Social Media Scheduler: What about specific apps?

In the last post I shared that for most of the popular social media platforms you can use the built-in scheduling options. However, it means going into each platform in turn. The alternative is to use a social media scheduler – programs that can work across the platforms.

While some of these programs have a free version, they often limit either how many platforms you can add or how many posts you can send in a given period.

One thing to note, yes, they all do basically the same thing. However, some of these systems seem to be better for certain types of posts or platforms.

Canva (canva.com)

YouTube Video: How To Schedule Posts On Canva Like A Pro!

This has become the go to for many people in terms of graphic design.

Did you know that Canva also can be used as a social media scheduler?

Important: This is only available on the Pro (paid) account.

Once you create your graphic, you need to select and connect to your social media platforms (if you haven’t already).

Click on the Share button in the top-right corner of the Canva window (with your image).

From the list, scroll down and select Share on social.

Under the Share option (top right), click Share on social. Now select the platform and connect to your account. — Canva – Share on Social

Select, from the list, which platform you want to share to.

Note: You’ll see both LinkedIn and Facebook list more than once. This lets you select personal or business options, on LinkedIn. Or (business) page, group or story on Facebook.

Connecting a new account to Canva, you’ll be asked for information for the post. Otherwise you’ll be asked for your username and password to connect to your account.

Scheduling

Schedule social media Canva with Schedule to Publish Later - the calendar icon. — Canva – Schedule to Publish Later

Write the text to go along with the image in your post.

Note: You have a max of 5000 characters including spaces.

You can type into the field, or paste text in.

Now click on the calendar icon, Schedule to Publish Later, to select the date and time for this item to be published.

Note: If the image has more than one page, then you’ll be asked to select which page(s) you want to publish.

The publish now button will change to Schedule. Click to complete scheduling it.

If you’re not ready to complete everything, then you can click on Save Draft to return back to it later.

Note: Personal experience, if you leave the option too long on screen or close it, then Canva will ‘forget’ any settings, including the selected date and text entered.

One last thing – once you’ve scheduled your image, you shouldn’t edit it. If you do, it will cancel the pre-scheduled item. You will need to schedule it again to ensure that it’s actually posted.

Things to consider with Canva

I try to keep everything organised by keeping the same type of posts in a single ‘project’ in Canva, adding a page for a new post. As once I’ve scheduled a post, I can’t then edit it, you either need to have lots of projects, or a couple to let you schedule over a longer period.

It’s worth mentioning again, that scheduling is only available with a Pro/paid account. Is it worth it for you?

Using Canva, you can only schedule posts with an image. If you want to post text only items, then you’ll have to use another option.

Buffer (buffer.com)

YouTube Video: Schedule Social Media Posts in Minutes with Buffer

This was the first ‘social media scheduler app’ I was introduced to.

It was useful that they offered a free account, which I created. I remember using it for a long while. It was only when I started posting more, that I really looked at the paid plans and quite honestly I got a bit confused about how much it would cost and felt that it was expensive.

For a starting point, it’s a good choice, and it has a few useful features.

The free plan allows you to connect to 3 social media channels (I have Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram).

Then you can schedule up to 30 posts. If you have three channels, that averages at 10 posts per channel.

In terms of scheduling, Buffer offers some suggested times for each day. This is called the ‘Queue’, and is the default option when you are ready to schedule it.

Schedule social media content including text and pictures with Buffer — Buffer – LinkedIn with File/Picture

Alternatively, you can choose to manually schedule your post. Here you can select both the date and specific time that it will be posted.

Schedule a post by clicking drop-down option on the Add to Queue button (at the bottom, and Schedule — Buffer – Facebook Schedule Post

Either way you can then see all of your posts, for a specific social media platform in a list.

Things to Consider with Buffer

Buffer allows you to create text only, as well as image posts. Many of the other scheduler programs are image orientated, and won’t let you create text only posts.

If you need to upgrade, you have to pay for each social media channel. The first paid plan ‘essential’ charges (at the time of posting) $6 per channel, per month. For your three ‘free’ channels, that now becomes $18 per month. However, that does now give you unlimited scheduling on each paid channel.

Tailwind (tailwindapp.com)

YouTube Video: Schedule Social Media Posts in Seconds with Tailwind – Step by Step Guide

Tailwind is acknowledged to be the best social media scheduling program for Pinterest.

An interesting thing about Tailwind, is that it can also cross-platform post. So if you create a Pinterest Pin, it will also offer you, on the same design, a version for say Facebook. Of course it all depends on what other platforms you choose to connect.

The free version includes a Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram accounts. While that’s fairly standard, Tailwind only includes 20 posts across all three platforms per month.

Once you’ve picked your design, you can move onto the details of the post, which includes the scheduling option.

To try to help (especially with Pinterest), Tailwind automatically displays the SmartSchedule recommendations for you to choose from.

You can ask the system to suggest alternatives and how many time slot each day.

Simply click on the date and time to select it.

As standard Tailwind offers Smart Scheduling options for each day to select from. — Tailwind – Smart Schedule Recommendations

Of course, if you prefer, click on Use custom time. to be able to pick your own date and time.

You can switch to custom scheduling, to pick your own date and times in Tailwind. — Tailwind – Custom Schedule

Either way, when you’re happy, click Schedule post.

You’ll be returned to the home screen and the calendar section (at the bottom of the screen).

Considerations with Tailwind

I’m not sure if it’s because Tailwind is based in the US, or not, but all of the SmartSchedule timeslots are early morning on my account – UK 2 or 3am. Even asking for new recommendations they were all in the morning – the latest I saw was 10am.

The SmartSchedule area is quite small. As I post further into the future, it takes more and more scrolling to get to the date I’m looking for. It would be nice to have an option to move say a week ahead.

As a result of Tailwind being designed for Pinterest, there’s no way to create a text only post for the other platforms.

If you’ve got a ‘robust’ pinning schedule, you quickly use up all of your included schedules, and need to upgrade to a paid account.

Later (later.com)

YouTube Video: How to Schedule Your Social Media With Later – Step-by-Step Guide (29th June)

The final social media scheduler in this list is similar to Tailwind. However, Later has become popular with Instagram users, as their go-to choice. Although as Later is the only one to offer a calendar view, it’s popular with a lot of people scheduling social media posts across the platforms.

The same as the other social media scheduling apps (except Canva), Later offers a free version.

I like free versions (even with the restrictions), because they offer you a chance to try out the program before spending any money.

So what limitations do you get with Later?

It includes, what is calls a single Social Set. This actually means – 1 Instagram, 1 Facebook, 1 Twitter, 1 Pinterest, 1 TikTok, and 1 LinkedIn profile.

For each channel you get 5 posts per month. Not a lot, but enough to try things out.

How do you schedule the posts?

After you click Create Post and enter the details for the post (text, images etc).

At the top of the dialog box is the Auto Publish option. You can either leave the suggested option, or click on the date/time to select the specific date that you want. Use the scroll fields to select the time to post.

Note: If gives you selected times, not a complete choice.

You can Auto Publish or select your own date and time and then schedule post. — Later – Auto Publish to LinkedIn

Finally, click Schedule Post to save it. You’ll see it appearing on the calendar view at the selected time.

Then, unique to Later, you can use the calendar view to pick the exact date and time that you want to schedule the post.

Click and drag the image that you want to use, onto the calendar to create a post.

Note: If the date you want it’s currently displayed, scroll through and find it before you click and drag.

Later is one of the schedule social media posts app. — Later – Calendar Scheduling

When you let go of the image (over the calendar) a new post dialog box appears, with the Auto Publish option pre-filled in.

Things to consider about Later

If you are serious about posting on social media, the free version won’t last past a week. Meaning that you’ll need to upgrade pretty quickly.

The media library is useful when if you’ve got a range of standard images that you’ll be using again and again. Otherwise it can get a bit clunky to have to keep scrolling down to find the image you want.

As long as you’re not creating an Instagram post, you are able to schedule text only posts.

Next Steps

This is a small but popular selection of social media scheduler programs.

They are the ones that I’ve personally used and tried out. They may not be the ones that will best suit you specifically. As with everything, when you’re looking for a paid program (and you will), you need to try out the various options to find what works for your specific needs.

When you’re talking about social media scheduler programs, the first thing to consider is which platform(s) you plan to use. That can have a big impact on which scheduler you end up choosing.

(Please learn from my mistake and DON’T try to use all of them at once!)

At the end of the day, if you don’t want to be stuck to your computer, you need to be planning and scheduling your emails and especially social media. No matter what platforms you’re using and no matter how often you post.

It’s being able to setup automatic scheduling on all these options (email and social media), that will give you the time and space back to do other things. Whether that’s focusing more time on other parts of your business, getting time back for yourself, or just taking some time off to be with family and friends.

Scheduling is an important part of your business.

For other scheduling how-to’s, take a look at the Social Media Playlist on my YouTube Channel.

Social Media Scheduler: What about specific apps?