With so many social media platforms to manage on top of the everyday hustle of running a business, it is imperative that we as business owners consider easier ways to keep on top of our social media. Many people fail to realise that there are so many options out there when it comes to scheduling your social media. I am going to give you a run down of what your options are and this will hopefully help you make a decision about what scheduling tool is right for you and your business.
I am often surprised when I speak to people that they are not aware that you can schedule posts in Facebook. It is quick and simple and part of your business page features.
- Schedugram
If you are wanting to schedule on Instagram, Schedugram is currently the only real option that gives you a seamless integration. It allows you to schedule both your post and a comment (for hashtags). It also has emoji integration as a standard feature.
- Hootsuite
I have used Hootsuite for years in my business. I really love the dashboard feature that allows me to see all of my accounts across various social media platforms in one quick glance. Hootsuite recently added Instagram but the scheduling feature is more like a push notification reminding you to push out a post that you have saved within Hootsuite. You will still need to actually post it live yourself which I feel dewfeats the purpose of scheduling ie set and forget.
- Post Planner
I trialled Post Planner a couple of years ago and to be honest, I did not find it significantly better than Hootsuite and was unsure how they justified the fee. The only real advantage it offered was access to already curated content. This is great if you use the feature but for me, only being able to post on Facebook and Twitter negated the advantage of having access to ready to go posts.
- Meet Edgar
I have used Meet Edgar for just over a year now and I have to be honest, I love it! The biggest bonus offered is the ability to recycle content. It takes a while to load all your content in to Edgar but once there, you have the ability to create a publishing calendar using the various categories that you set up. If you have lots of social media posts already done, this is going to save you a ton of time. If however, you have not got some content already created, you may be investing in a tool that will offer you very little advantage.
- Buffer
Buffer is considered to be the closest rival to Hootsuite. It has similar features and functions. Like Hootsuite, it has a free version that gives you one profile per social media platform.
- eClincher
New to the market, I have yet to test out eClincher but have done a tour of the program. At first I thought it was the answer to my all my prayers as it talked about Instagram integration but to date, you cannot schedule on Instagram via this app. So really, there are little benefits of this product over Hootsuite or Buffer. It does offer the ability to recycle content as per Meet Edgar so this is a benefit if you are keen to try out this feature. It also integrates both Canva and Pocket so this allows you to create posts in the app using these tools.
What do you need? What are you doing?
Just using Facebook? So here is the deal – if you want to simply schedule some Facebook posts, simply use the scheduling feature offered FREE within the Facebook app.
Just want Instagram scheduling? If you need something that really works for scheduling on Instagram, you will need Schedugram. Currently, this is the only app on the market that offers real scheduling on Instagram.
Using lots of platforms but want to try something for FREE? If you are keen to try out scheduling and don’t need Instagram, then the best options are Hootsuite or Buffer – both offer a free version that you can use to get to know the environment.
Ready to invest and want to save time in future? If you have LOTS of content and would love to really set yourself up to save some time by recycling your content, then your choices are Meet Edgar or eClincher.