The Best Apps for Social Media Scheduling
If you're managing your own social media, or running social media on another small businesses behalf, you're probably wondering - how do the professionals do it, how do they manage so many social media accounts and what apps do they use? Having lots of different social media accounts can mean great things for businesses, but navigating through the app store to find the best ones as a social media manager can be a confusing and laborious task. As social media experts (head to www.sassydigital.co.uk) we're sharing some of the best apps for social media scheduling right here.
1. Best Paid for Scheduling and Analytics software: Sprout Social
You've probably heard of Sprout Social, but why is it worth spending the eye-watering £80 minimum fee per month when there are other places to do it for free or on the cheap? Well, quite simply, it allows more than one team member to schedule posts and manage the community. Perfect for marketing teams! Your inbox will fill up with any and all messages relating to a certain group of accounts, and you can see what conversations have been dealt with, and which ones have not.
The biggest perk though is the detailed and good-looking analytics documents. You can break these bespoke documents down by group, social media channel - any way you want really which means there's so much flexibility when it comes to reporting. It also makes what can be a time consuming task happen in a number of seconds. Time saver? Winning!
The publishing tool matches up with the app on your phone so you can post to Instagram when it alerts you that it is time to do so. It automatically push out Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn (and more!) messages. You can trial Sprout free for a month.
2. Best Budget Friendly Scheduling and Analytics software: Hootsuite
Our good old friend Hootsuite. We sadly just had to make the jump from Hootsuite to Sprout Social at Sassy Digital. However, it doesn't mean I like it any less - but with a growing client base, Sprout's Capabilities for managing groups of accounts is better suited to agency style businesses. If you're running the social media for one business, Hootsuite is brilliant because it comes in cheaper at around £14 per month, or you can use the free version if you still don't have the budget for it.
Hootsuite now also has Analytics capabilities!
Hootsuite supports: Instagram Profiles, Facebook profiles, pages and groups, Twitter, LinkedIn profiles, groups and companies, and finally YouTube channels.
3. Best Instagram Feed Planner: Mosaico
Big statement alert: This is probably our favourite app at the moment. If you're a perfectionist about the way that your Instagram feed looks then you'll probably want to download Mosaico too. This tool for Instagram pulls in your current feed and lets you plan how the rest of you feed will look. It also allows you to move images with the swipe of your finger, plan captions and save banks of hashtags to post directly into your captions. You can set in your preferences whether you would like it to remind you to post, and at what time in the morning or evening. It then simply reminds you when it's time to post and transfers over to Instagram automatically. Costs: £5.99 in the app store.
4. Best Budget Friendly Instagram Scheduling Tool: Later
Is Instagram your only or main social media account? You'll need Later. You can schedule images and captions on a calendar both on the move using your phone or at your desktop. You can set up multiple accounts or use just one! For individual accounts it's free, and prices range from $9-$49 dollars depending on the number of accounts or posts you need.
What are your favourite social media scheduling apps? Comment below...
We'll be doing a separate post on best image editing apps for social media so make sure to keep your eyes peeled!