Scheduling tools and their benefits
Hootsuite, Loomly or Meta Business Suite, are you using the most effective social media scheduling tools?
Trying to figure out what the most effective scheduling tool is but not even sure where to start? That’s okay, we’ve been there!
With each scheduling tool offering a range of different plans that allow for a certain number of users, social accounts, posts, messages and insights, it can be overwhelming to choose which one would work best for your business.
Being able to create and schedule feed posts, stories, and reels to multiple social networks all at once is a great way to save time as a social media manager of many different brands, or as a business owner with multiple accounts. When it comes to most scheduling subscriptions, the higher the price the bigger the benefits, you’ll essentially get what you are willing to pay for.
Loomly for example offers a 15-day free trial to try out their “Base” subscription of 2 users and 10 social accounts. They also have a questionnaire that customers can fill out in order to see which option will work the best for their business, offering industry trends, social media best practices, and custom post ideas.
Another option in the same price range with a bit more variety would be SocialPilot. The platform offers affordable pricing options for professionals, small teams, studios and agencies. SocialPilot provides a seamless workflow experience where account managers can easily review and approve scheduled content. You have the option to add integrations like Zapier and Canva and create customisable posts, use a URL Shortener, or Smart Queues.
A popular platform for scheduling in the industry is Hootsuite, which allows you to create social media campaigns with real-time recommendations from advising the best time to publish based on your audience engagement. They offer a 30-day free trial and a mobile app available for social media managers to stay on track with their posts' performance and planning on the go. Regardless of the fact that the platform offers added benefits like online classes taught by industry professionals, its user interface can be difficult to navigate which allows for errors when scheduling posts.
For larger businesses there’s Sprout. The aim of this tool is to act as a social media management program, not just a scheduling tool. They offer advanced insights for customers and even provide a “Listening” tool that taps into global social conversations online to extract actionable insights, identifying industry gaps and ways to improve the brand. Sprout includes literally everything you need to run social media campaigns and more, the Standard option offers access to 5 profiles, an all-in-one social inbox, and the ability to publish, schedule, draft, and queue posts. You will be able to make use of the review and customer relationship management tools for multiple brands. The most advanced option even offers chat-bots with automation tools, saved and suggested replies, everything a large business with a massive footprint will benefit from.
Okay, that’s great and all, but what if you just want a simple scheduling tool that’s easy to use with insights and analytics? Well, there’s always Meta Business Suite, and here’s the catch - it’s completely free! The platform shows all notifications, messages, and your planner with all scheduled posts. You have the option of integrating your Facebook Pixel, in order to assist with gathering insights and easily navigate towards your Ads Manager which offers more in-depth reports and analytics.
If you are managing one or two brands as a freelancing gig, chances are you’ll need something easy to use and effective like Meta Business Suite. However, if you need to manage multiple social media accounts for a small business with exponential growth you may need to invest in an affordable tool that offers a little extra support like Loomly or Social Pilot. However, if you are looking to schedule a number of large brands' social media presence and gather additional reports and analytics to have you stay ahead of all social media trends, you may benefit from using a schedular like Sprout or Hootsuite. Platforms like these naturally come at a higher cost, but they will enable you to manage content that can generate a large profit for the companies you work with.
Looking for one more option? It’s called Local Truth Studio. Let us take care of all your social media needs for you. We offer content creation, feed design, copywriting of captions, market research, scheduling and posting. We also have monthly check-ins where we go over your strategy and look at your analytics. Show us a platform that can do ALL that while also smiling and making you coffee when you visit. We’ll wait.
