The Best Social Media Scheduling Software for 2021
The world of social media is ever-changing, constant improvement and updates keep us on our toes! It is undeniably important to keep yourself organized while managing clients’ social media. A straightforward, yet versatile and sophisticated social media scheduler is the foundation of a successful marketing campaign.
At Red11Media we found the social media scheduler that has finally met all of our needs, and have been testing it for a few months now. Our clients enjoy the professionalism that they deserve thanks to the scheduler we have selected. In this blog, we want to share with you our journey of trial and error to finally arrive at the right social media scheduler for us. Hopefully, you’ll find this useful as you choose the right scheduler for your business.
We have tried the following scheduling software:
And if you think that it is a lot to try, you are absolutely right. But we are a lean company and we wanted to make sure that the scheduler we select will allow us more flexibility as we grow. Below, I will provide some pros and cons, as well as pricing for each individual platform. Of course, as with everything worthwhile, there is no one perfect system that would combine all the pros, but some schedulers definitely do better than others! So here we go.
Social Report
We started with Social Report. As you might be googling the top/best social media scheduler you might not find Social Report on any one of them for the year 2020. We believe it is because competition among the social media scheduling software systems is growing so rapidly, small things like poor customer service can really damage one’s reputation.
App for phone: Available for both android and iOS. Ability to share web content, share images, has a simple message composer.
Pros
Easy drag and drop calendar, with posts customizable for each platform.
Ability to add first comment to Instagram posts and location tag.
Cheaper in comparison to its alternatives.
Cons
No bulk post scheduling.
Misleading and unhelpful support staff (waited 2.5 weeks for a response).
Preview did not match the actual posts more times than desired.
Inaccurate reporting.
No direct publishing to Instagram.
Pricing for Social Report: https://www.socialreport.com/pricing.htm From $49 to $199 per month.
Buffer
Buffer was short-lived for us, as we did not appreciate the lack of visual calendar planning. Most of the software schedulers have a calendar view of all the scheduled/sent/drafted posts but Buffer made that overview rather complicated. We didn’t want to suffer because of Buffer and so we said farewell.
App for phone: Highly rated on the App Store and Google Play. Can manage and publish your social media content in one place, schedule posts and schedule Instagram stories. Has a separate app to manage Social Media Inbox and Analytics.
Pros
Has a clean, easy-to-navigate design, but it might seem overly simplistic for some.
Good for individuals, but not specialized marketing agencies.
One-click reposts of most popular posts.
Cons
You can only connect 5 social media platforms, so you need to make sure that your clients are working within those boundaries.
Most schedulers have built-in analytics and engagement features, and, while Buffer has both of those, they do come at an additional cost.
The lack of social media planner is striking, and for visual learners this is a big no-no.
Cannot upload videos as post.
Pricing for Buffer: https://buffer.com/pricing/publish From $15 to $99 per month (plus additional fees for replying and analyzing).
Later
Later was amazing. Visually, it took our breath away. The ease with which you are able to post images and drag/drop them to any day is truly fantastic. Especially if you have a strong presence on Instagram and that is the main platform you are using, we strongly encourage you to look into Later and you might find yourself content with this social media scheduler. We appreciated a separate ribbon on the top of the calendar designated for scheduling stories, which in itself is a feature worth the time. The problem arose when we wanted to post an important link with text to Facebook. Later let us know that an image was necessary for any post scheduled with Later because their “research” has shown that posts with images do so much better with the audience. That was a hard pill to swallow since we share YouTube links rather than images for a majority of our clients. As a result, we had to say “See you later, Later”
App for phone: Poor ratings of the app both on the App Store and Google Play. Upload, schedule, and plan your Instagram posts in advance. Video tutorials to get familiar with the app’s flow.
Pros
Create and upload Stories for Instagram and Facebook.
Amazing interface and scheduling to Instagram is unbelievably easy.
Cons
Post with images in mind only.
Emphasis on Instagram.
Conversations (social inbox) built only for Instagram comments.
No keyword filtering or customer targeting.
Analytics are quite basic and not enough for a comprehensive report if your client wishes to have one.
Pricing for Later: https://later.com/pricing/ From $0 to $45 per month.
Hootsuite
The name Hootsuite is probably one of the most well-recognized in the marketing world, we can say that it is the grandfather of social media schedulers (est.2008). The functionality of Hootsuite, alongside the endless features, is without a doubt impressive. However, for our needs, it was a bit too complex and not as straight-forward as we would have liked. So we decided not to give a hoot about Hootsuite and resume our journey to find the right fit for us.
App for phone: Edit and post content, save drafts and schedule posts to publish later, stay engages with customers all in one app.
Pros
For big agencies with a client list running hundreds, this tool might streamline a lot of processes.
Hootsuite can be integrated with more than 150 apps from their directory.
Cons
Not intuitive, with an overly complicated dashboard
Prices are designed for large agencies and are not suitable for small or medium size businesses.
Whereas a lot of schedulers are moving towards Bulk Scheduling, Hootsuite only has the option of uploading a .csv file and adding the photos later in the Publisher.
Their customer support is not worth mentioning at all.
No social inbox to simplify interactions with the audience.
Pricing for Hootsuite: https://hootsuite.com/plans From $29 to $599 per month.
Sendible
As we fast forward in time we get to the final moment of Zen, where we found a scheduler that fits all of our needs and is simple to use at the same time. Sendible’s small but incredibly useful and friendly team is located in London. We know this because the number of trainings and webinars they provide is spectacular. We actually know who is responsible for what and always rest assured that our questions will be answered! The response time, as well as feedback provided by the Sendible team, is timely and always on point. The client management feature played an important role in the decision as well, even though other platforms allow for client engagement in the approval of posts, Sendible makes it an easy process. Furthermore, it allows team members in the company to bounce off ideas within the platform.
In the end, though, it was a combination of the interactive calendar, customizable posts per platform, direct scheduling to Instagram, social inbox usability and comprehensive reporting that won us over with Sendible. So now we send our love only through Sendible.
App for phone: Sendible released a new Sendible Publish app a few months ago! Scheduling and publishing social media posts in one app.
Pros
Supports over ten social media platforms including YouTube and blogging platforms like Wordpress, Tumblr.
Easy to navigate interactive calendar and tabs to engage, analyze or monitor (keywords and channels).
Easy customer interaction through the application using approval/rejection feature.
Customizable reports for each platform.
Easy bulk post upload.
Cons
It is a service-based system that correlates to pricing. If you think that Facebook is one service you are wrong. Facebook cover photo, posts, streaming are three services. Certain plans have a limitation on the number of services you can add.
They are slowly (but surely) integrating popular Instagram features (first comment, location tag).
Pricing for Sendible: https://www.sendible.com/pricing From $29 to $299 per month.
Final Thoughts
Of course, to each, their own and you need to invest some time and energy to understand which social media scheduler will fit your needs. For us, we needed to align our priorities to decide which social media scheduler makes the cut. For those whose clients utilize Instagram as one of their social media platforms, it is integral to have a tool that would allow direct scheduling. Even though Sendible has the direct scheduling feature for Business Profiles on Instagram, we still have to manually post carousels (multiple images) with the help of the Sendible app, which does not have the best user interface, but it is manageable.
One feature that we would recommend emphasizing, as it can be easily forgotten, is the level of support and education available. Having an FAQ and recorded training is simply not enough in today’s marketing world. Live webinars and training are essential for professional growth.
Good luck with your journey to find the best social scheduler for you. And may the social media odds be ever in your favor.
Shalika
