Save Time With These Social Media Scheduling Apps

Social media can be a powerful tool for marketing your business. Whether you choose to utilize free features, spend on it or use a combination of both as many businesses do, when your marketing strategy is just right, you are sure to enjoy fruitful efforts. Social media engagement levels are at an all-time high, and in order to keep up, the use of social media scheduling tools can be instrumental to improving efficiency, get you better engagement with your audience, and potentially improve sales.

If you choose to go with a Social Media Scheduling app, which one should you use? We’ve done the research for you and have found that these 5 are the most recommended across the board.

1. Hootsuite is perhaps one of the oldest and most time-tested Social Media scheduler in existence. Hootsuite’s interface is quite straightforward and easy to maneuver, for the most part, the more accounts you have, the more confusing it can get though so keep that in mind. It integrates several platforms and you can plus-in up to three of your accounts with the free version. Hootsuite also offers the most affordable plans. Hootsuite is great if you simply want all your social media platforms in one place but still want to be hands-on with your interactions because they stream your feeds on real-time. Hootsuite offers several packages and you can pick one that fits your business’ specific needs.
2. Buffer is preferred by many businesses because of its wholesome and simple layout. Buffer also offer a free image creation tool called Pablo. Unlike Hootsuite that only supports their own link shortener, buffer supports several different ones. It should be noted however that Buffer does not allow for as much interaction compared to other scheduling apps and it does not support Instagram beyond notifications.
3. Agora Pulse is an affordable social media management tool best suited for agencies and teams. They offer several plans at different price points, each option with varying numbers for social profiles that can be integrated in their system and the number of users. There are also differences relating to data retention and ad comment monitoring. You can centrally post to all of your social accounts, with a queue or schedule ensuring your content is delivered at the best times. It allows you to re-queue or reschedule evergreen posts. You can also tweak each post to take advantage of features specific to each social network. A few Unique features AgoraPulse offers are things like competitor analysis reports and Facebook contest apps.
4. Meet Edgar makes use of a fresh and creative approach to Social Media posting and interaction. All you need to do is create a content library using specific or varied categories and add your time slots to them. MeetEdgar will automatically fill up those time slots with the content in your library. A team of 3-5 users can log-in simultaneously to your account. If you run out of content, MeetEdgar automatically reposts your content stored in the library. The queue will auto-populate and preview your ready-to-go posts. Edgar recycles your posts intelligently by pulling out the next lineup so you won’t publish the same post consecutively. One thing to take not of is that MeetEdgar can be a little pricier than other options, but given the convenience and features, it might be well worth the price, depending on your needs.
5. Sprout Social is great because of the ability to organize and separate activities such as messages, reports, publishing feeds, tasks etc. This allows you to check on each item separately and zoom in on what you need to focus on. It has a Smart Inbox which is a single unified stream for messages across social media accounts. Sprout Social also supports a great reporting system that connects to Google Analytics with no extra charge. Take note however that integration is minimal and Sprout Social can be pricey compared to others.

There are many, many other Social Media Scheduling Apps available in the market and if these ones we have shared with you do not seem to fit your needs, then doing a little more research will give you a multitude of options. Just be sure to keep these in mind:

• Price: Each Social Media scheduling app will provide different features and offer multiple unique facets that may be extremely useful to you and your business. Some tools will be exactly what you need to boost your Social Media marketing while others may sound awesome but in the end, are not exactly useful for you. If you are struggling to decide, jump on free-trial offers and take the app for a test drive. Make sure that you aren’t spending money for features that are not going to be useful for your business goals.
• Supported Platforms: Determine which of your Social Media accounts would benefit from being handled through a scheduling app, after you pinpoint those, look for an app that supports them all. Some apps will not support certain platforms so decide if the app of your choice will suffice. Perhaps you’ll have to go with one that supports a majority of your accounts and be okay with tackling the non-supported platforms manually.
• Customer Support: Be sure to find a scheduling app that you feel will provide the kind of support and customer service that you need. When looking for the right social media management tool, after sales support must be included in the account plan you choose because you’ll need it when issues with the tool arise.
• Business Support: No matter what tool you choose, it won’t make a difference if you are not able to manage and continuously use your Social Media scheduling app. While it will definitely make it easier to manage your social media accounts, it will still take time and consistent updates to be effective.

Social Media scheduling apps can be an impactful tool for your business marketing. When you find the best one to suite your needs, create a system and process to utilize it and find the right person to execute it, there is no doubt that your scheduling app will bring long term benefits that will boost your business. If you need help optimizing your website and growing your business, schedule a free consultation now & learn now Agency Digital Marketing can help!