Buffer is a social media management software that strives to provide innovative marketing tools for individuals and teams. Buffer helps teams grow their following organically by recommending optimized hashtags and time slots for each platform so content reaches the right audience at the right time.
Managing your social media is unique to every individual and team. Your marketing efforts deserve the support they need to perform at their best. Use this thorough list of top-tier social media management tools to try out different ones and how they operate.
Buffer may not be the software for your marketing, but here are 10 all-star alternatives that might be.
1. CoSchedule Social Media Calendar
Features
Unified Calendar View: For planning and scheduling across various networks.
Auto-Scheduling: Schedule your posts for optimal engagement times and get the most out of your campaigns.
Clear Team Workflows: Collaborate with team members flawlessly and track content contribution and approval.
Integration: Seamlessly integrate with content management systems, email marketing platforms, and analytics tools.
Drag-And-Drop Functionality: For easy content management, and flexibility.
Content Rescheduling: ReSchedule your social posts seamlessly to maintain a consistent online presence.
Security & Compliance: Give users an easy and secure way to log into Social Calendar using SSO (Single Sign-On) authentication.
Digital Asset Management: Create, schedule, publish, and measure your social media strategy in a single, AI-powered social calendar.
Customer Service & Support: Fast, effective customer service and support help so you can be as productive as possible.
Social Media Management: Create and manage all of your social media content in one place for an optimal posting experience.
AI Marketing: Write first-draft copy, generate new ideas, and upgrade your marketing workflows with CoSchedule’s AI-Powered Marketing Intelligence Assistant.
Pros
- Visualize your marketing schedule in real time
- Manage work through every stage of the creative process
- Maximize your team’s productivity
- See your high-level marketing strategy at a glance
- Deliver projects on time, every time
Cons
- This tool offers so many benefits and features that it may take your team a little time to get used to it.
Pricing: Regarding pricing for Social Calendar, at $19/Month you are getting a cutting edge social media marketing tool to optimize your social media campaigns. CoSchedule offers other plans and a forever free marketing calendar if you want to try that out first.
“CoSchedule has improved our efficiency immeasurably, enabling us to scale with a very small team. Additionally – it has given us such an easy way to communicate the volume and status of work we are doing to the business teams we support. We have tried other tools, and nothing really compares.”
– Customer from ABS Group
2. Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a comprehensive tool for social media management and intelligence, designed to assist brands and agencies of all sizes in managing conversations and driving their business forward.
Features
Engagement: Enhances your customer care and community management on a scalable level.
Publishing: Simplifies the process of planning, creating, managing, and delivering social content and campaigns.
Analytics: Enables informed decision-making across your entire organization.
Listening: Offers valuable insights from a sea of unfiltered thoughts, feelings, and opinions, contributing to your current strategy and future plans.
Pros
- Sprout Social differentiates itself from competitors with unique features like listening and advocacy.
- The listening feature offers an opportunity to discover a plethora of unfiltered thoughts, opinions, and emotions about your brand, enabling faster procurement of critical insights.
- The advocacy feature aids in brand building and expanding reach while simplifying content sharing.
Cons
- A common issue with Sprout Social is the perceived lack of customer support, leading to users waiting for responses or lacking the necessary guidance.
- The restriction on the number of social media profiles is another obstacle.
- Users have expressed their desire to connect to more than 5 social profiles but find the cost of upgrading prohibitive.
Pricing
3. Agorapulse
AgoraPulse operates as a comprehensive platform for social media management. It allows users to handle social media messages, strategize their schedules, and disseminate content across various channels, all from a singular, convenient dashboard.
Features
Social Media ROI: Users can easily access and adjust business decisions based on social media results.
Social Media Inbox: Visualize all of your incoming social media notifications in one space. Quiet the noise in your inbox to get organized.
Writing Assistant: Users can write more content at a faster pace with their AI-powered writing assistant.
Pros
- Events and webinars are provided to share insights, trends, and winning strategies.
- Users gain access to a partnership podcast to learn about ROI on social media.
- Experts spread their knowledge about social media management on the Agora Pulse Blog.
Cons
- Users have found that the TikTok management abilities could be enhanced.
- With an inability to access DMs through all social media, there is a sense of decreased community engagement.
- Publishing features tend to present delays.
Pricing
4. Planable
Planable is a renowned tool for social media management, celebrated for its visually appealing planning and exceptional collaboration features. It’s specifically built for social media managers and marketers who manage multiple social media accounts across various channels.
Features
Social Media Management: Engage effectively with audiences across numerous platforms.
Marketing Calendar: A singular calendar to visualize and schedule all your marketing activities.
Analytics: Deep-dive analytics to enhance your marketing strategies.
Team Collaboration: Consolidate all your needs in one place for efficient teamwork.
Pros
- Planable is versatile, catering to a broad spectrum of users.
- It offers user-friendly features for both individuals and teams.
- It is apt for brands operating in multiple locations, companies with multiple brands, and agencies.
Cons
- Users often face challenges with Planable regarding its pricing and limitations in social media coverage.
- The pricing structure is sometimes perceived as complex for personal use and when presented to clients.
- Some users have expressed difficulties posting consistently across all platforms instead of a select few.
Pricing
5. Hootsuite
Hootsuite positions itself as an all-encompassing social media management platform designed to take care of all the daily tasks of a social media manager. It provides guidance to users from content creation to publishing and analyzing the outcomes.
Features
Accelerated Publishing: With the aid of built-in AI features like OwlyWriter AI and team transparency, users can publish at an expedited pace.
Brand Surveillance: Achieve a deeper understanding of your brand’s performance and evolution.
Engagement Enhancement: Understand the criteria that best resonates with your target audience to yield the most significant results.
Pros
- Hootsuite’s features include AI-assisted content creation.
- It recommends the best times for posting based on your specific needs.
- Hootsuite delivers comprehensive social media analytics.
- A key strength of Hootsuite is its extensive variety of integrations.
- Hootsuite accommodates all social media platforms that your business might use.
Cons
- Hootsuite’s main drawbacks are its pricing and a potentially steep learning curve for new users.
- Hootsuite has phased out the free option, compelling users to choose their paid plans.
- Some users have reported difficulties with Hootsuite’s usability, feeling overwhelmed by the platform’s complexity.
Pricing
6. Loomly
Loomly presents itself as an excellent choice for a social media management platform, assisting individuals, non-profits, and businesses in content creation, publication, and analysis.
Features
Multi-Calendar View: Loomly provides various calendar views, enabling users to stay abreast of the latest updates.
Media Studio: Simplifies usage across all social media platforms, reducing content creation time by half.
Hashtag Manager: Leverage the most effective and trending hashtags to enhance your marketing efforts.
UTM Parameters Generator: Users can craft easy-to-read URLs, generating more traffic and views.
Pros
- Loomly is proficient in maintaining organization and tracking your content.
- It provides post previews, ensuring your team is informed about what content is being published, when, and on which channel, minimizing team miscommunication.
Cons
- A significant concern for Loomly users is the platform’s inability to post directly to Instagram.
- This integration feature is highly sought after by many users.
- Users also face challenges when creating Instagram stories through Loomly.
Pricing
7. Sendible
Sendible serves as an effective scheduling platform that aids users in expanding and driving their marketing initiatives. It enables users to broaden their audience and achieve their media objectives on a single platform.
Features
How-To Guides: An extensive range of “How-To Guides” allows users to learn best practices from experts who have utilized Sendible’s templates, creating an extremely beginner-friendly environment.
Efficient Scheduling: Users can schedule posts individually, in bulk, or via queues, and then monitor them through their personalized calendar.
Separate Client Dashboards: Collaborate seamlessly with your team and establish individual dashboards for each client, ensuring optimized and organized work.
Pros
- One of Sendible’s key strengths is its effective user onboarding and platform familiarization.
- Sendible provides outstanding customer service, best practices, and guides.
- Users have reported a sense of comfort and ease while using Sendible.
Cons
- Sendible does not offer the ability to post directly to Instagram, a highly sought-after feature by regular users.
- The reliability of Sendible’s mobile app has been questioned.
- Some users have experienced crashes and breakdowns while posting content via the app.
Pricing
8. Later
Later is a social media platform focusing on calendar functionalities. Their expertise is demonstrated in the simplicity of their platform, offering a drag-and-drop interface.
Features
Beginner Friendly: Later offers comprehensive webinars, training, and certifications to guide users on navigating the platform, eliminating confusion for new users.
Social Media Training: Users can transform their social media posting approach. Acquire best practices tailored for specific platforms and their marketing strategy.
Caption Writer: Users can expedite the process of creating captions for social media posts. With their AI-powered Caption Writer, users can start crafting compelling captions.
Pros
- The platform is user-friendly, enabling users of all proficiency levels, from beginners to advanced, to easily learn it.
- Users can rapidly become adept at using this platform.
- Later serves as a dependable tool for pre-scheduling content.
- The platform provides an auto-posting feature, letting users rest easily without the stress of manual posting.
Cons
- Later does not offer integration with Instagram or TikTok, platforms that are in high demand.
- One notable challenge users face is the requirement for placeholder images for posts. This decreases efficiency and often requires teams to ‘backtrack.’
Pricing
9. Social Pilot
Social Pilot is a tool designed for social media marketing that assists users in automating their entire social media content, providing them with more flexibility and time in their content creation process.
Features
Approvals On-The-Go: Don’t delay your projects and campaigns with on-the-go approvals. Team members can effortlessly forward work for approval or edits and receive feedback with just a click.
Bulk Scheduling: Users can post bulk content on any platform they choose. Save your time and energy; you can post at peak times worry-free.
Content Library AI Assistant: Utilize your personal library AI assistant. Create content that aligns with your brand voice and audience in half the usual time.
Pros
- Social Pilot stands out in offering scheduled posting features.
- It provides detailed analytics to its users.
- These analytics are derived from the users’ published content.
Cons
- Social Pilot may face issues during bulk posting, a feature it promotes.
- The platform might crash during bulk posting and does not alert the user about posts that didn’t succeed.
- Some users have pointed out that manual posting on this platform is time-consuming.
Pricing
10. Brandwatch
Brandwatch is a comprehensive social media management tool. It provides a series of interconnected platforms for joint social media teams.
Features
Streamline Influencer Marketing: Access untapped engagement opportunities through influential individuals. Discover how to partner and achieve success through influencer marketing.
Measure The Competition: With insights backed by data, users can gauge their progress against competitors, keeping them at the forefront of their industry.
Enhanced Customer Care: Deliver superior customer service with 24/7 support tailored to each individual.
Pros
- Users can rest assured that their marketing efforts are functioning at their best.
- The platform offers insights into consumer habits.
- Brandwatch is compatible with all mainstream social media platforms.
Cons
- A significant hurdle for Brandwatch is the depth of their analytics.
- Users feel that the analytics do not provide enough insights for their growth.
- The data seems only to touch the surface of the information users are after.
Pricing
Keep in mind, these alternatives are just that – alternatives. As you evaluate different solutions for your team, consider your team’s specific requirements and deal-breakers. Reflect on aspects like cost, integrations, efficiency, approval processes, and so on.
There’s an ideal tool for every team or business, regardless of size. It might not be the same one your colleague uses, and that’s perfectly fine! Begin your journey and find a tool that excels in functionality and efficiency just for you.