You’ve set up your brand’s social media profile on the platforms that make sense, you have a content calendar planned out, posts created, hashtag strategy set…now what? If the idea of dedicating even three to five minutes a day to posting your prepared social media posts is daunting, you are not alone. Fortunately, there are a number of resources available to help with the process.
Automation software such as HootSuite, Planoly, Sprout Social, and a number of other options will let you schedule out posts well in advance and will push them out to the social platforms you specify according to the schedule established. While there are some hiccups with each of the resources out there, those speedbumps are still less cumbersome than manually pushing out content every day on every social platform your brand uses. We’ll take a look at some of the more popular tools and provide as much information as we can on the triumphs and challenges of each.
Allows you to upload and schedule posts to push out automatically
Provides a content calendar that lets you see all of your posts at a glance
Offers a mobile app that allows you to edit, approve, and manage scheduled messages
Helps you curate content by creating search streams based on hashtag, keyword, or location
Offers customizable reports using over 200 choices of metrics
Provides a large selection of social analytics integrations and apps
Offers a number of monitoring options for you and your team
Supports Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest
The Professional Plan
$29 per month
1 user, 10 social profiles
Auto scheduling and bulk scheduling
Publishing calendar
Content apps
$500 per month boosted post spend
Report templates
Social inbox
Ability to monitor incoming messages
Compliance integrations for security
On-demand product training
Access to free apps
Paid access to premium apps
The Team Plan
$129 per month
3 users, 20 social profiles
Everything in the Professional Plan plus,
1 custom branded URL
Customizable reports
$2000 per month boosted post spend
Team assignments
Employee permissions
The Business Plan
$599 per month
5 users, 35 social profiles (can add up to 10 more users)
Departmental or client organization
Everything in the Team Plan, plus
5 custom branded URLs
Message approvals
Content library
$5000 per month boosted post spend
Ability to add-on ad campaign management and social listening
Messaging tagging
Security notifications
60 minutes of 1:1 training
Access to premium apps
The Enterprise Plan
Contact Hootsuite for pricing
5+ users, 50+ social profiles
Everything in the Business Plan, plus
5+ custom branded URLs
Campaign management – planning, tagging, and reporting
Unlimited boosted post spend
Team productivity reporting
Ability to add-on paid and organic ROI reporting and competitive benchmarking
Automated team assignments and messaging tagging
Live training for the entire team
Quarterly business review
Ability to add-on employee advocacy and social selling
The main challenges cited by users include: expensive analytics reports and custom URL shorteners (forced to use Owly short links), Facebook image problems, lower Facebook reach and engagement, and expensive for teams.
Curate, plan and schedule posts
A content calendar allows you to visually plan content
Has a drag and drop feature to allow you to easily make changes
Supports Instagram and Facebook
The Free Plan
1 Instagram account, no ability to share to Facebook
1 user
30 grid uploads per month
30 story uploads per month
Supports photos
Can view the last 1 month of analytics
Can view comment inbox from the 5 latest posts
The Solo Plan
$7 per month billed annually OR $9 month to month
1 Instagram account plus the ability to share to Facebook
1 user
Unlimited grid and story uploads per month
Supports photos, videos, and GIFs
Can view the past 1 year of analytics
Can view comment inbox from the 15 latest posts
The Duo Plan
$15 per month billed annually OR $19 month to month
2 Instagram accounts plus the ability to share to Facebook
2 users
Unlimited grid and story uploads per month
Supports photos, videos, and GIFs
Can view the past 3 years of analytics
Can view comment inbox from the 30 latest posts
The Squad Plan
$79 per month billed annually OR $99 month to month
5 Instagram accounts plus the ability to share to Facebook
5 users
Unlimited grid and story uploads per month
Supports photos, videos, and GIFs
Can view full analytics history
Can view comment inbox from all posts
The Team Plan
$159 per month billed annually OR $199 month to month
10 Instagram accounts plus the ability to share to Facebook
10 users
Unlimited grid and story uploads per month
Supports photos, videos, and GIFs
Can view full analytics history
Can view comment inbox from all posts
The main challenges cited by users include a lack of organizational features of the media library; a limited number of social networks supported; content failing to post even though it was scheduled without an error message being communicated; and a lack of comprehensive analytics.
Over 25,000 customers worldwide
Provides a social content calendar to help you manage all of your posts
Offers the ability to draft, schedule, queue, and post content from a single window
Users can view and manage social content of multiple profiles, networks, and campaign tags from one place
Has team focused tools – you can see when someone else is interacting with a message, utilize a message approval option, assign, and manage tasks, and utilize an internal audit trail that helps prevent duplication of your efforts
Offers a wide range of analytics and reports
Social listening tools allow you to set up, track, and analyze keywords, hashtags, and locations
Supports Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+
The Standard Plan
$99 per user per month
5 social profiles
Publish, schedule, draft and queue posts
Social content calendar
Instagram posting and first comments
Profiles, keywords, and locations monitoring
Tasking and social CRM tools that provide contextual information such as conversation history, contact information, and internal notes
Group, profile, and post-level reporting
Paid promotion tools to boost Facebook posts
iOS and Android mobile apps
The Professional Plan
$149 per user per month
10 social profiles, may purchase additional profiles for a monthly charge of $25 per profile.
Everything in the Standard Plan, plus
Competitive reports for Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter
Incoming and outgoing message content tagging
Custom workflows for multiple approvers and steps
Scheduling for optimal send times
Response rate and time analysis reports
Trend analysis for Twitter keywords and hashtags
Paid social reporting for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn
Helpdesk integration – you can integrate your ZenDesk, HubSpot, or UserVoice account
The Advanced Plan
$249 per user per month
10 social profiles, may purchase additional profiles for a monthly charge of $25 per profile.
Everything in Professional Plan, plus
Message Spike Alerts for increased message activity
Digital asset and content library
Chatbots with automation tools – create, preview, and manage chatbots for Twitter and Facebook
Saved and suggested replies
Inbox rule builder for automated actions
Custom URL tracking
Twitter surveys to define Customer Satisfaction Scores (CSAT) or Net Promotor Score (NPS)
The main challenges cited by users include the relatively steep cost of the plans and additional resources within such as social listening; the fact that there are some social networks not supported; there are, intermittently, bugs that can cause functionality issues; and accounts being logged out for no apparent reason.
Ability to draft posts and orchestrate social media marketing campaigns
Create a preset publishing schedule for each account
Custom tailor posts for each social network
The content calendar provides an at-a-glance view of all content set to go
Ability to collaborate with other team members – you can see when someone else is interacting with a message, assign, and manage tasks, and help prevent duplication of efforts
Track performance and create reports for Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter from a single dashboard
Provides analysis across accounts and in-depth insights into specific social channels
Supports Facebook, Instagram, Twitter
The Professional Plan
$50 per month billed monthly
1 user; each additional user $25 per month
1 social account; each additional social account $10 per month
Shared team inbox
Tags and custom folders
Saved replies
Customer profiles
Assign conversations and internal notes
Personal signatures
Keyboard shortcuts
Overview report
30-day reporting history
Integrations include iOS and Android apps, Slack, and Help Scout Docs
Self-service knowledge base
Social media and email support
The Business Plan
$225 per month billed monthly
1 user; each additional user $25 per month
1 social account; each additional social account $10 per month
Everything in the Pro Plan, plus
Automation Rules
Twitter Searches
Full reporting history
Engagement report
Team report
Export to CSV
Onboarding training
Dedicated account manager
The main challenges cited by users include the content feed doesn’t always pull the most recent links; Instagram posts need to be monitored; some hashtag lists do not display correctly; could use stronger collaboration features; and the analytics lack the ability to monitor mentions, searches, or hashtags (only fair to mention they have a separate tool to handle those analytics).
The best solution is to invest in a social media management software that meets your needs – namely to simplify the process of social media marketing. Obviously, your budget and the size of your team are other considerations that will come into play. Bottom line is to educate yourself on the tools out there (these are only four of many) to understand what the resource will and will not do for you.
The experts at Strategy Driven Marketing understand how important an effective social media presence is for any brand. Whether you are seeking assistance to make sure you are on the right track or are looking for an agency partner that will handle your social media efforts from start to finish, the team at SDM is ready to help. Contact us today!