Creating a social media posting schedule means you can post with purpose. Rather than throwing something at the feed each day and hoping it sticks, scheduling empowers you to create strategic and compelling content that engages your audience.
If you choose wisely, social media management tools can save you hours (time that could be spent learning more about your audience, and creating new products or services to fit their needs) but unfortunately, finding the right social media management tools that does everything you need it to isn’t easy.
A few months ago, we set out to find the best social media scheduler for our business, and were overwhelmed with options. Type “social media management tools’ into Google, and millions of results appear, each product claiming to be the best. Each social media management tool’s plethora of paid ads and countless blogs make it impossible to tell the real from fake.
It makes sense; these social media management tools are made for marketers by marketers. What results is a minefield of insincere reviews, confusing and convoluted feature lists, and blog posts that tell you everything, except what you actually want to know.
We haven’t got skin in the game; we’re not here to boost a brand or promote a particular scheduling software. We’re here to help you sort out what you want from what you need, because what works for one brand might not work for another. Here at Slice, we do social media day-in and day-out, so you can trust that we’ve put these tools to the test, and are only recommending the tools that we’d use ourselves.
We’re also going to spotlight some features you should look for and do a deep dive into the services offered by Loomly, Agorapulse, Sprout Social, Buffer, Later and Storrito to see who’s doing what best.
Things to know before you start looking for a social media management tool
Jumping into social media management tools without a plan of attack is a recipe for disaster. Social media management tools have so many features, and it’s easy to get sidetracked, so before you begin your research, it’s worth sorting the nice-to-haves from the need-to-haves.
Budget, users and profiles
The best social media scheduler for you is the one that fits your business and budget. Social media management tools for small businesses aren’t likely to suit a large agency and vice versa.
Start by creating a budget and defining the top amount you’re willing to spend. Think about how many people will need to use the social media management tool at once (these are called users or seats), and how many social profiles you’ll need to connect.
If you’re a small business you might only need two or three social profiles and one user. An agency, on the other hand, may need upwards of 50 social profiles. Some brands have lots of channels but only a few employees managing posts, while others have one large social media profile with lots of users, which is especially true for brands with big communities to moderate.
These factors are crucial to consider because of the way social media management tools price themselves. Scheduling platforms charge based on how many users you have, how many profiles you need or how many features you can access. At the end of the day, your business’ needs will ultimately inform which social media management tools will give you the best value for money.
If you start by working out your budget and the number of users and profiles you need, you won’t have to spend hours researching social media management tools that don’t fit the brief.
Understanding APIs and how they limit what a scheduling tool can do
When it comes to social media management tools, there are some things you just can’t do. There’s a reason for this: APIs, which stands for Application Programming Interface. An API is essentially a go-between that helps two applications talk to each other.
For example, if you want to schedule a post on Instagram, you can create a post using a scheduling tool and set it to post at a certain date and time. The social media management tool then tells Instagram’s API to post the image and it shows up in your feed. Sadly, some APIs are more restricted than others. For example, Instagram’s API doesn’t allow scheduling software to add alt-text or schedule reels or stories, which all must be done natively.
It’s easy to think that the best social media scheduler should be capable of doing everything you need. In reality, API restrictions mean there’s no perfect solution. The good news is that knowing this makes choosing scheduling software that much easier because you don’t have to spend hours searching for features that don’t exist.
If you do find social media management tools that claim to have functionality outside of API limitations, it’s likely they’re getting around this by using your username and password to login and post natively. If you’re considering using social media management tools like these, do your research, especially if you’ve accumulated a large following and have a lot to lose if your account’s security ends up at risk.
API restrictions are ever changing, and the easiest way to find out about current API restrictions is to ask. Contact a social media management tool’s customer support team, and ask them what API limitations exist on the channels you’re using.
Can the social media management tool schedule posts across all the social media channels you use?
If you’re going to manage social media in one place, you need your social media management tools to support all the social networks you use (think LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook etc). Some social media management tools are only compatible with Instagram, while others have the full suite, from Pinterest to TikTok.
Being able to manage social media in one place is a huge timesaver. This is also another easy way to narrow down your short-list.
If you’re spread across more platforms than you can count, try Loomly; they integrate with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google My Business, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok.
What features should you prioritise?
There’s some stuff you shouldn’t compromise on when it comes to social media scheduling; things that might seem small but save you time in the long run.
Alternate text (alt-text)
The best social media scheduler for you is the one that supports alt-text. alt-text is a scheduling necessity. If you want your content to be accessible to your entire audience, you should include alt-text in your posts.
Alt-text describes images for screen readers so that people who are blind or have low vision can understand the image and the post. It also helps search engines crawl and rank your website. If a tool doesn’t support scheduling alt-text with posts, you can add it natively, but it’s fiddly and takes up time that could be better spent elsewhere.
Our recommendation: Sprout Social are champions of alt-text. They support it wherever possible and always prioritise adding accessibility features.
Organisation and workflow
Whether you’re in need of social media management tools for small businesses or you’re an agency with multiple employees, brands and clients to wrangle, a good workflow can be the difference between a smooth social strategy and a disorganised, inconsistent mess. A fine-tuned workflow saves you time, encourages accountability and ensures quality control.
Our recommendations: Loomly, Agorapulse and Sprout Social have built-in workflow systems, so you can create, assign and approve content across your organisation. If you’re part of a big team, it’s a good idea to look at how these work in practice to see if they’re the right fit for your way of working.
Social listening
Social listening is exactly as its name suggests: it means tracking social media channels for mentions of your brand, competitors, products and related keywords. It also measures the sentiment of the mentions and gives you insights about competitors and customers.
Social listening empowers you to keep up with your customers. It means you’re the first to know if someone’s dissatisfied, or if someone’s loving your new content. You’re poised to put out fires in the comment section and push compliments to your page.
Our recommendations: Social listening can take a brand’s social media presence from good to great. Agorapulse and Sprout Social are the best social media management tools for social listening.
Agorapulse scours your social media channels, displays brand mentions and allows you to respond in real time. Sprout Social also offers competitor analysis that measures the sentiment of competitors and their engagement levels.
Analytics and reporting
Social media analytics are key to your brand’s growth, which means you should stay clear of any social media management tool that doesn't prioritise precise, insightful reporting.
Our recommendations: Agorapulse and Sprout Social’s reporting stand out for their specificity. You can look at how one post performs against another and customise the date range of your reporting with ease.
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