An active social media presence is one of the key marketing strategies businesses use for engaging and communicating with their customers in 2020.

Although social media is a fantastic way to help grow your business, it can also prove to be a challenging task for business owners to manage, especially when it starts to take up a sizable percentage of their time and attention. So how can we make the process easier?

Implementing a social media scheduling tool enables you to design and bulk schedule multiple posts at once. You can do this at a time that suits you, and then use your tool of choice to deliver your posts at the peak times (when your audience is online). Many businesses find scheduling enables them to plan and deliver their content more efficiently. In this Article we take a look at some of the best tools available.

Buffer

Allows you to schedule 10 social updates for free, or with a paid plan you can undertake unlimited scheduling. Buffer suggests the most suitable times for you to post to each of your networks, whilst also providing analytics around how successful your posts are.

Hootsuite

Allows you to post to a wide range of social accounts, personal and business, depending on the plan you choose. There are different packages ranging from free (limits you to scheduling 30 messages across three social profiles), to their Business plan with access to advanced features. For this reason, Hootsuite is popular with companies large and small.

Sendible

Is a social media management tool aimed at Agencies. There are varied paid plans ranging from Micro to Large. You can connect to just about any social network, as well as post directly to Tumblr or a WordPress site. There are also some fantastic publishing features that allow you to plan, schedule and publish posts, images, and videos to multiple social networks simultaneously via the powerful compose box.

Planoly

Is described as a premier visual planning and marketing solution for brands and influencers on Instagram. Planoly users range from individuals through to large well-known beauty brands. The platform is easy to use and is available on desktop and mobile. It also lets you see how your feed will look before your content is posted and allows you to comment on posts within the app and schedule videos. A fantastic tool for those who primarily use Instagram.

Tweetdeck

If Twitter is your main focus then Tweetdeck could be perfect for you, it is also free to use! You can schedule tweets across multiple Twitter accounts and the handy dashboard lets you view many items such as real-time notifications, messages and mentions, as well as your scheduled posts. You can also quickly add GIFs and images to your messages.

CoSchedule

Is a tool to not only help you organise and schedule your social media, but your overall marketing too. CoSchedule proves to be a valuable option for Agencies, who benefit from housing their marketing all in one place. You can co-ordinate blog and social posts and use the integrated calendar for marketing projects. There are also business analytics available. On the social side, you can easily schedule posts to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Crowdfire

Enables you to post to nearly every major social network, as well as allowing you to curate content from Shopify/Etsy shops and blogging platforms such as YouTube. There is a limited free plan which is great if you just want to sample its capabilities all the way up to a VIP plan which includes a useful competitor analysis.

In conclusion, whichever platform you choose to go with, there are some brilliant tools out there to help you grow your business in 2020 and most importantly save you time! Many of the platforms offer free plans or trials so you can get a true feel for their capabilities and usage before committing.