After spending hours creating the best pieces of content – images, videos, designs, podcasts, etc., it’s time for promotion. You’ll publish your content on several social media platforms to share with your audience. Instead of doing it manually, you can use tools to schedule your posts so that they will automatically be published on the date and time that you’ve set. As a result, you don’t have to deal with the hustle of posting and go do other tasks! Now, let us suggest some useful tools to help you plan out content for entire weeks or months ahead.
1. Hootsuite
Hootsuite helps you save time to publish posts and easily manage your posts on several social media platforms in one place. This tool provides you with a visual calendar where you can see the planned and upcoming events or posts, which assists your team to follow the plan smoothly.
Moreover, Hootsuite gives you the analysis of your posts’ performance so you can improve your content further.
You can use the Free Plan of Hootsuite with 2 social accounts, 5 scheduled messages and 1 user. Otherwise, you need to pay for using this tool with several options.
At the time of this blog post:
- Professional Plan: €39/month + free 14-day trial
- Team Plan: €109/month + free 14-day trial
- Business Plan: €599/month + free 14-day trial
- Enterprise Plan: Contact for pricing
More details of the pricing for each plan can be found on the Hootsuite website.
Pros of Hootsuite:
- Easy to publish and manage posts on different social media platforms in one place
- A clear and visual layout
- Provides report and analytics of posts’ performance
Cons of Hootsuite:
- Does not yet support TikTok – a trending platform nowadays.
- High price
2. Buffer
Similar to Hootsuite, Buffer can help you publish and manage your content, provides analytics and reports on your social media performance, and increase the engagement of your posts by replying to the audience comments quickly to ensure that you don’t miss any comments on your posts.
With the Free Plan, you can set up three channels with only basic publishing tools. Essentials Plan costs $5/month per social channel at the time of this blog post + a free trial for 14 days + three functions: planning and publishing, analytics, and engagement tools.
Pros of Buffer:
- Assist in increasing engagement.
- Easy to publish and manage posts on different social media platforms in one place
- A clear and visual layout
Cons of Buffer:
- Lacking information about the contents’ performance on the analytics compared with Hootsuite.
- Content calendar planning should be more in depth.
- It’s quite expensive for small size businesses to use the Pro version.
- Teamwork feature is lackluster.
3. Content Studio
The last tool that we’d like to mention is Content Studio. It is built for publishing and managing the content of your brand, and it also has a report for the performance of your content on multiple social media channels.
However, the competitive advantage of Content Studio is content and insight exploration and discovery. With that feature, you can find trending content that helps your brand grab attention and get more engagements.
Moreover, for brands that usually have a need to work with influencers, they can easily find influencers on Twitter and Instagram thanks to the influencer discovery function.
You can test this tool with a free 14-day trial without a credit card required. There are different plans, so you can find the suitable one for your need.
More detailed information about the pricing can be found on the Content Studio website.
Pros of Content Studio:
- Great feature of exploring trending contents and finding influencers.
- Easy to publish and manage posts on different social media platforms in one place
- A clear and visual layout
- Provides report and analytics of posts’ performance
- A trustworthy, highly rated and award winning tool which is used by well-known brands such as Unilever, New York University, etc.
Cons of Content Studio:
- High price
- Are not available for TikTok or Snapchat.
Final thoughts
Scheduling content in advance helps you manage your content calendar easily, save time, and increase productivity. Each of the tools above has its own strengths and weaknesses. Luckily, all tools offer free trials, so spend some time playing around with them to find which one best suits your needs and budget.
Curious to explore more tools in content creation? Check our blog here and find out the best marketing tools for content creation to grow your business.
Need help with content marketing? Bay Area’s content marketing professionals and experts are here to help. Don’t hesitate to drop us a message.
