If you’re going to be adding any of the following 10 services to your toolbox, I recommend picking one and sticking with it. Each social media management tool below has strengths and weaknesses in terms of features, usability and ease-of-use. By using only one of these tools you’ll be able to learn all of them quickly and easily using this post as a guide on which one is easiest for you to use when scheduling your posts for each social network.
In this post, we will cover the best free social media scheduling tools that can help you manage your social media presence on the top social media networks.
Visme
Visme is a leading name in the visual content creation game. From social media graphics and presentations to printables and beyond, you can develop all your visual content with this user friendly tool.
The Basic plan is free, and you can use it for as long as you want for up to five projects. This is a great risk-free option to explore how you and your team can start creating awesome visuals with Visme.
One of the best aspects of this platform is the fact that they set you up for success in using their product, thanks to their huge selection of educational resources. Their Visme Versity includes an educational blog, helpful videos for tutorials and tips, live webinars, and ebooks and handbooks.
Additionally, you can save tons of time by using their incredible templates. They provide thousands of themes and templates for any visual content format you need.
Visme Upgrade Options
- Individual plans start at $14/month when billed annually
- Business plans include:
- Single: $25/month when billed annually
- Team: $75/month when billed annually
Canva
If you want to create amazing, custom graphics to post on social media, Canva gives you a lot of tools to choose from.
Canva makes it easy to create breathtaking graphics and designs – and, if you’d rather start from scratch and create your own, that works too!
Beyond social media, this design website offers tons of tools for creating documents, flyers, marketing material, and more. Regardless of what you’re doing on social media, you’ll probably want to check Canva out.
Canva Upgrade Options
- Canva Pro: $12.95/month OR $9.95/month billed annually
- Canva Enterprise: Contact Canva for more details
- Learn more about pricing options here.
Stencil
Like the other graphic creators, Stencil has a simple drag-and-drop tool that allows you to make any social graphic you want.
Search through over two million royalty-free images to use as backgrounds and add fun text to provide context and value to your readers.
Not in the mood to design your own? Choose from any of their pre-made templates and customize it to fit your brand. Once you’re done, all you have to do is download it!
Stencil Upgrade Options
- Pro: $15/month OR $9/month when paid annually
- Unlimited: $20/month OR $12/month when paid annually
- Read more about pricing options here.
Buffer
Next up is Buffer. Similar to Hootsuite, Buffer has been in the social media management space for quite some time, and they are a respectable platform that allows you to manage multiple social profiles with ease.
With many overlapping features to Hootsuite, some of my favorite Buffer features include the ability to easily schedule content while browsing the web with their Chrome extensions. Buffer also suggests the perfect moments to post based on follower activity – pretty neat!
While there are a variety of options for larger organizations and agencies, the free plan just may suit your social media management needs. Buffer’s free plan includes the ability to manage three social profiles, schedule up to ten posts, utilize their browser extensions and mobile apps (iOS and android) feature, create and schedule content using their image creator and GIF/video uploader, and shorten and track links.
TweetDeck
If Twitter is the bread and butter of your social media strategy, then TweetDeck is likely the best social management platform for you! TweetDeck will allow Twitter birds to use custom timelines, create and manage Twitter lists and searches, and add team accounts. It is also free for Twitter users!
While TweetDeck may not be the all-in-one platform you’re searching for, it is the perfect tool for social marketers managing multiple Twitter accounts where these live conversations are critical for business success.
SocialOomph
Not only do I love the name of SocialOomph, I’m quite impressed by the wide range of features they offer for multiple platforms – ranging from the typical features like scheduling and analytics, to some interesting ones like keeping your DM Twitter Inbox clean to help with increasing followers. They definitely offer a wide variety of unique features for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest management, as well as the ability to manage and schedule blog posts.
While SocialOomph does indeed have a free plan, the features are limited and mostly lean towards Twitter management. On the free plan you can do things like schedule tweets, track keywords, shorten URL’s, and manage up to five Twitter accounts, but some of the more sophisticated features require a paid plan. If you’re looking to manage multiple social platforms aside from Twitter you will need to pay to play.
Friends+Me
Friends+Me is another prime player in the social media management tools family. While Friends+Me puts the highest emphasis on Google Plus features, many other social platforms are supported. Friends+Me appears to get rave reviews from users, and has a beautifully designed website with plans available based on the size of your business. And yes, there is a free plan!
While the free plan is not super robust, it still allows for two queues (which is a destination to publish posts), the ability to schedule five posts per queue at one time, link shortening, browser extensions, an integration with Zapier, as well as standard support. The free plan can also be used for a variety of social platforms like Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Tumblr.
Pinterest and Instagram are supported as well, but you will need to upgrade. Plans range from $7.50 to $216 depending on if you decide to utilize monthly or annual billing.
Followerwonk
Followerwonk is definitely not your tradition social media management tool when it comes to scheduling posts, but it is an effective tool when it comes to understanding your audience at a much deeper level. Followerwonk allows you to dig deep into Twitter bios and compare various accounts to find the most relevant influencers. With this tool, you can analyze your current followers – by location, bio, accounts they follow, and more – and contrast relationships with competitors. This will help you improve your social content by matching your activities with gains and losses of followers.
This tool is definitely worth exploring, because having a lot of followers is meaningless if these followers are not relevant and actually engaging with your brand. Luckily, Followerwonk offers a free account, as well! Like many of the others on this list, the free account does come with several limitations, but you will still be able to connect one profile, view authority rankings, see followers and their locations, see when followers are active, and access several other details to further analyze your social audience. If you are interested in more capabilities their plans are still decently affordable ranging from $29 to $79 per month.
Zoho Social
Whether you’re a growing business or an agency, Zoho Social will help you manage multiple profiles, research relevant keywords, work with team members, and of course schedule posts from one dashboard.
Zoho Social has many of the same tools and features that the other platforms have, but they also have Facebook lead ads, advanced reporting features, a SocialShare browser plugin, and CRM integrations. Zoho Social caters to agencies as well so marketers have the choice of choosing between the business or agency plans. Pricing for the paid plans ranges from $8.33 to $125+ for larger agencies. Zoho Social’s free plan allows you to manage 1 brand, and includes the URL shortener and SocialShare browser plugin.
Piktochart
Infographics continue to be a valuable sharing tool to distribute knowledge to your audience. And, if you need a simple creator to make some kickass infographics, Piktochart is your best option.
Piktochart features tons of amazing templates you can fully customize to suit your brand, your information, and platform.
There are even presentation templates if you plan on creating informational slideshow, LinkedIn SlideShares, and more.
Piktochart Upgrade Options
- PRO: $29/month OR $24.17/month billed annually ($290 a year)
- PRO Team*: $92/month OR $76.67/month billed annually ($920 a year)
- *The PRO Team price is calculated for four team members. Price depends on number of team members.
- Read more about pricing options here.
Over
Making stunning visuals for your social media accounts helps you to engage your audience. The Over app simplifies the process of creating branded visual content with gorgeous graphics and animations. You can make posts for your story, for social media ads, and for your profile.
Over is simple to use, and it allows you to collaborate with your team members on projects.
Over Upgrade Options
- Pro: $69.99 per year
- Read more about pricing options here.
Conclusion
By using scheduling tools, you are able to post and edit more content than if you were doing it yourself. This gives you the advantage of getting in front of more potential customers who will remember your name as well as your business. As a small business owner, this is important in today’s social media world where competition is hard. A reliable and simple platform that can make your life easier should be at the top of your list when looking for social media management tools.