4 Social Media Scheduling Tools you need to know about.

Using social media as a small business is fundamental for growth in 2019, having the accounts is one thing, but what about keeping up with them? If you have very little time to post regularly on your accounts, the point of having these in the first place can have the opposite effect. Sharing your business updates, news and keeping up a presence on your accounts can be difficult alongside running a business. That’s where scheduling tools come in. Here are 4 you need to know about when owning a business.

Why use scheduling tools?

Without scheduling tools, a lot of SMEs would struggle as time can be difficult to manage. With scheduling tools, you can choose the times you post, pinpoint what works for your brand and also have a stack of content ready to go. There are a variety of scheduling tools for each of the main platforms and some of these provide scheduling for more than one platform. So what are the best social media scheduling tools and how do they work?

Buffer

The platform that allows you to schedule for all of your social media platforms in one place is Buffer. When paying for a basic account, you can use 10 profiles and schedule up to 100 posts on each of the platforms. With Buffer, it also has a ‘rebuffer’ feature which allows you to reshare content with a click of a button. Once you choose to reshare, you can edit the content and share on other platforms too. Buffer has a simple layout so it’s easy to get to grips with and allows you to choose how often you schedule and at what times. Buffer is a useful tool for sharing Tweets, Instagram Posts and Linkedin content.

Hootsuite

Similarly to Buffer, Hootsuite allows you to schedule your posts in advance to all of the mainstream social media platforms. The ways in which Hootsuite differs is you’re able to monitor hashtags, competitors feed also whilst doing your own social media. The site splits into columns which allows you to view multiple parts of Hootsuite simultaneously. By monitoring hashtags it allows you to be able to communicate with users in real-time.

Tailwind

Pinterest is underrated in terms of being used to create traffic to your site. The site is known for creating boards to share craft ideas and weddings, however, creating your own pins with content can be a great way to get potential customers clicking through to your site. With Tailwind you’re able to schedule your pins in advance and Tailwind will publish these on your behalf. One of the best things about Tailwind is the statistics it provides at the end of the week/month. This allows you to see what works well and what doesn’t, to be able to change up your marketing strategy to fit the results.

Planoly

When it comes to Planoly, it’s revolutionary for the Instagram game. As Instagram is all about appearances, Planoly allows you to plan the perfect feed in advance. You can organise pictures by dragging and dropping them, so it’s easy to move them around. Then by setting up the scheduling feature, the app will publish the grid pictures on your behalf. The app provides an analytics section which is fantastic to see your best times to post, which hashtags to use and your top posts. Planoly also allows you to reply to your comments directly from the app, so you never miss another comment.

What about Facebook?

When it comes to Facebook, they offer their own post scheduler which it has been known to suggest it works better than using a 3rd party app. The scheduler within Facebook allows you to set up Facebook posts ready to go on your feed at the time specified by you.

If you’re looking for someone to help you get your head around social media scheduling feel free to get in touch, we’d love to help.