Social Media Scheduling

If your business has multiple social media profiles, you are tasked not only with staying up with the latest trends and networks but also with making sure you are reaching your audiences using the best possible content strategy and methods of engagement. No matter if your company has Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Word Press (the list goes on), it is increasingly difficult to remain active across all platforms. So, we thought it would be great to share some of the best tools for social media scheduling that will make your life easier and save you time.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a very popular and comprehensive social media management tool. While it has a few small weaknesses, the availability of support online and the friendly customer service team outweigh any of the issues that you may encounter.

Strengths

• Allows the management of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ping, Word Press, Foursquare and Google+ pages.
• Has a mobile app for iPhone, Android, iPad and Blackberry.
• Has customised analytics that you can access through the Hootsuite interface.
• Comes with RSS integration so visitors can keep up-to-date without even visiting your website.
• It forces users to use ow.ly URL shorteners and therefore you can only track click-throughs that have been added with an ow.ly URL shortener.
• Expensive for team users (2 users from $9.99/month; 3 users from $19.99/month; extra users for $14.99/month)

Weaknesses

• It forces users to use ow.ly URL shorteners and therefore you can only track click-throughs that have been added with an ow.ly URL shortener.
• Expensive for team users (2 users from $9.99/month; 3 users from $19.99/month; extra users for $14.99/month)

GrabInbox

GrabInbox is a free tool that allows you to easily manage, analyse and schedule future posts in your social media accounts. The layout is very user friendly as each of the social media tabs (timeline, retweets, messages, etc.) are only viewed one at a time, rather than viewing multiple ‘columns’ next to each other as Hootsuite does.

Strengths

• Can manage Twitter, Facebook, Facebook pages and LinkedIn.
• Has an easy-to-read segment analysis for timeline, mentions, messages, retweets, etc.
• Has an algorithm that analyses your data and suggests the best timeslots to schedule your posts for maximum visibility.
• Has a convenient pop-up window to view the profiles of people in your feeds, which allows you to follow, message or add them to a list.
• It doesn’t have the option to shorten a URL code and therefore, the entire URL is shown (uses up a lot of the character count)
• Cannot currently post to Google+ or LinkedIn pages.
• Cannot choose to schedule a message at a specific time that is not in your timezone settings.

Weaknesses

• It doesn’t have the option to shorten a URL code and therefore, the entire URL is shown (uses up a lot of the character count)
• Cannot currently post to Google+ or LinkedIn pages.
• Cannot choose to schedule a message at a specific time that is not in your timezone settings.

Buffer

Buffer is similar to both GrabInbox and Hootsuite, however one feature that really stands out is the daily content suggestions. This is great if you’re suffering from a lack of creativity, ‘writer’s block’, or just want to post something that is a little bit different from the usual.

Strengths

• Allows you to post messages immediately, schedule them for the future or ‘buffer’ to a time that it suggested by Buffer for maximum visibility.
• Has a browser extension for all browser types as well as iPhone and Android.
• You can add multiple team members to the upgraded account and choose which profiles they have access to.
• With the free account, you can only be signed up to one account per social network, meaning that you can’t have your own Facebook profile and your business page connected at the same time.
• It supports Google+ pages, but not profiles.

Weaknesses

• With the free account, you can only be signed up to one account per social network, meaning that you can’t have your own Facebook profile and your business page connected at the same time.
• It supports Google+ pages, but not profiles.

Source: iMedia Connection

If you would like to know more about how to manage your social media accounts, please contact us at info@niquemarketing.com.au.