Best Social Media Posting and Scheduling Tools (2024)

As a leading authority in the social media space, we at Influencer Marketing Hub have firsthand experience in how social media scheduling tools can revolutionize a social media strategy.

Having written and published more than 14,000 content pieces, we understand the significance of posting with a specific purpose.

Social media scheduling toolsenable us not merely to post, but also to align our content with the times when our audience is most active. This ensures that our posts don't just go live; they resonate and engage effectively. However, it's crucial to remember that these tools are most effective when they complement genuine human interaction, rather than replace it.

Why Trust Influencer Marketing Hub Reviews?

Influencer Marketing Hub sets itself apart from conventional review platforms through the involvement of seasoned digital marketing professionals such as Djanan Kasumovic, Werner Geyser, Camille Kennedy, Dave Eagle, and other notable industry figures. This expert team brings a profound understanding of the digital marketing landscape, assessing tools and agencies with an insider's perspective on capabilities, experience, and industry acumen. Unlike user-generated review platforms, Influencer Marketing Hub's evaluations are rooted in extensive firsthand experience and direct interactions with the tools and agencies in question. This ensures that the reviews are not only trustworthy but also deeply informed. High-caliber brands like Brandwatch, Loomly, and Sendible undergo rigorous monthly evaluations, highlighting the platform's commitment to identifying and showcasing top-tier solutions in social media scheduling and beyond.

Influencer Marketing Hub employs a expert-driven methodology to evaluate social media scheduling tools, ensuring that our recommendations are both reliable and comprehensive. This approach is designed to help businesses and individuals find the best tools to meet their specific social media management needs. Here's how we assess the various tools like Brandwatch, Loomly, Sendible, and others:

• Feature Set and Functionality: We start by examining the breadth and depth of features offered by each tool. This includes scheduling capabilities, automation, analytics, integration with other platforms, and the ability to manage multiple social media channels effectively.
• User Experience and Interface: The ease of use and intuitiveness of the tool's interface are critical for ensuring efficiency and reducing the learning curve for new users. We assess how simple it is to schedule posts, analyze performance, and manage social media content.
• Performance and Reliability: We evaluate the tool's reliability in posting scheduled content across different platforms without errors or delays. This includes analyzing uptime statistics and the responsiveness of the tool under various conditions.
• Cost-Effectiveness: Pricing is a crucial consideration for most users. We compare the cost relative to the features and benefits provided, assessing whether the tool offers good value for money, especially for small businesses, freelancers, and agencies.
• Customer Support and Resources: The availability and quality of customer support are evaluated, including the range of resources available for users to troubleshoot issues or learn how to use the tool effectively. This encompasses online documentation, tutorials, live chat, and email support.
• Feedback from Real Users: We gather insights from current and past users to understand their experiences with the tool. This includes looking at reviews, testimonials, and any feedback on social media or forums, providing a well-rounded view of the tool's strengths and weaknesses.
• Innovation and Updates: The digital marketing landscape is constantly evolving, so we assess how each tool keeps pace with new social media trends and updates its features to accommodate changing user needs.

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What You Need to Know About Social Media Scheduling Tools

Picture this: you’re switching between multiple accounts, pages, and platforms, trying to get everything done for your brand’s social media campaign. You painstakingly comb through each page on each platform, crafting posts and reviewing them, hoping to get a green light from your stakeholders. In between, you have to worry about your content’s reach andengagement rates and whether it’s reaching the right audience at the right time. Difficult, right?

With a social media scheduling tool, you’re able to better manage multiple pages on multiple platforms, get the data and analytics you need to enhance your social media marketing strategy, and optimize your reach. With that in mind, here are key things you need to know about social media scheduling and posting tools.

What is a Social Media Scheduling Tool?

Simply put, a social media scheduling tool is an application that automates the planning and posting of your social media content. It lets you schedule your posts ahead of time, so even if you’re not always active or online, you can still manage to get your posts up. While each tool’s features can vary, it works by letting you upload your post to the app and determine a schedule for posting as well as the platform where it’s going to go live. It also doubles as a content curation tool.

Why Use a Social Media Scheduling and Posting Tool?

A social media posting tool is a crucial addition to any business’s orsocial media manager’s marketing arsenal. Because it helps automate manual tasks, you can maximize your time and focus on other more complex issues or tasks.

More importantly, it’s tricky to manage multiple accounts and pages while trying to reach your target audience. You may be able to do so using traditional marketing methods, but you may incur more expenses, get irrelevant data, and reach an untargeted audience segment in the process. With a social media scheduling and posting tool, you’re able to plan and stay on top of things, such as launching a new product or promoting an event.

Furthermore, these tools can help your business become more consistent and stay true to your branding. Consistency is vital, especially when you’re on social media. It delivers a seamless experience for both your patrons and potential customers and creates a unified identity and messaging for your business.

By being consistent, you can stand out from the competition because people will know what to expect from you. For example, if your brand is consistently using a certain design or layout for your content, then people will know that this particular post is from you.

These tools let you review your posts, allowing you to check for consistency across different platforms without having to go through each page or platform one by one.

Leveraging Social Media Tools for Business Transformation: Insights from Hootsuite CEO Tom Keiser

Utilizing a social media scheduling tool goes beyond just managing multiple accounts—it's about embracing a digital transformation that can drive business success. Hootsuite CEO Tom Keiser exemplifies this through the case of Meliá Hotels International. Tom Keiser mentioned:

By centralizing content management across various social platforms through Hootsuite, Meliá Hotels not only enhanced its online communication but also achieved business objectives like improving customer satisfaction and recruiting fresh talent. This case underscores the strategic value in adopting social media tools, showcasing how they can serve as a conduit for organizational transformation, fostering a stronger, more engaging online presence that resonates with both existing and prospective customers.

Building on these insights, we also gathered valuable perspectives from a B2B marketing consultant, offering a deeper exploration into the strategic utilization of social media tools:

7 Key Benefits of Social Media Scheduling

There are plenty of benefits to using social media scheduling and posting tools. Here are seven of them:

1. Manage accounts and pages in multiple social media accounts

Let’s start with the more obvious benefit—being able to manage multiple accounts using one platform. A dedicated social media scheduling and posting tool lets you monitor and manage your social media accounts without requiring you to log in to each platform manually. Before using a social media scheduling tool, you’ll have to link all your social media accounts to it. This way, you can enjoy a single login process and get a unified dashboard where you can manage your Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts.

2. Saves you time

Humans are prone to making errors and forgetting even the most important things. With a social media scheduling tool, you can plan for up to a month in advance. Plus, these tools let you reschedule your content, so if something unexpected or urgent crops up, you can adjust your content calendar accordingly. They also let you check and review your content before they’re posted, mitigating the risk of any errors on your posts.

The bottom line is that these tools can improve your workflow and save your team from distractions. Schedule your content ahead of time without having to worry if they’re live or reaching the intended audience. You won’t have to check in periodically to monitor their performance, and in turn, you’ll have more time to engage with your audience.

3. Improve content curation

Social media scheduling tools can greatly enhance your content curation process. The reality is that it’schallenging to create and promote relevant, engaging, and high-quality branded content every single time.

Using social media scheduling tools lets you curate content from other resources, giving you a convenient way to share content created by others on your social media channels. With this, you won’t have to always come up with new content every time. You’re also introducing your audience to more varied but still relevant pieces of content.

Many social media scheduling tools have content curation features such as RSS feeds. Some even have integrations that let you find and share top-notch content relevant to your brand and message.

4. Get relevant data to improve your strategy and campaigns

One of the best features of social media scheduling and posting tools is they give you access to critical data through analytics. Withanalytics, you’re able to measure your post’s performance, determine which type of content your target audience often engages with, and what’s the optimal posting time.

By monitoring and measuring your content’s performance, you’re can take the necessary steps to improve not only the content itself but also your social media marketing strategy as a whole. Furthermore, many of these tools let you conduct market research and monitor other important components such as keywords and customer reviews or feedback.

5. Drives real-time engagement

Nowadays, posting consistently just doesn’t cut it. You also need to up your audience engagement. Social media scheduling tools can organize and help you keep track of your conversations. Using your dashboard, you can easily search for conversations or respond to queries in real-time across different social media channels.

6. Improves team collaboration

These tools simplify collaboration. You won’t have to monitor what each person in each team is doing. You can add members to your account and control their access to what’s only relevant to their responsibilities. You can also assign which member or team should work on what aspect. For example, you can use your scheduling tool to assign a person to monitor conversations while another team monitors your analytics.

7. Easily customize posts

Social media scheduling tools not only help you manage your content across platforms but also let you enhance or customize your posts. Many tools have integrations with design apps and photo-editing apps, such as Canva and Giphy, allowing you to create immersive visuals that will appeal to your target audience.

What’s the Best Time to Schedule Posts Using a Social Media Scheduling and Posting Tool?

The “best” time to schedule posts varies for each organization. For some, it can be one week in advance. For others, up to a month. How you schedule your content depends on your needs and how far you can manage to plan out posts in advance.

Planning is advantageous, but scheduling your content too far ahead also comes with risks. You may face unexpected events that will cause you to reschedule your content calendar or remove “irrelevant” posts entirely.

Can Small Businesses Use Social Media Scheduling Tools?

Yes, they can! For small businesses, social media can play a major role in their growth. By being able to manage your social media channels more effectively, you’re more likely to build and maintain not only an active online presence but also an engaged following.

Small businesses often juggle many roles with only a limited number of resources, like manpower.Social media scheduling toolscan help you streamline your business processes and workflows, save time and money, improve collaboration, and create the right content for your target audience, all on one dashboard. So, even with a small number of people, you can still produce high-quality content that appeals to your intended audience.

If you’re a small business that’s looking to leverage the capabilities of such tools, make sure that you consider your budget and utilize their free trial offers. This way, you can get a firsthand experience of what it’s like and see whether its capabilities can meet your needs. Make sure that the social media scheduling and posting tool you choose offers round-the-clock customer support.

Finding the Right Social Media Scheduling Tool

With the sheer amount of social media scheduling and posting tools out there, it can be tough to find the right one for your organization. Here are some key factors to consider when finding the best social media scheduling tool:

Features

Determine what your business needs and goals are and what challenges you’re currently facing when it comes to social media management. Do you need an app that has advanced scheduling features, or do you want something that offers integrations for creating visuals? Do you need an app that lets you create a content calendar? What about monitoring conversations and analytics? Different tools offer different features. From there, identify the features you need to have in a social media tool.

To give you an idea of what features to look for, here’s a rundown of key features to consider:

Publishing tools

A good social media scheduling tool should make it easy for you to schedule and publish content across different channels, meet your goals (whether it’s increased engagement, acquiring new followers, or something else), and get your brand out there. It should have a robust scheduling tool that will let you schedule and organize weeks’ or months’ worth of content in one go.

Another great feature to have is a queueing and rescheduling tool, which automatically shares posts even if you’ve lapsed on some content and allows you to insert evergreen content. You may also want to consider additional features such as post time optimization and post geotargeting. The former helps you automatically post content at optimal times to maximize audience engagement, while the latter lets you publish content for specific locations to ensure that you reach the right audience.

Engagement tools

Engagement is vital to establishing growth. You need to engage your audience to maintain their loyalty and attract new customers. Your social media scheduling and posting tool should have engagement tools, such as an integrated social media inbox that lets you keep track of all messages and lets you do appropriate actions like replying to them.

It should also let you monitor keywords, allowing you to monitor conversations about your brand and engage your audience in a dialogue or identify what people are searching for so you have the opportunity to tap into trends and leverage that information for your campaigns.

Platform integrations

Integrations let you do more with your social media scheduling tool. For example, an integration with Canva or other photo editing apps will let you directly add images or videos directly to your content in one place. Email integrations also let you seamlessly conduct email marketing using your scheduling tool.

Analytics and reports

Analytics tools enable you to gauge your performance and inform future actions or strategies. Reporting tools let you communicate essential information to all your stakeholders and team members.

For example, if your social media scheduling tool has an engagement report feature, you’re able to monitor your performance when it comes to audience engagement, such as if you’re frequently responding to messages or answering them in a timely manner.

A team reporting feature is also helpful to monitor large social media accounts. You’re able to see which aspects are doing great and which ones need more attention or if you need to expand operations for that particular aspect, allowing you to make better strategies.

A trends report functionality will also come in handy. This lets you view hashtags or mentions about your brand or posts so you can tailor your future content accordingly and determine the kind of audience that engages with your brand online.

Collaboration features

If you’re running large-scale social media accounts, then it’s highly likely that you’re working with large teams. Collaboration features that let you assign tasks, get notifications, manage permissions, and detect overlaps or task collisions can streamline operations for each department and minimize the risk of team members having to spend more effort completing a task.

Additionally, you should keep an eye out for approval workflows, which can help streamline your scheduling process. This also gives you more control over the posts as you can choose to accept or approve them prior to scheduling.

CRM

CRM functionalities let you monitor audience interactions and derive more information about your audience, including customers. One useful feature that your scheduling tool should have is a conversation history tool that lets you check past conversations to better tailor your response to current interactions.

Customizability

A good social media scheduling tool is customizable, so you can program it to fit your needs. While presets are good and can help make your work easier, they’re not that helpful if you’re unable to tailor them according to your needs and preferences. For example, your scheduling and posting tool should let you choose what you need to see on your content calendar, as well as how that calendar should look like.

With this in mind, you also need to look at a scheduling tool’s capacity to make regular updates and fixes. Bugs can interrupt your operations, which is why it’s crucial to find a tool that offers routine fixes for bugs. These updates can also add new features to your tool, making it more comprehensive.

Supported platforms

Check whether your social media scheduling tool supports the social media platforms you’re currently using. If it doesn’t, you may end up switching from one scheduling tool to another, which can lead to additional costs and reduced efficiency.

User interface

Find a scheduling tool that’s intuitive and easy to use. This way, you or your team won’t have to spend a lot of time figuring out how to use it, so you can focus on creating quality content instead.

Pricing

Check your budget. How much are you willing to spend on a scheduling tool? Many scheduling tools offer a variety of pricing options, and most of them offer free trials. Check if a certain plan has features that meet your needs or if you need an upgrade to access more advanced features. You can also checkscheduling tools that offer free plansif you’re working on a tight budget.

Automation

Automation functionalities are a great feature to have in your social media scheduling tool. Automationensures that you get things done even if you’re not online all the time. It also gives you more control over what you’re posting, as well as your scheduling process. It lessens your workload, ensures consistent engagement on your social media channels, and expands your online reach. Being able to leverage automation can lead to better outcomes when it comes to engagement rates, sales, and brand awareness. Some of the scheduling tools on our list, such as Brandwatch, Monday.com, and Buffer have automation features.

Customer support

When using a new tool, you don’t expect everyone to get the hang of it right away. Find out if your provider offers resources like guides and training for new users. Also, check to see if they offer round-the-clock support and the available channels their customer support services are on so you can get in touch with them if you have any questions or concerns.

Scalability

As your business grows, you may find that your needs will start to change. You’ll need to determine whether your social media scheduling tool is scalable to accommodate your growth. Find out if your chosen tool offers a flat rate (regardless of your scale) or if it charges a separate fee for each user. If it’s the latter, check to see if the total cost still fits within your budget or if you need to make allowances.

Mobile app

Make sure that the scheduling tool you choose offers a mobile app. This way, you can access it even when you’re on the go. Check to see if the mobile app is easy to use and comes with all the features that its desktop or web counterpart has.

Which Social Media Scheduling Tool Should You Choose?

So, how do you choose the right social media scheduling tool for your needs? Aside from looking at features that are important to have, we’ve come up with separate categories for recommendations. These cover individual creators, SMBs, large-scale enterprises, eCommerce businesses, and more. In these recommendations, we’ve outlined the capabilities of selected scheduling and posting tools and how these can help your brand.

Recommended Social Media Scheduling Tools for Creators and Small Businesses

Creators and small businesses have several considerations when it comes to choosing the best scheduling and posting tools for their needs. We’ve looked at several scheduling tools that combine functionality, ease of use, and affordability, as well as their scaling capabilities.

Tailwind

Tailwind is a robust social media scheduling tool that lets you create content, schedule posts, and streamline operations without breaking the bank. It offers a “Free Forever” plan that comes with basic features, such as basic analytics. This makes it perfect for individual users such as creators who only have to manage and schedule their own social media posts.

However, this freemium version has limited capabilities. For example, you’re only able to work on one account each for Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook. Plus, you can only schedule 20 posts per month.

It does offer a Pro plan that starts at $19.99 per month (or $12.99 per month when billed annually). This comes with more advanced features, such as access to 200 Post Designs per month and advanced analytics, making it a good option for individual creators or businesses that are just starting out.

Later

Later gives you access to powerful social media scheduling tools at an affordable starting price of $25 per month. This Starter plan is accessible for one user and lets you add up to one account across supported social networks. So it’s a great option for creators and solopreneurs who only have to manage individual accounts.

However, the basic plan is slightly limited with up to 30 posts per social profile and basic analytics. Small businesses can use the Growth plan for $45 per month for additional features and then upgrade to the Advanced plan costing $80 per month as their business scales.

Sendible

The ability to enjoy an individual Creator plan makes Sendible a great option for…well, creators. This plan is available to one user for $29 per month and lets you add up to six social profiles. Even though it’s the most basic plan, it still offers unlimited scheduling. Plus, you get access to monitoring, replying, and reporting features.

Small businesses can access the platform for up to four users with the Traction plan costing $89 per month. The platform also offers white label plans for agencies that have to manage client accounts.

Recommended Scheduling Tools for Medium-Sized Business

When it comes to social media and social media scheduling tools, medium-sized businesses want something that can help them reach their goals, expand their reach, nurture their brand image, and boost brand awareness without necessarily having to resort to more expensive options. Additionally, much like small businesses, medium-sized businesses are looking to reach the right audience.

With this in mind, having a scheduling tool that lets you manage your posts, get insights and analytics, generate reports, and monitor keywords can help you meet your online goals. Below are some of the social media scheduling tools that medium-sized businesses may find useful:

Agorapulse

If you want a social media scheduling tool that also offers competitor analysis functionalities, then Agorapulse is a great option. Similar to Sprout Social, it’s easy to use and offers quick customer support for its paid plans.

Its pricing plans are also designed for growing teams, making it a good choice for medium-sized businesses. It offers a freemium version, which lets you schedule a limited number of posts, monitor ad comments, and get access to its Agorapulse Academy and a Facebook ROI calculator. Or you can upgrade to the Standard plan ($49 per user per month when billed annually) to schedule an unlimited number of posts.

If you want something that’s a bit more powerful, you can go with its Professional plan ($79 per user per month when billed annually), which is designed for smaller teams. If you want an option that can handle your growth, its Advanced plan ($119 per user per month when billed annually) is also a great alternative. With the Advanced plan, you can add up to 10 social profiles and five shared calendars. Note that corresponding fees apply for additional users and profiles.

e-clincher

While eclincher is designed for a variety of users, be they agencies or franchises, it’s also one of the best solutions for medium-sized businesses. The platform offers 24x7 support so you can always rely on them for help if your team runs into any problem using its tools. It doesn’t offer a freemium plan, but you can get a 14-day free trial.

You can also opt for its Basic plan ($65 per month), which can accommodate one user and up to 10 profiles. Meanwhile, its Premier plan ($175 per month) can accommodate three users and 20 profiles. You can also go with its Agency plan ($425 per month), which works for six users and up to 40 profiles.

It’s worth noting that even with its Basic plan, you can already get plenty of useful features, including analytics reporting, team collaboration and post approval, and post scheduling functionalities.

Buffer

Buffer offers a free plan that gives you access to a limited number of planning and scheduling tools, integrations, and customer support. Note that the free plan doesn’t give you access to analytics, insights, reporting tools, and functionalities like engagement and team management.

You can upgrade to Buffer’s Essentials plan, which starts at $6 per month per channel. This plan comes with all the same features as the free plan along with engagement tools and analytics. If you want to add more channels, be prepared to shell out $6 per month for each additional channel.

What makes it a great option for medium-sized operations is the ability to customize your plan based on the number of channels and the types of tools you need. Medium-sized businesses could benefit from the Team plan, which costs $12 per month per channel and comes with draft collaboration tools and access for an unlimited number of team members and clients.

Enterprise-Level Scheduling Tools Worth Trying Out

While they’re already operating at a relatively larger scale, enterprise-level businesses still need to bolster their online visibility, keep track of key metrics, and manage potential risks. Given their scale, they’re likely to run more social accounts and multiple campaigns at the same time. To help you better manage your online presence, here are a few enterprise-level social media scheduling tools that you should check out:

Brandwatch

Designed as a tool that can keep up with our rapidly changing world, Brandwatch lets you access an extensive archive of consumer opinion, leverage cutting-edge AI to discover trends, manage workflows and approvals, and protect your brand reputation, among other capabilities. Its enterprise-level solution offers a full product suite that lets you manage multiple social media channels, access a centralized social CRM, monitor your brand, and use benchmarking tools to measure your performance.

Sprout Social

More than being just a social media scheduling and posting tool, Sprout Social also works as a powerfulsocial media management toolfor enterprise-level businesses. With its enterprise-level solution, you can conduct competitive analysis, trend analysis (Twitter keywords and hashtags), create automated chatbots, and access social CRM tools. When it comes to publishing and scheduling, you get media integrations, a campaign planner, social commerce tools,social listening tools, and employee advocacy solutions.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite’s Enterprise plan gives you all the features in its Team and Business plans without all the limitations. You can get social ad reporting and ad campaign management for up to 10 ad profiles, employee advocacy features for up to 25 employees (free), team productivity reporting, and message tagging. It also lets you connect and manage up to 50 social accounts all in one place.

Social Media Scheduling and Posting Tools for eCommerce Businesses

eCommerce businesses will also benefit from using the right social media scheduling tool, which can help them oversee social activity and conversations about their brand and engage with customers and leads. This list includes some of the scheduling tools that work well for eCommerce businesses:

Crowdfire

Crowdfire is an excellent social media scheduling tool for ecommerce businesses as it connects with your Shopify or Etsy account. This means you can easily schedule product updates you’re your social media accounts right within the platform. No more having to manually curate new products from your store and posting them to your social media profiles.

Planoly

Planoly offers a free link in bio tool that lets you create a shoppable storefront of your top social media posts. This makes it perfect for ecommerce businesses that want to easily drive users from discovery to purchase and increase their sales from social media.

Best Social Media Scheduling Tools for Limited Budgets

When you’re on a limited budget, you may not necessarily have the capacity to spend more money on social media scheduling. The good news is that there are plenty of tools that offer free basic versions with access to essential scheduling features. So you don’t always have to spend extra just to schedule your social media posts.

Even if you do have to pay for access to more advanced features, many of these tools are available at affordable rates. Here are some of the best free social media scheduling tools.

• HeyOrca – The free version is available to an unlimited number of users and allows up total 30 scheduled posts.
• CoSchedule – The free calendar is accessible to one user and lets you schedule up to 15 social messages.
• Buffer – The free plan lets you schedule up to 10 posts each across three channels.
• SocialOomph – The free Personal Suite lets you schedule an unlimited number of posts for one social profile.