Social Media Schedule is an easy to use free application which enables you to schedule social network postings in advance, so that you can post on your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google+ accounts using just one application.
Whether you are a small organization or a big marketing team, at some point, you need to schedule social media updates. Buffer is the one of the best tools for this job, because it offers its users with flexibility and several options for scheduling updates. There are about forty social media channels available in the application such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram and many others. The tool allows users to schedule their posts hours or days in advance. The application also features native apps for web browser platforms such as Chrome, Opera and Safari.
Crowdfire
Crowdfire offers a free plan alongside its premium plans. It’s also a smart blend of content discovery and social media management capabilities. To find new and engaging content for your audience, Crowdfire curates articles according to search terms you choose. Once terms are selected, you’ll receive a steady flow of new content to share. And sharing’s easy. Crowdfire presents a default post with copy and a link. You can publish posts in this format, but I recommend that you personalize it a little to look fresh and appealing.
Something any busy influencer or marketer can attest to is the slog of grabbing links from websites and other, online shops, or other resources. It can be a painful process. Crowdfire will help give you back that time. By connecting your YouTube channel, WordPress site, Etsy or Shopify store, you can publish directly to your social accounts. Crowdfire pulls new content and you can easily publish content or tweak post copy before sharing.
Crowdfire would be incomplete without post scheduling. It will help you identify the best times to share content, allowing you to prep content in advance. Need attention-grabbing images? Crowdfire’s image curation feature is another time-saver. It pulls images for posts and automatically credits creators. Crowdfire also comes with the option of adding your own RSS feed and a helpful Chrome extension to quickly share articles you come across.
You’ll love Crodfire’s team inbox. It’s where all direct messages are stored, making it easier to get to all messages without missing any. You also get a solid analytics reporting feature. Gather insights on post engagement, and customize reports with metrics that matter most. Analytics also covers competitors. You can spot which posts perform best, or get an overall view of their performance on social.
CoSchedule
CoSchedule offers a 14-day free trial, something you should consider trying if you’re shopping for a powerful tool. It’s more than a social media management platform. It’s a marketing solution that syncs with your website, email, and social media. At a glance, this sounds a little messy but it’s really smart. CoSchedule’s content calendar is where the magic happens. It’s an overview of all communications with your audience. From blog posts to be published to your next Facebook post, everything is easily viewed from your calendar.
As for features you’d expect from a social media management tool, CoSchedule packs a lot of value. You can schedule content across social media accounts, track the success of your posts and campaigns using a range of reports, and access conversations through a team inbox. Like evergreen posts? CoSchedule offers ReQueue as a way to reshare your best stuff.
CoSchedule’s true power is that it’s a powerful collaboration tool. Social can be a complex beast, and more so with a team. In CoSchedule, you get project management and collaboration features that cover workflow (think drafts, edits, approvals, etc.). It also makes creating content easier with templates. Once created, producing posts and publishing content becomes streamlined. And this optimized approach carries through to campaigns.
Tracking how well your email and website content performs alongside social posts for a campaign means pulling data from various platforms. In CoSchedule, it’s all in one place. And, if you have content like images and copy stored in different places, CoSchedule integrates with tools like Google Drive and Dropbox, and comes with an asset library.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a long-standing favorite in the world of social media management. With Hootsuite, you create and schedule social media posts, make content calendars, interact with followers, and even launch Google, Facebook, and Instagram ads from the platform.
All of this functionality makes Hootsuite versatile; massive publications and independent bloggers alike use Hootsuite to handle their social media accounts.
Plus, Hootsuite has a free social media management plan that includes:
- One user
- Two social accounts
- Up to five scheduled posts
Five posts isn’t much, but if you just want to automate one post a week to a specific channel, Hootsuite’s free plan suffices.
The Professional plan unlocks unlimited social media scheduling, 10 social accounts, and follower messaging for $49 per month. You can use the 30-day free trial to test if Hootsuite is the social media scheduler you’re looking for.
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.
Conclusion
Planning what to post on social media can be time-consuming. At Hootsuite, we have the best free social media scheduling tool for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. With the help of over 22 million users like you who share content across platforms, we’re making it easier to stay engaged, monitor brand performance and identify opportunities.