Social media has been one of the topmost marketing channels for businesses in the past few years. In fact, 77% of marketers found social media marketing to be somewhat to very effective for their company in 2021. And rightly so, social media strategies are evolving over time with fierce competition to grab the user's attention and drive them through the sales funnel.
As the social media landscape is changing swiftly, social media managers’ role is gradually being redefined. The job that involved more of creating content and publishing across the social networks a brand is active on has spread to other key elements of social media marketing.
As per a report by SocialInsider, reporting, generating engagement, and publishing engaging and unique content are the biggest challenges today’s social media managers face. Thankfully though, the advent of social media scheduling tools has proven to be a boon for them.
With feature-offerings like reporting, multi-network scheduling and publishing, competitor analysis, approval workflows, and campaign creation capabilities in the kitty, a robust scheduler can be the solution to the hectic life of a social media manager. Besides these features, some social media schedulers also provide insights on optimal times to post and real-time notifications on new posts and comments from internal members and audience. More on that later!
In this blog, we cover the basics of social media scheduling and explore the top scheduling tools for better post performance and seamless team collaboration. Read on to learn more!
Here's an overview of the contents of this article:
- What Is A Social Media Scheduling Tool?
- Why Should Small Businesses And Agencies Use Social Media Scheduling Tools?
- How To Create A Social Media Schedule For Small Businesses And Agencies?
- 8 Best Social Media Scheduling Tools For SMBs & Agencies
- How To Select The Best Social Media Scheduling Tool?
- Tips To Make Social Media Scheduling Easier
- Choose The Best Social Media Scheduling Tools
- Frequently Asked Questions
You can directly jump to a section of your choice or keep scrolling.
What Is A Social Media Scheduling Tool?
Social media scheduling is known as organizing your social media content calendar to publish your posts at specific times. Using these tools allows you to schedule posts at any particular time and date. Ideally, marketers use social media scheduling to publish at the optimal time.
As someone who manages social media, how do the following points feel?
- Without switching between sites, you may customize your posts for each platform.
- You can avoid making frequent real-time posts by timing your postings to encourage interaction.
- Aim to garner as much engagement as possible for each post by avoiding using the same content.
Amazing right?
A tool that helps you schedule posts across multiple social media accounts is a social media scheduling tool. It also comes with a unified team calendar that social media managers can use to complete many daily tasks. The tasks include planning and publishing content across numerous channels and keeping track of social media analytics.
It is suggested to use scheduling tools because of the following reasons:
- Scheduling your posts gives you more control over your publishing.
- Tracking interaction on each campaign is more accessible, allowing you to make better plans for the following cycle based on what works and what doesn't.
- You can create complex campaigns targeted at specific, measurable objectives.
Initially, people used to create a comprehensive timetable with the help of Microsoft excel by analyzing social data to pinpoint periods of high interaction. And then, post each piece of content at a particular moment under a specific username or profile manually.
Now, you can make your life much easier with social media scheduling tools. It not only allows you to schedule your social media posts but also to keep your team organized, save time, optimize workflows, and improve results.
Why Should Small Businesses And Agencies Use Social Media Scheduling Tools?
Small business owners and social media managers can automate publishing to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google My Business, Pinterest, and other social media platforms using social media scheduling tools.
One of the most asked questions is how scheduling from one dashboard saves you so much time.
Start by producing additional content or honing your editing and copywriting skills, for example, with that extra time. Most social media management tools frequently do much more than schedule and publish posts. They also include a variety of helpful capabilities for analytics, tracking, and other things.
Some of the major reasons why small businesses and agencies should use a social media scheduling tool are:
To Keep A Regular Publishing Schedule
Usually, any social media manager would plan the social content for 30 days. It can take time to manually envision and post all the materials on time. It would help if you had a calendar to understand your schedule and take time to work on the other content. Another critical point is when you look at the publishing schedule, you will know if you have covered gaps and have the necessary windows for festivals and campaigns.
To Post At The Perfect Time
Every social media post that goes out involves a lot of effort and thought. All the efforts will pay only when it reaches the expected outcome, like repeatedly occurring on the target market's newsfeed.
When the post is randomly posted without a specific timing, there is a high chance of the content not appearing on top in your followers' newsfeeds.
Scheduling in advance helps to publish at the right time and reach the right audience.
To Plan Your Content In One Place
How difficult is it to plan your content for multiple social media platforms in different places?
With the aid of a social media content calendar that supports all the social platforms, you can identify what you need and gather the appropriate content and captions, links, hashtags, and ad strategy.
To Have Cross-Functional Visibility
A social scheduling tool can help a lot in cross-functional visibility. Cross-functional visibility is bringing your social team talents, from post creators to approvers working together. Tools with approval workflow can help you to organize and understand the social media schedule.
A separate calendar for each client can work wonders for your agency as the clients can be totally aware of what is happening.
To Analyze The Performance
Analyzing the performance of your existing posts is the main way to know whether all your hard work has paid off. It is a complete reflection of your strategy and efforts
● What worked well?
● What posts didn't work as much as you expected them to?
● What type of content reached the maximum engagement?
● Which social media platform reached well?
● Which copy worked well?
Social media scheduling tools that help develop a multi-channel social media strategy. For instance, if you want a post to go out only on Instagram and Pinterest, whereas a different update only on LinkedIn and Twitter at once, it can be easily organized via the calendar in advance. According to a survey, consistency increases conversions increase by 33%.
How To Create A Social Media Schedule For Small Businesses And Agencies?
Owning a small business and agency always makes it challenging to have enough resources, particularly when handling multiple social media accounts and coming up with unique marketing initiatives. However, social media is crucial to publicizing your business as customers today expect an online presence.
Evaluate Your Social Media Presence
A social media audit analyses your social media accounts, interaction, and presence to determine what's working and needs improvement. It also helps you to understand your place in the social market.
Choose Your Social Media Platforms
Make sure you choose the social media platforms where your target audience engages the most. Take a look at the type of content they interact with. Based on your understanding, decide the type of content and social media platforms you will use for your brand.
Create A Content Calendar
Making a schedule will help you organize your content and adhere to the frequency you set when you are the only one in charge of your social media accounts or work in a small team.
Creating a content calendar serves the dual purpose of keeping your social media presence organized and expanding the reach of your strategy. With the help of these tools, scheduling content is straightforward. If you have a few hours per week to spend on social media, you can schedule all of your content for that week and forget about it.
Get Approval
Share your completed calendar with your team and other stakeholders and ask for their input to ensure it satisfies everyone's needs. You may discover methods to enhance or expand upon the calendar as you use it, so you'll need to be open to continual criticism.
Engage With Your Audience
You need to do more than just put your material on social media and hope that people will notice it if you want to succeed there. Engage with the community you're attempting to attract to establish a following and authority. Here are some strategies to get you involved:
- Find relevant websites and blogs, then follow them on social media.
- Share, like, and comment on the content found on the social accounts of those websites and blogs. Additionally, it informs people that you are active on social media, participating in conversations and disseminating information that may interest them.
- Constantly monitor and listen to social media to keep up with what influential individuals in your business are saying.
Statusbrew allows you o keep track of activity on your social media networks, such as individuals mentioning you or posting comments and industry updates.
8 Best Social Media Scheduling Tools For SMBs & Agencies
Social media marketing can be difficult, from creating the social posts to publishing them at the ideal time and to analyze them. Thank goodness, excellent free & paid social media management solutions are readily available.
There are literally more than 100 social media tools on the market that can help you with scheduling posts online, each with a different set of features, choosing one would be challenging. We've therefore made things simpler for you by reducing the field.
We have taken the liberty to analyze the social media scheduling tools and get you the top 8 with different functionality and features that can help small businesses and agencies. And because each software offers something distinctive to look forward to, we have made an effort to present exceptional features to aid you in making a sensible choice.
1. Statusbrew - Best Social Media Scheduling Tool
Our first choice here is Statusbrew - a one-stop solution for all your social media needs. Statusbrew's features are created to simplify social media scheduling and maximize marketing efforts.
Statusbrew has a planner, engagement features, analytics, listening capabilities, and a unified social inbox. Even more sophisticated team communication tools with various permission options are available. It can raise the caliber of your work by concentrating your efforts in the proper place. Using analytics to assess your entire social media performance is beneficial.
Statubrew's best market pricing for agencies and small businesses, along with its user-friendly design, and superior feature that can help with your social media productivity and content strategy. The features also help to moderate Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns.
Additionally, they offer trustworthy customer care via phone, chat, email, and social media platforms.
Key Features
- Scheduling and automating social media posts can help you manage various tasks more efficiently.
- Includes a publication calendar so you can see your content strategy on its own and receive a daily, weekly, or monthly perspective.
- A simple technique to post comments for your team, a hassle-free approval process, and effortless collaboration
- Management of multiple accounts across all essential social media networks - Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google My Business, YouTube, and Pinterest
- Integration with well-known teamwork software like Slack and Trello
- To share content with accounts for particular clients by creating a workspace - effortlessly manage the social media accounts of your numerous clients.
- Offers complete social media message management; reacts to messages and comments from a single inbox on all social media networks.
- Includes reports for its sophisticated social media analytics capability - has 150+ unique customization reports to comprehend the performance of your social strategy.
- The capacity to conduct brand-related searches and view the results to see what others are saying about your brand
- It helps you create personalized posts and captions for various social media platforms.
- Seamlessly supports native mobile apps
- Controls ad campaigns and post-boosts.
Pricing
- Lite - $69.00 /mo
- Standard - $129.00 /mo
- Premium - $229.00 /mo
- Enterprise - Custom pricing
Sounds interesting? Book a free demo now!
2. Meta Business Suite - Free Scheduling For Instagram And Facebook
The ability to create a content calendar and schedule posts, reels and stories in advance is the most helpful of the many tools that Meta Business Suite provides for Instagram marketing. Users of desktop computers (Windows & Mac) and mobile devices (Android & iOS) can use the scheduling feature, and the instructions are the same across all platforms.
You can track numerous indicators after actively using Meta Business Suite to determine which marketing tactics are most effective for your Facebook and Instagram business pages. Both desktop and mobile apps are available for Meta Business Suite.
The capability of the Meta Business Suite is extensive. To receive notifications, respond to messages, manage comments, and schedule articles and stories, utilize the Business Suite. By setting up ads to post at specific times, the Business Suite can help you maximize your social media marketing efforts if you manage a business profile.
Key Features
- Native tool for scheduling posts, stories, and reels on Instagram and Facebook
- Meta suggests engaging ideas for streamlining sharing through its content inspiration features.
- Meta's content planner helps with the Posts & Stories page in Business Suite and displays a list of all the content you've published, scheduled, or drafted. However, the Planner tab presents your stuff in a more digestible calendar format.
- Inbox Automations that can help you with managing engagement effectively. Business Suite combines your Facebook and Instagram messages and comments into a single inbox.
- Instant replies, away messages, and frequently asked questions
- Provides optimal publishing time for posts
- Hashtag organizer
- A/B testing for Instagram and Facebook ads. It allows you to setup up to four variations of a single post using the Business Suite's A/B Test tool to see which performs the best.
- Facebook and Instagram Insights by default, shows you the statistics for both channels so you can compare metrics and growth.
Pricing
- Free
3. MeetEdgar - Unique Scheduling Tool
MeetEdgar is a social media scheduling tool offering a unique option. You can get assistance from MeetEdgar when it comes to producing fresh content. If you need more time to write a post, provide the URL to a blog you believe your readers would enjoy, and the program will choose an interesting quote for you to use as the foundation of your post.
Every post you create will automatically generate five versions so that you may reuse it on various social media platforms.
You can upload the posts and saved them in the library, which can always be scheduled for later. MeetEdgar supports Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
The web interface includes an easy-to-use user interface supported by AI integrations for the effective execution of your social media plan.
Key Features
- Upload your content manually by using bulk import
- Utilizing an RSS (RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) feed, automatically import blogs or articles
- Easily categorize your material using color-coded categories.
- Plan content categories particular time.
- The AI suggests fresh, use auto-generated content.
Pricing
- Eddie Monthly Plan - $ 29.99
- Edgar Monthly Plan - $ 49.99
4. Tailwind - Instagram And Pinterest Scheduling Tool
Tailwind is the top social media scheduling application for Pinterest and Instagram. It helps you to schedule posts, note down the comments, and analyze the results.
Tailwind's AI offers unique tips from the best-performing posts that can help you perform better on Pinterest and Instagram. It helps your social media content to be readily scheduled, and you can also reconsider republishing them with more effective social media content. Tailwind also has an image cropping option that helps a lot while posting on Pinterest.
Key Features
- Includes a smart calendar to let you choose the moment your target audience is most attentive.
- It consists of tools for planning posts, finding the best-performing content, keeping an eye on comments, seeing patterns, and measuring outcomes.
- It has a hashtag finder that suggests appropriate hashtags for your postings.
- The AI helps you to snippet the pre-saved lists of hashtags so the usage is simple.
Pricing
- Free
- Pro - $19.99 /mo
- Advanced - $39.99 /mo
- Max - $79.99 /mo
5. TweetDeck - Twitter Scheduling Tool
TweetDeck can be your ideal social media scheduling tool if Twitter is your go-to social media platform. All Twitter users have access to this free application, which can be used to manage your Twitter conversations and schedule tweets in advance. If you frequently tweet, maintaining your feed and responding to comments and messages may be challenging for you to keep up with.
With TweetDeck, you can manage your messages and popular hashtags while organizing your feed into various timelines to make the platform easier to use. The only limitation is that you can't use it to schedule posts; otherwise, it's the ideal free tool for scheduling Twitter posts.
Key Features
- Manage multiple Twitter accounts
- Easily schedule tweets - scheduling tweets can ensure that we continue to share original content consistently. You can specify the day and hour of your tweet.
- Scheduled column - allows you to keep track of all the Tweets that are scheduled.
- Allows you to conduct live social media tweeting and monitoring
- You can view multiple timelines - You can view specific content, topics, or hashtags in one interface using Tweetdeck columns.
Pricing
- Free
6. CoSchedule - Easy To Use Scheduling Tool
A social media scheduling platform with a publishing focus, CoSchedule is well-known for its content calendar function. You can control your social media profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr with CoSchedule.
Because CoSchedule interacts with WordPress and Hubspot, you can plan and publish your blogs directly from your CoSchedule account. With a re-queue feature, you can also share your top-performing content again.
Key Features
- Helps you to centrally organize all of their projects (social media, content, events, emails, etc.), CoSchedule is fantastic.
- Your best-performing posts can be used to fill in any gaps in your social media calendar thanks to their ReQueue tool.
- Suggests the optimum publishing times.
Pricing
- Free
- Pro - $39
- Marketing Suite - Custom
7. Zoho Social - Best Value-for-Money Scheduling Tool
Zoho Social is best suited for a growing company's needs. You may manage social dialogues, keep track of brand references, and collaborate with team members. Based on your profile metrics, Zoho Social recommends the optimum time to share your posts for greater engagement.
You can also manage Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Google My Business with Zoho Social. Social listening and SmartQ predictions are two incredible feature sets in this social media posting tool.
Key Features
- Due to its SmartQ function, which determines when your target audience is most active, it provides the optimal period for scheduling your posts.
- Includes CRM integrations that let you interact with clients and find possible leads on social media.
- It has a built-in content calendar.
- Create automated reports that will be delivered at the frequency and in the format of your choice.
- Team members can be on your distribution list, and you can include customized messages.
- Includes a zShare browser extension that enables you to collect fascinating articles as you come across them.
- Assists with maintaining and posting your social networking content.
Pricing
- Standard - $10.89 per month
- Professional - $29.04 per month
- Premium - $45.98 per month
- Agency - $229.89 per month
- Agency Plus - $333.95 per month
8. Combin - Instagram Scheduling Tool
For anyone looking to grow your Instagram Business, Combin is an excellent solution. It can help you obtain actual followers rapidly, engage, publish and is straightforward to utilize.
Combin majorly offers two different features - Growth and Scheduler.
The Scheduler feature allows you to manage 15 Instagram accounts, upload large quantities of images, tag users and locations, and more.
The Growth feature helps with the analysis and help you locate influencers in your business or niche to work together and gain more exposure.
Combin also helps to advertise your account.
Key Features
- Schedule a post for a future or immediate publishing
- Complete automation of post publication
- Bulk upload of stories
- Image size editing accounts
- Hashtags and location
- Instagram grid layout
Pricing
- Starter - Free
- Personal - $15 /mo
- Business - $30 /mo
How To Select The Best Social Media Scheduling Tool
- Schedule a post for a future or immediate publishing
- Complete automation of post publication
- Bulk upload of stories
- Image size editing accounts
- Hashtags and location
- Instagram grid layout
Pricing
- Starter - Free
- Personal - $15 /mo
- Business - $30 /mo
How To Select The Best Social Media Scheduling Tool
Regarding social media schedulers, many options are available, so you must pick one with the capabilities your company requires the most.
It would help if you searched for the following features in a social media scheduling tool:
Compatible With Multiple Platforms
Most businesses want to keep an active presence on at least two or three of the major social media platforms when it comes to social media. If this applies to you, ensure the selected scheduling tool will let you manage your social media publishing from a single, central content calendar.
You can easily schedule social media posts using the bulk of the apps on this list for various platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google My Business.
Simple Content Calendar
You should be able to quickly see what is scheduled to go live when scheduling your social media posts in advance. You can visualize your planned social media campaigns using tools like Statusbrew. They all include an intuitive content calendar that you can use to keep on schedule and make adjustments as needed.
Features For Collaboration And Curation
Creating content takes just as much time as releasing it if you need effective routines. When selecting a social media scheduling tool, think about using one like Statusbrew, which enables you to interact with coworkers and clients effortlessly via one central content calendar and curate new and exciting content.
Statusbrew understands that you have a busy day between planning content, interacting with followers, and reporting on the social media development of your brand. All of these Statusbrew features can assist you!
Additional Features For Managing Social Media
An all-in-one solution with publishing and scheduling tools is an excellent choice if you need a social media management platform. Tools like Statusbrew, for instance, offer a social media inbox, a content schedule, publishing features, listening and analytics tools, and more.
Sounds interesting? Book a free demo now!
Tips To Make Social Media Scheduling Easier
Social media scheduling tools can help a lot. However, you can still go above and above to simplify your life and make the most of technology. Here are some of the tips that can make your scheduling journey easy.
Save hashtags: Keep a list of your most valuable hashtags close at hand when you're planning and scheduling social media content.
Enhance your social strategy: Include both best-performing and experimental content in your social media strategy. Since many social schedulers allow for evergreen content recycling, it makes sense to queue up both with fresh, topical pieces.
Track the effectiveness of your content: You need more than just scheduling social media posts and letting them go. You must gather helpful information about your target audience, including their engagement levels, interests, and activity details, to continue producing and distributing high-quality, engaging content to your audience.
Choose The Best Social Media Scheduling Tools
There are a ton of social media tools available, but choosing the best that suits your needs is the hard part. We suggest you to schedule a demo, understand the tools and analyze it with your needs.
Statusbrew is an all-in-one social media management tool that supports Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and even Google My Business.
Sounds interesting? Book a FREE demo today ?
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best social media scheduling tool?
Statusbrew is the best social media scheduling tool. It helps small businesses and agencies to manage multiple social media accounts from one dashboard. You can easily create, plan, customize, and schedule posts using the content calendar, and they have tools like Canva that let you design the posts.
How to schedule social media posts?
You can easily schedule social media posts across platforms using a social media scheduling tool like Statusbrew. You can follow these steps.
Step 1: Connect all your social media profiles
Step 2: Upload the content you want to share
Step 3: Customize your captions based on your social media platforms
Step 4: Add hashtags
Step 5: Add the first comment
Step 6: Schedule it or publish it immediately
Do scheduled posts get fewer views?
The idea that manual posts are prioritized above scheduled ones is a long-held misconception. There has been a tonne of research on this subject, and it has been repeatedly demonstrated that scheduled post visibility is identical to manual post visibility.
Does Instagram penalize scheduled posts?
No, it is an old myth that Instagram penalizes scheduled posts. But it is advised to schedule posts after advancing seven days. Going more than a week in advance for Instagram scheduling can raise the possibility of things going wrong. You want to refrain from publishing something offensive and start a social media issue for your company.
What is social media scheduler straightforward?
Statusbrew is a fantastic choice if you're searching for an easy-to-use social media planner. With just a few clicks, you can quickly schedule and post content across social media networks with Statusbrew.
It also provides various functions, such as automated post-reporting and post-consistency checks. It is an excellent option for busy professionals who require a dependable and straightforward social media scheduling solution.
What features should a social media management tool have?
The process of writing and scheduling posts is made more accessible with the aid of social media management tools. In fact, they are frequently the only way to pre-schedule social media updates.
Some brands only use the basic post-creation and scheduling features. Others enhance this with capabilities like social media listening and monitoring, analytics, and reporting, as well as engagement through merged inboxes and other features.
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