A Digital Marketing Agency’s Take on the 5 Best Social Scheduling Tools

As you grow your business online, it’s very important that you show up as your brand and interact with your audience.

This might sound obvious. But for many authors and new business owners, it’s actually one of the most difficult things to force yourself to do. No one wants to be tied to their phone or computer 24 hours a day posting on Instagram and trying to boost their engagement.

The good news? You don’t have to be actively present online at all times to continue growing your business.

Today we’re sharing some of our favorite social media scheduling tools that will help you continue to grow while you sleep. Sound too good to be true? It’s not!

Check out this resource list for all your online promotion needs.

1. Sprout Social – https://sproutsocial.com

Of course, we had to share the #1 tool that our team uses first! Sprout Social is a beast of a tool best for established businesses. With it, you’re able to manage everything from posting simultaneously to your channels to narrowing in on your audience trends to get the best results from your content. With in-depth analytics and unique social listening tools, Sprout is our #1 choice for agencies, large businesses, and established brands managing 4 or more accounts. While Sprout is a pricy choice at $89/month, they do offer a 30-day trial and a full demo on their site. 

2. Tailwind – https://www.tailwindapp.com

Tailwind first grew in popularity because it was one of the only tools on the market focused on Pinterest scheduling and growth. If Pinterest is one of your main platforms, Tailwind is your best choice by far. However, they’ve also expanded to incorporate scheduling for all your other important channels. Inside of Tailwind, you can create and design your social images, optimize your hashtags, find your perfect posting times, create a unique bio link page, and more! Tailwind offers a scaled-down forever free plan, and their Pro plan begins at $9.99 a month.

3. Later – https://later.com/

For those just diving into the world of social media marketing, Later is THE tool. If you only have 1 to 2 platforms to manage, they offer a generous free plan. There are multiple ways to schedule your feed, choose hashtags, find your best posting times, and more. If you sell products, Later has some great tools to help you drive sales through your social accounts. They also have an extensive training library for their users. Everyone can plan free for 14 days, and the Starter plan begins at $15/month. 

4. Planoly – https://www.planoly.com/

If you’re looking for a great visual platform, be sure to check out Planoly. This tool is popular with creatives because it allows you to plan future content and organize your feed before scheduling begins. Planoly offers a direct connection to Canva that allows you to go from image creation to scheduling in a matter of minutes. The downside? At this time you can only schedule content for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest through their platform. Planoly offers one personal platform for free, with their Starter plan beginning at $11.25.

5. Hootsuite – https://www.hootsuite.com/

Hootsuite is a scheduling tool that’s been around for a long time – and for good reason. This is tried and true platform for scheduling, social listening, growing your following and getting in-depth analytics. They also offer social media marketing courses through their site that can help you strengthen and improve your strategy. But, these tools do come at a price. Hootsuite offers a free plan for 2 platforms. Beyond that, their Professional plan is $49/month.

*Bonus: Hootsuite just recently added a TikTok integration, which is one of the first platforms to do so! If this is a focus for your business, it’s definitely worth looking into.

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And of course if you’d rather hand off your social media strategy to an expert, that’s what our Red Bird Social team does best! You can find out more about our social media services right here.

Have YOU tried out any of these tools yet which one are your favorites be sure to let us know in the comments so we can check them out too!