When you own your own business (especially a digital business), managing your social media accounts can seem like a job in itself. To help you maximize your time spent offline, I have compiled a short list of tools I have used personally to organize and auto-post to my social media platforms. Using these tools, I only need to spend an hour a week to maintain about 3 months worth of future social media posts.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links and at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase after clicking through the link.
Tailwind
Tailwind works as an automation tool for Pinterest and an organization tool for Instagram. With Tailwind, you can tell it how often you would like to pin. From there you pin to tailwind using the extension (it works on your computer, phone, and tablet) instead of to Pinterest. When I use it, I browse my Pinterest app like normal on my phone and when I see something I like, I send it to Tailwind and tell it what board(s) I want to pin to. It then adds those pins to my queue and releases them according to the pin schedule I set.
Since Instagram blocks automation tools, Tailwind is more for organizing on the app. You can set up your Instagram post in Tailwind and it will suggest hashtags and schedule it for an optimal engagement time. When it’s time to post, you’ll receive a notification.
Buffer
Buffer is an automation tool for Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest and an organizational tool for Instagram. I currently use Buffer for the KIG Twitter and LinkedIn pages. It’s super easy to use from your computer or phone (I mostly use it from my phone) to schedule posts. I love Buffer because it has a lot of features even in the FREE version.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is an automation tool for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and an organization tool for Instagram. I currently use Hootsuite to manage the Twitter and LinkedIn accounts for the nonprofit I do work for. I exclusively use this on my phone to schedule posts. Hootsuite also has a fair amount of features in the FREE version.
Coschedule
Coschedule is the priciest of the 5 tools I’m mentioning. I was very happy with the features of the tool and the engagement I was getting on posts but decided to trim costs and sacrificed it. Coschedule is a full content calendar that allows you to schedule posts to Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Facebook. It also allows you to plan blog posts and re-schedule popular posts.
My favorite way to schedule Facebook posts is on Facebook. Facebook is constantly changing and some of the other automation tools don’t always keep up which can leave your Facebook posts with missing images or broken links. So if you’re someone who would like to schedule Facebook posts well into the future, I recommend just using Facebook itself.
This isn’t even close to every automation tool out there. Comment below with your thoughts on favorites tools and whether automation works for you.
The Comments
Ciara Davis
PinPinterest [com] is till now the best tool I have found for managing my Pinterest and the webpage with respect to the schedule and the content. The amazing thing about it is that it is ever evolving and learning and this is possible due to the sophisticated artificial intelligence that it uses. It analyses the pins, images, the content and the way I set the schedules for the whole week and then it works automatically following the pattern and even saving the account from being banned as it imitates the human-speed…now that is something you don’t see in other tools 😀