My 3 Favourite Social Media Scheduling Tools

Every job I’ve had since college turned into an excuse to take over their social media accounts.

From what I saw, these businesses put very little into their social media marketing plans. Their profiles were often bare, hadn’t been updated in months, or were completely non-existent. Who could blame them? It’s a BIG job, and requires time and resources.

Half of the world is spending hours every day staring at their phones, scrolling through their social media feeds, and if you’re not utilizing these platforms in your business, you’re missing out. Plain and simple.

Since most of my social media marketing skills are self-taught, I’ve had time to experiment with tools, apps, and resources that have made my life easier when developing and scheduling thoughtful content while easily engaging with my audience.

The 3 tools below are all user friendly and easy to jump into for those first-timers or seasoned professionals:

1. Hootsuite

This is the top dog when it comes to writing, scheduling, managing, and engaging within all of the social media platforms you can think of. 

When you sign up for one of their various plans (Free to Enterprise levels), your connected profiles are displayed in their dashboard. Here, you’re able to connect with your audience, create conversations, schedule your posts, run reports, check in on analytics, and much more.

New to Hootsuite? Begin exploring the key features of your dashboard: connecting your social media accounts, publishing posts, and monitoring and engaging with your audience.

While I was getting my start in social media marketing and working for a small lifestyle apparel company, I was using Hootsuite to engage with our followers through Twitter. On the dashboard, I noticed a conversation about our products between two women. I mentioned the two of them in a tweet with a product recommendation. And guess what, that resulted in a sale! 

Without this helpful tool, I might not have noticed their conversation or have been too late and missed out on a great opportunity. Hootsuite puts it all out there, in front of my face, so I don’t have to miss a thing. 

2. Buffer

Another super user-friendly social media scheduling tool that just happens to come with a hefty amount of free resources is Buffer.

Buffer is the tool you want if you’re having a hard time coming up with consistent content for your social media channels. It displays a strong focus in filling up your queue while saving you hours of time.

They also offer excellent free resources, such as the Buffer Blog and the Science of Social Media podcast.

The feature that I think makes Buffer unique is its focus on timing your posts just right. 

I’ve read article after article about the subject, each one claiming they know when the best times to post on each channel are. Buffer determines YOUR times to post based on YOUR channels and visitor activity. Adjust these times based on how your posts are performing (see your results in their analytics feature).

They too have a variety of pricing plans. While (in my opinion) Buffer is not quite as powerful as Hootsuite, they offer a very user-friendly tool with excellent and accessible customer support to back it up.

Looking for a robust tool to manage your social media accounts? Buffer is a powerful and intuitive social media management platform complete with scheduling, analytics, and monitoring! With Buffer you can schedule your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest posts in advance so that you can get back to doing what you do best.

3. A Custom Content Calendar 

I remember the moment I was trying to design my first content calendar. It was a complete disaster, but I knew it was going to be a HUGE help. After five years and a TON of testing different templates, I think I found the one that works for me.

The custom calendar I’m currently using.

With the template I’ve created, I have the ability to see the time and date a post is set to be scheduled, the post text including hashtags and @ mentions, plus any media attachments, character count, and the post’s status (scheduled/posted).

Hubspot offers a free template (with email sign-up) that really helped lead me in the right direction. It’s great for any level of business that is looking to organize their content and have everything in one place. Grab yours today by clicking the image below:

Click here to download your free template!

There are a million other tools out there to help you schedule social media content. These are but a mere three that I came to rely heavily upon, and they are to blame for my love of social media marketing!

Is there a specific scheduling tool that you would die without?? Let me know in the comments! I’d love to test it out!