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Social media marketing (SMM) is fast becoming one of the most popular ways of boosting a brand’s visibility and achieving brand likability for a variety of audiences. It is also often more economical than other mediums to put your business in front of desirable audiences. Despite the many advantages of social media, the continuous publishing of content on either Facebook, Instagram, Google Profile, YouTube, TikTok etc isn’t the easiest chore to do.
One of the ways businesses can have more ease is through the use of social media publishing tools. Social media publishing tools enable users to create, schedule and post content when needed. These mechanisms make it easy to not only schedule posts but also do them free of cost. It should be noted there are some limitations.
Are you a business seeking to create content for your social media? Do you want publishing content on social media made easy? If you are looking for free or low cost social media publishing tools for your online business, we have highlighted some of the best options in this article. Enjoy!
1. Publer
This is my chosen social media publishing tool. I recommend to many business owners that do not have a large advertising budget due to their free membership option. Publer is a virtual helper that allows you to collaborate, schedule & analyse(Pro) your posts for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google My Business, YouTube, and WordPress. Publer can schedule your posts and offer automatic publishing either using a predefined posting schedule or recycling your evergreen content. You can also schedule in batches even recurring posts. With the public, an automatic logo and brand signature are added to your post all in a bid to increase brand recognition and awareness. there is also the option of monitoring your online performance using feedback from the analytics. It has a free plan that cost nothing to start with but the professional plan starts from $18 monthly.
2. Hootsuite
Hootsuite makes it to this list as it has proven it’s worth in the social media marketing world. One distinguishing fact about this tool is that it is helpful for businesses with multiple social media accounts. You can easily schedule and publish content to all of your social profiles, and track effectiveness in real time without the hassle of keeping up with multiple chores. With this tool, content planning gets better as you can easily do it on a single calendar and thereby making it more effective and faster. You can also create customizable streams that let you watch current trends and stay notified about your business, clients, rivals, or other popular topics. You can start with a 30-day free trial and upgrade to a paid plan afterward. There is a free limited plan available for three social profiles and up to thirty scheduled messages when you start.
3. Later
Later originally started as an Instagram scheduling tool but recently veered into other social media channels. Its focal point is visual content. If you are seeking to schedule an in-feed image or video post, a carousel post, or story later is a great option to use. It has a free plan you can use for as long as you want but if you seek to optimize your page, schedule story post time, study post-analytics, and others, you will have to go for the paid version. One amazing thing about later is you can save time by initiating automatic publishing. It usually starts at $18USD per month.
4. Buffer
Another free social media publishing tool available for your business is Buffer. Using this tool, you can grow your business following organically. It helps you schedule your post using automatic publishing, and allows for effective collaboration among your team. A chrome extension feature is a distinguished option that makes it a great choice for social media publishing. With Buffer, you can add up to 4 profiles on over 7 different platforms using the free plan. Their free option is one of the most generous.
5. Planable
Collaboration is a feature Planable boasts of, as it says you can plan and approve “social media posts 6x faster”. That is marketing hype without any basis behind it, personally not a fan of quoting statistics without facts referenced. It also “states” it makes organizing your content a joy through its color-coded social media calendar. The joy is true for me at least. Need to add a side-tracked point – the content on their site was well thought out and written. Their site was built with Divi (my preferred builder).
You also get to enjoy four different views (Grid, calendar, list, and feed). Your team will benefit immensely from its simple non-techy layout. It saves you time like most social media publishing tools. It supports the most prominent social media channels: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, and Google My Business. There is a free plan to get you started, this enables you to experiment with all the features for the first 50 posts.
6. Postly
This is a cheaper social media publishing tool with less of the features than other tools . It allows you to post on LinkedIn, Instagram business accounts, Facebook pages/groups, TikTok, and YouTube. The features help you schedule both textual and visual content. The features are however limited compared to other platforms available. One standout about this tool is that it permits you to schedule a post to Telegram, and uses artificial intelligence to speed up the caption and description writing process. This tool certainly saves you time compared to completing them manually. You can get the free plan and enjoy all the features except for recurring posts. When you are using the free plan, you only get one workspace but you can connect an incredible 10 social media accounts, and schedule only 20 posts per month.
Benefits of Social Media Publishing Tools
Whether free or paid, social media publishing tools have multiple benefits for businesses. Here are some key advantages of using these tools.
- It helps manage multiple accounts on various social media channels. This would have been exhausting to handle manually.
- With automatic scheduling, it saves time and resources as you can schedule ahead of time and redirect your energy to another chore.
- It helps you in content creation and makes idea generation easier. Some of these tools provide caption-writing services.
- Because some of its plans are free, it is cost-effective and a great option for small businesses.
- It helps you keep track of multiple conversations across various channels.
- Using the analytics function, you can formulate marketing plans and content ideas that will push your brand forward.
- A publishing tool like Postly offers brand logos and signatures on content. This increases brand awareness and consequently increases sales.
In Summary
If you want to save yourself time when using social media for marketing, then you will benefit immensely from choosing a social media publishing tool. Whether you are a small brand seeking to gain market relevance or a giant corporation seeking dominance, there are many advantages to using these social media publishing tools.
If you are on a tight budget, you can start with the free version and move to the paid plan when required. If you are new to the world of social media marketing and unsure where to begin your journey, finding a resourceful digital agency like Monster Rose is a great idea. From web development, and SEO writing for business, to social media marketing, we have the answers you seek.
We are an experienced team of digital experts committed to providing excellent digital and marketing solutions for your business. Whether you are a new business starting with social media marketing or an established business struggling to find the right social media platforms, we are here to help you discover what social media channel will be a game changer. We can also work with your in-house or external design team. Utilise our free consultancy offer, speak to us today at 0420 232 154 to get started.