon. And if you really want to be successful on social media, you need to be posting consistently and regularly (i.e. at least a few times a week!).
That’s why most brands who have successful social media accounts aren’t actually doing the posting live… they’re using a social media scheduling tool!
Social media scheduling tools are platforms that allow you to upload and schedule your social media posts. Once you do your part, it’ll automatically post at the scheduled time and you can sit back and watch the magic happen. Not only will this streamline your process and save you tons of time, but it will also help you ensure that you’re posting regularly at the optimal times. You might have just been posting on social media when you had a spare minute in the past, but with a social media scheduling tool, you’ll really be able to optimize your accounts and increase your followers.
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The 6 Best Social Media Scheduling Tools
Now let’s get to the good stuff: the tools themselves! When you’re picking a social media scheduling platform, you’re going to have a lot of options to choose from. That’s why we’ve rounded up six of our favorite social media scheduling tools and called out what makes them unique. Hopefully, this will help you choose the platform that works best for your business! In no particular order…
Hootsuite is one of the biggest and best social media tools out there. They call themselves a “Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard,” which is the perfect explanation for everything that they do (and really, when it comes to social media management tools, they do it all). From bulk scheduling posts to monitoring multiple accounts, Hootsuite is great for all of your different needs. They have a free plan as well as a variety of paid options, so they’re suitable for small, medium, and large businesses alike.
Buffer is an easy-to-use social media scheduling platform that is perfect for smaller businesses. We love Buffer because it’s simple — you can do everything from one dashboard, it’s clean and intuitive, and it has an awesome birds-eye view where you can see everything lined up on your calendar. It’s especially great if your main focus is Instagram, because it has additional features for Instagram. Like Hootsuite, Buffer has both paid and free options, so you can try it out and see if it works for you.
Another option that screams “intuitive and clean” is Loomly, a powerful platform that is straightforward to use. Among others, one really cool feature about Loomly is that it has multiple workflows. The workflows are: Draft, Pending Approval, Requires Edits, Approved, Scheduled, and Published. We love this feature because it allows you to collaborate with your team without having to use a different software or tracker. Unlike some of the others, Loomly doesn’t have any free options, so if you’re looking for a free platform, this one isn’t for you. However, you can start with a 15-day free trial, so you’ll still have the option to test it out!
As you can tell by the brand name, ContentCal is a social media and content planning tool where you can schedule posts, collaborate with your team, run analysis, look at reporting, and more. What we love about ContentCal is the robustness of the product — you can pretty much do it all on here, and we find it so helpful to have everything housed in one place. It’s also a pretty easy tool to use, so you can consider it whether you’re a beginner or an expert. While they only have paid plans, there are more affordable options for individuals and smaller businesses as well as more inclusive options for bigger enterprises. You can try this one for free, too, so we suggest you check it out, even if you want a cheaper option!
Sprout Social is another great all-in-one option (we know, there are lots of these…but that just means you have all the choices to find the best one for you!). They provide what they call social media solutions, in the form of a scheduling tool, monitoring, reporting, collaboration opportunities, and more. A unique aspect of Sprout Social is that it has complete customer relationship management features. So, if you’re looking for that separately too, Sprout Social might be the perfect solution. While they don’t have any free plans, you can start with a free trial to test it all out.
Last but not least is Later, the best social media scheduling tool for Instagram. While Later does let you connect to other social media platforms (only Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter), it’s main feature really is Instagram. We wanted to include this one because we know that some brands uniquely focus on Instagram, especially content creators and new businesses. If you’re looking for a place where you can schedule your Instagram posts, see what it all looks like visually, and get tailored insights, this is definitely the platform for you. Later has both free and paid options, so it’s a great choice for individuals and small- to mid-sized businesses.
And that’s all we have for you today! There truly are so many different social media scheduling tools out there and this blog barely scratches the surface. But if you’re just getting started in scheduling your posts and need to find a platform that’s going to work for you, we’re confident that you can find your best fit with one of these six platforms.
What are your favorite social media scheduling tools? Let us know in the comments below!
Happy Evolving!
