Social media scheduling is an incredible way to make sure you engage with your audience when they’re most active. With the number of social networks reaching saturation point, it’s crucial to know how best to utilise your time for maximum engagement. There are some great social media engagement tools out there, but also some bad ones. Many social media scheduler review sites focus on the former, so we’ve decided to share a few of our favourite free social media scheduler tools.
Searching for the best social media scheduling tool or social media engagement tools to increase your efficiency and save times? You are at the right place. Read on and find out in this piece. Want to learn about best free social media scheduler 2021? Or about social media scheduling apps? Check out these free social media engagement tools you will find here.
Appointy
Appointy is a scheduler app that’s been around since 2009. It offers a lot of useful features in the basic free plan, such as Zapier support for third-party software integration, booking directly from Google Calendar, automatic reminders, and accepting payments through Square.
- ⦿Square Payments integration in the free plan
- ⦿Zapier provides thousands of app integration options
- ⦿Google bookings and automatic reminders
CoSchedule
The common thread between pretty much any social scheduling tool is the same.
Saving time.
CoSchedule emphasizes efficiency for marketing teams and individuals alike. Integrating with company blogs via WordPress, the platform allows brands to publish and push content to social media simultaneously.
Additionally, CoSchedule provides a comprehensive “Top Content Report” which documents social shares and engagement. This is a fantastic feature for content creators looking to figure out which pieces are resonating most with readers.
Unlike other social media scheduling tools, CoSchedule primarily focuses on content versus solely social performance. Features such as the “ReQueue” Bucket allow teams to recycle and schedule their best messages automatically without having to lift a finger. This results in more fresh content in your brand’s feed faster.
Airtable
If you can’t tell by now, social media scheduling and content creation go hand in hand.
Every time you sit down to knock out a blog post, you probably already have your audience in the back of your mind.
You want to craft pieces that have potential to get shared around like crazy. You want to get as much mileage as you can via social sharing so that piece of content is seen by as many people as possible.
That means planning out your content, plain and simple.
Airtable brings the processes of content planning and social media scheduling together. The platform can be used among teams or individuals to not only plan out future pieces of content but how those posts will be promoted across various social sites.
Another nice bonus of Airtable is its asset manager. This feature affords users a sense of consistency across your campaigns and ads prior to hitting “publish.”
In short, Airtable allows you stay one step ahead by assessing what your social media posts will look like before your content even goes live. Never hurts to be prepared, does it?
Square Appointments
Square Appointments is a great example of appointment scheduling software that’s free for single users. It offers access to all of Square’s business management software, including invoicing, CRM, and payment processing, without any charge. The catch is that it’s only free for one user. Multi-user options cost money. This makes the software best suited for solopreneurs.
- ⦿Free package for solopreneurs
- ⦿Access to Square’s business management suite
- ⦿Excellent mobile app
Acuity Scheduling
Its like a personal assistant for your schedule–only better. With Acuity Scheduling, booking appointments with your clients & customers doesnt have to be a neverending time suck anymore. (Hallelujah!) Let your clients view your real-time availability, select the date and time that works best for them, pay in advance via Square, Stripe, or Paypal, and even cancel or reschedule all on their own–without you having to drive yourself crazy.
Calendly
Calendly is a free scheduling software for small businesses that helps you manage your staff schedule. The software is both mobile (iOS and Android) and browser-based, meaning you can book appointments anywhere you have access to the internet. With Calendly, you can create a calendar and share it with clients. You can customize your availability to any time-of-day or day-of-the-week (or remove available slots to show that you are a busy person!).
Overall, Calendly is simple to use and implement with no feature bloating. With the free version, you can schedule unlimited one-on-one appointments. The pro plan comes with additional features like appointment reminders. Customer support for the pro plan is available via email.
Calendly integrates with Gmail, Zoom, Slack, Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, HubSpot, Paypal, Intercom, Stripe, GoToMeeting, Google Analytics, Mailchimp, Active Campaign, Drip, ClickSend SMS, Twilio, and dozens of other apps. You can also integrate with hundreds more tools using a paid plan through Zapier.
Calendly is free to use for 1 calendar. Paid plans cost from $8/month and come with a 14-day free trial.
Square Appointments
PROS
- POS system
- Unlimited features for one user
- Automatic reminders via email or text
CONS
- Calendar sync with Google only
- Must use Square’s payment processor
- No video chat integration
Overall Score4.44OUT OF5
| RATING CRITERIA | FREE PLAN LIMITATIONS | 4 | OUT OF | 5 |
| APOINTMENT BOOKING TOOLS | 4.13 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| BACK OFFICE FEATURES | 5 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| EXPERT SCORE | 5 | OUT OF | 5 |
Square Appointments gives you all the main features of appointment scheduling software without hiding anything behind a paywall or showing pesky ads. You can set up a webpage where clients can view your open time slots and book an appointment. It also sends automatic email or SMS reminders when the appointment is drawing near. It syncs your appointments with Google Calendar, so any conflicts you have are automatically removed from your booking page.
Like Fresha, Square offers point-of-sale (POS) software with inventory that works with Square Appointments. However, Square’s POS software is rated as the best for small businesses.
Square is a very popular appointment program and gets good reviews from users. It integrates with a multitude of other software for business, just not for video conferencing. It has email and text appointment reminders. In addition to credit card processing, it can handle digital gift cards, and it includes time-tracking software. Square loses points because the free plan is limited to a single user, and it only syncs with Google calendar. Square’s robust free features earned it a 4.44 out of 5.
Square Appointments Pricing
- Free: Full appointment scheduling software free for one user plus a transaction fee of 2.5% plus 10 cents for any payments processed through the platform
- $50 per month: Two to five users
- $90 per month: Six to 10 users
- Custom pricing: 11 or more users
Square Appointments Features
- Book appointments through your website and attach documents or contracts to the verification emails for intake forms.
- Accept payments through Square (fee applies) and send invoices. Set deposits against no-shows.
- Class or group bookings.
- Attach intake forms, contracts, or other documents to confirmation emails.
- Accept payments, including deposits against no-shows.
- Maintain customer database.
- Works with Square POS and Square Online.
Conclusion:
You’ve heard of social media scheduling tools, but do you know where to start? With so many social media tools out there, it can be hard to figure out which are the best. It also doesn’t help that some of these tools have hidden costs or have very specific uses.