Scheduling apps allow influencers and businesses to continually show their customers and followers they are online, active, and engaging by posting across different social platforms simultaneously. If you want to adopt this strategy, you can set up an app for yourself.
When you schedule content, you are also scheduling success. Aside from helping you queue near-future posts, social media scheduling tools help you become more efficient by allowing you to have more time to monitor all your social media accounts.
With your new-found time, you can develop new ideas or content, plan for the future, focus on other tasks, and more.
I researched several social media scheduling tools and have highlighted the 5 best in this article to help you select the right one for your needs, whether you run a small business or a booming enterprise. You’ll soon understand why marketing agencies love to use social media scheduling tools. Let’s get started.
Top Social Media Scheduling Apps
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Hootsuite
Hootsuite has been in social media marketing since 2008 and is now one of the best social media scheduling tools. As a social media management tool, it can manage multiple accounts and content across social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Pinterest. It has over 16 million users worldwide, including prominent companies and organizations such as Facebook, HBO, The Gap, and even the Obama administration.
As a social media scheduling tool, it is best known for its pioneering dashboard style adopted by many social media scheduling tools. The Hootsuite dashboard shows activities from all your social channels in one place by separating them into different columns and fitting them in that single central location.
It is easy to navigate and very customizable such that you can filter or set what activities you want to see on each of your social media accounts. You can monitor engagements, schedule social media posts, publish content, access free integrations, and have live chat support – all in your dashboard.
If Hootsuite fails to upload your content at the scheduled time, it will send you a notification email so you can retry. Apart from the dashboard, you can get top-notch analytics and reports, although the most detailed of them are only accessible through premium plans.
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SocialPilot
If you’re looking for a Hootsuite alternative that is more than a social media scheduling platform, there are many great choices, including SocialPilot.
As one of the cheapest social media scheduling tools, SocialPilot allows you to comment on Instagram, put tags for more engagement, reply to comments, and more, thus allowing you to connect in real time with your followers or potential customers.
You can also use collaboration features and app integrations for a more seamless workflow across all your social media accounts with your team or company. They also have analytics and reports for you to monitor and analyze your social media performance.
SocialPilot is more known for its content marketing features and social media publishing tools. From the dashboard, you can boost posts, create custom fields, reply and engage with followers through the messages, and publish your post according to your targeted audience.
They have a browser extension that lets you share an article or image without exiting the page itself to immediately post or schedule the post. They also have a social media calendar that allows you to see the social media posting schedule and bulk schedule up to 500 posts.
The platform also has a content curation feature which helps suggest new content you can use for your post and is great for social media content creation. You can avoid being overwhelmed by filtering the content calendar using social accounts and groups if you have multiple social media accounts. This is great for visualizing content across all your social media platforms in the long run.
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SocialBee
Despite its low prices, SocialBee does not compromise quality or performance as a social media scheduling platform. You can manage and share content across multiple social media accounts with their web-based app.
SocialBee also makes scheduling posts easy; you can schedule multiple posts to be published at different times depending on the category you set them with their social media calendar. You can also set expiration dates for posts with a specific date or after they reach a specific number of shares.
One of SocialBee’s best features for small businesses is its post editor. It is integrated with Canva so you can create engaging visual content like professionals. It can also generate hashtag suggestions for you based on your content and post collections. Combined with its social media scheduling tool, the Canva app integration makes SocialBee a great content calendar for increasing social media presence.
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Loomly
Loomly doesn’t call itself a “social media scheduler tool” but rather a “brand success platform” for a reason. It can be used by remote teams, agencies, freelancers, marketing teams, cross-functional teams, companies, and local businesses.
Its social media post-scheduling feature is jam-packed with other amazing features. One is live optimization, which allows you to customize a post in the social media calendar according to the social network where it will be posted or the targeted audience.
You can also preview what a post would look like through their mock-up feature. Scheduling and curating content is also easy with their media library, which holds photos, videos, notes, links, and post templates you’ve used.
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Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a social media management platform used by world-class brands and organizations such as UNICEF, Purdue University, Shopify, and more. This shows its features are extraordinarily useful and cost-effective, especially for social media managers.
As a social media scheduling app, its content calendar is not just a calendar showing scheduled posts but also a social media marketing or campaign planner. With Sprout Social, you can plan, schedule, edit and post directly from the content calendar to all your social media channels.
They also have a shared content library where you can store assets and social media post templates for consistent branding. Their scheduling tool can also track performance such as brand mentions and monitor your competitors. It is also packed with other social media tools such as in-depth social analytics, social listening, social sharing, and more.
What to Look for in a Social Media Management Tool
Each business is unique and may have different priorities from other businesses aside from social media scheduling tools. This is why it’s important to look into different factors and considerations when choosing the right social media management tool or a specific payment plan for your business to ensure cost-effectiveness.
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Social media posts
The point of having a social media management tool is to have a convenient, seamless social media workflow across all your social channels. Therefore, you must check whether the app you want to use connects with the social networking sites or platforms you want to use for your business.
For example, a few social media management tools don’t have TikTok, VK, or LinkedIn integrated into their system. Others don’t have a social media inbox that gathers messages, mentions, tags, or comments from different social media platforms.
You also have to check if they can manage all your accounts so that you do not have to log in and log out all the time, especially if you’re handling many clients. If the app you’re looking at does not connect with the main social media platform you are using or can’t allow multiple accounts, it’s best to look for an alternative.
Next, you must consider what kind of workflow you plan to have. Will you be posting and monitoring only, or do you want to be able to do more such as edit the post, reply in the comments or messages and engage with your followers? Most social media management tools have limited features depending on the payment plan, so it’s also best to consider this goal.
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App Integrations
No social media management platform is an island. Most social media management tools integrate third-party apps for storage, creating content, and more to accommodate business needs, make social media publishing flawless, and blend well in major social media platforms.
Therefore, you must check if the management tool has the app you rely on or want to use, depending on the content you plan to post. For example, if you use Canva to create visual content, you must check if the social media management app is integrated with Canva to use it efficiently.
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Price
Whether you’re a single user, a small business owner, or a big brand, the price of social media management tools matters because you have to consider the return on investment. Getting multiple quotes from different social media management tools is always a good idea to know whether you can afford it or if it will be a great investment for your business.
Finding an affordable social media scheduler might be difficult, but it’s not impossible. If you’re not ready to commit, many social media management tools offer free trials for a specific period, so you can try them in the meantime before finally deciding which one to choose.
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Social media scheduling tool
As mentioned earlier, scheduling social media posts is a great way to run an efficient business. You can schedule posts to be published in advance or make time-sensitive posts so that you can focus on content creation or other tasks. You can even engage with followers as if you were online at the posting time.
Aside from scheduling content, a social media scheduling tool should also be able to schedule social media campaigns such as discounts, giveaways, and other events to increase social media presence. Although most social media management apps have a social media calendar, they tend to differ as to how much can be scheduled or when they can be scheduled.
Some are limited to a week or a month, while others allow unlimited scheduling at a higher price. You may also want to consider the appearance of a content calendar. Some apps only show the post’s title, while others offer previews or mock-ups of what will be posted.
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Analytics tool
Many brands see social media analytics and reports as a solid measurement of success. Almost all social media management apps offer this feature but greatly differ in the metrics or kinds of data they gather. You also have to consider what kinds of data you want to monitor: performance, audience reach, engagement metrics, or comparisons with competitors.
For example, most reports will be general and focus on the reach of a published post. Still, some reports can have in-depth social analytics to track the success of social media campaigns set during specific periods or monitor brand mentions.
This is an important feature to consider since social media analytics helps make social media managers make informed decisions about what kinds of posts or content marketing strategies are effective or not.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Much Are Social Media Scheduling Apps?
Most social media scheduling tools have a free plan trial, but you have to pay a bigger price to gain access to more exclusive features. The price of a social media scheduler has many factors, such as the number of users, social media accounts, integrated apps, analytics tools, and more. For the five social media scheduling tools we mentioned, here are their starting prices (billed annually) for one user only:
- Hootsuite – $588
- SocialPilot – $150
- SocialBee – $190
- Loomly – $312
- Sprout Social- $1068
Are Social Media Scheduling Tools Worth It?
This greatly depends on your business needs. If you rely on social media to connect with customers or patrons all over the country or the world, then the answer is an absolute yes.
Scheduling posts at the right time or when you make people look forward to a post, social media scheduling tools can help make your business appear available, accessible, and engaging. This is why scheduling content and social media posts is an important skill in social media strategy.
What is the Best Social Media Management Tool?
As mentioned earlier, there are many things to consider when choosing a social media management tool. You must consider whether it fits your social media posts and workflow, app integrations, budget, scheduling, and analytics. I
n my opinion, among all the social media scheduling tools mentioned in this article, I would have to say that SocialPilot is the best social media management tool. It has the cheapest starting price, yet the professional or single-user plan already has many features that can also be done in the more premium plans, such as unlimited scheduling, social media posting tool, automation tool, analytics tool, engagement metrics, and more.
I also think this is the best tool for finding out if you should invest more in social media marketing in the future since it does not cost much.