Buffer is one of the longest-running social media tools aimed primarily at scheduling posts. The service supports Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, and Pro users can schedule Pinterest updates too fake calculator. Free users can connect up to three social accounts, including Facebook pages and groups.

When you first connect a social account, Buffer will create a schedule for you. By default, Buffer creates four slots per day: in the morning, around noon, mid-afternoon, and late at night for the time zone you've selected. Head to Settings > Posting Schedule to tweak this at any time, delete or add time slots, or disable an entire day. The more slots you have, the more updates you will need to schedule, but scheduling updates is easy with Buffer's intuitive dashboard, mobile apps, and browser extensions.

What Makes a Great Social Media Management Tool?

Most of the apps we selected cater to a broad range of social networks, particularly the big four: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Some packages include support for a huge number of niche networks, which is a unique feature in itself. Others focus specifically on one or two networks, particularly when it comes to visual networks like Instagram and Pinterest.

One of the main reasons people turn to social media manager apps is for queuing and scheduling updates. This lets you coordinate autonomous campaigns that run according to a schedule of your choice. All of the apps included in this roundup are able to schedule posts in advance. Some tools can help you recycle your best-performing updates. Others analyze your patterns of engagement in order to tell you the best time to post secret photo vault.

Being able to schedule and post across all of your chosen networks at once can be a big time-saver. Some networks take it to the next level by allowing you to customize each update to suit the platform you're targeting. That means you can do things like tag locations for Facebook and add relevant hashtags on Instagram.

With the right tool, you can set up keyword searches, monitor mentions, and follow hashtags to better engage with your audience, pass honest feedback to your team, or identify issues that need addressing. If your business connects with customers via Twitter direct messages or Facebook Messenger, having all of your correspondence in a single "social inbox" makes it easier to follow up on leads.

While many of these products offer the same features in different clothing, each one offers something unique that sets it apart from the rest of the pack—everything from built-in support for lead generation to media search engines for royalty-free images and GIFs.

Finally, it's worth pointing out that while many of these services offer a limited free plan, the features discussed in the descriptions below largely relate to paid subscriptions. If a service doesn't have a free tier, a free trial is available so you can try before you buy.

For scheduling content from the web, Buffer offers browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. Click the Buffer icon in your toolbar (or use a keyboard shortcut), compose your update, and click Add to Queue to schedule. There are also mobile apps available for both iOS and Android, so you can schedule on the go. We tested the iOS app and found it easy to add updates using the Buffer Extension, which lets you "share" content directly to Buffer from virtually any other app. Your queue, sent posts, and posting schedule are all accessible from the app, and composing an update is a matter of tapping the big plus button at the bottom of the screen.