Do scheduling blog posts and social media content overwhelm you? If so, you are not alone. It can be exhausting. Sometimes I imagine myself taking a social network hiatus… But alas! I still need to schedule and share my posts.
Social media is heavily intertwined with blogging these days. If you use it right, you can profoundly increase your audience. Since scheduling and sharing are so important, the next question should be, “What are the best tools for scheduling blog posts and social media content?”
Disclosure: I, Tina Ernspiker, may receive a commission if you decide to use one of the companies in this post. See full disclosure here.
There are nine tools I currently use. When I started blogging a few years ago, I refused to pay for apps and plugins. I was stubborn. I only started spending money on my blog earlier this year after I saw a little profit. So far the money spent has been worth it, and I don’t regret it. Usually, you get a trial period with these services. There have been a few services that didn’t fit my needs. I was able to cancel these and eventually, I found the tools below. They are worth taking a good look at, and hopefully, some of them will work for you!
CoSchedule
My blogging buddies praised this app, and I didn’t believe them. Now, I love it for scheduling all my blog posts to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. I can schedule my posts to go out multiple times with a CoSchedule plugin for my blog. I usually have posts scheduled up to two months out. It’s fantastic. Try CoSchedule. I doubt you will go back. I started with a free trial and couldn’t live without it when it was over!
Tailwind
Tailwind is great for Pinterest scheduling. I love the Tribes feature where you can find great content relevant to your site from other bloggers. I recently signed up for the beta Instagram scheduling as well. I am not sure what it entails, but I look forward to checking it out. I started with the free trial on this one too, and then I quickly paid for the service. I simply could not keep up with Pinterest without Tailwind! – With this link, you will receive one month free and $15 credit when you pay for your first month of service.
Onlypult
Onlypult is my scheduler for Instagram. I love it. It can handle both of my accounts, and it is super easy to use. It may not be well heard of… many Instagram schedulers simply remind you to post and don’t actually post. Onlypult posts your images and thus far I have had no problems with it! I use this to post throughout the day and not all at once. This makes for more interactions on my images! That is always good. – With this link, you will receive 10% off your first payment.
BoardBooster
Some bloggers swear that to really boost Pinterest you need Tailwind plus BoardBooster. They are different in a few ways. One way is that BoardBooster can be used for looping your pins. What is looping? Looping is when you take an old pin and repin it back to the same board. It’s added exposure for your older pins. I am still in the process of setting this one up and learning about looping. The free trial comes with 100 pins.
Extra Tools for Scheduling Success
- RoundTeam for retweeting from my favorite people on Twitter. I have my favorites in a Twitter list, and I use that list on RoundTeam. Haley wrote an informative article about RoundTeam here. It will help you set up your free account. UPDATE: They changed their free plan and I stopped using it. It was too complicated and I didn’t want to pay to upgrade but that’s just me 😉
- Buffer for posting great reads outside my blog to my Facebook page primarily, but also to Twitter. (I know many suggest using Facebook’s in-app scheduler. I tried it, and I didn’t see any results.) Buffer has a free plan that works well for me. It is easy as pie to setup and use.
- NextScripts is by far the most diverse for posting to many social networks when you first publish your content. I use it for some networks like Flipboard and StumbleUpon. However… it seems to have a lot of bugs. For some time they have promised an update that allows you to schedule and recycle old posts. That would be super cool if it ever happens and it is reliable. UPDATE: I don’t use this plugin anymore. I finally got sick of the bugs and gave up! Perhaps in the future, they will have the kinks worked out. Or not…
- Revive Old Post is a plugin that allows you to schedule and recycle old posts. Yep, just like NextScripts has promised and not yet fulfilled… The free version is limited of course, but it works for me. It is just another way my content reaches more eyes and ears. Even the old stuff, (old posts), can help you grow your audience 🙂 UPDATE: I switched to CoSchedule’s Requeue. It’s awesome. I love it. Seriously. Even if I have to pay for it 😉
- Jetpack is also a plugin with lots of features that I like. It has a sharing tool called Publicize. I use this tool for sharing my posts to my Google+ profile. Unfortunately, CoSchedule only shares to Google+ pages right now. UPDATE: Jetpack was making my WordPress blog wonky and I couldn’t deal with it anymore. It’s gone too, like Nextscripts. Maybe it’s just my site. Some people love it.
I know it seems like a lot. I wouldn’t recommend setting all these schedulers up at once. It has taken me almost three years to get to this point! Use the tools that make scheduling blog posts and social media content less overwhelming for you. They should help you, not stress you out! Maybe one day I will be able to streamline them more but for now, this works, and it works well.
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What Do IBA Members Recommend for Scheduling Blog Posts and Social Media Content?
“I typically use Hootsuite for Twitter, (I have multiple accounts), and I schedule posts directly in Facebook. Pinterest is still a manual thing at this point because I wasn’t sold on BoardBooster and haven’t tried Tailwind yet. I also do Instagram manually at this time and typically post twice a day.
So some are scheduled, and some are still done manually. I hope this helps provide a perspective that will help others.” – Dana from Goods Giving Back and Create to Donate
“I use a couple of different tools because certain ones work better for different platforms. I just started CoSchedule for my blog posts, Facebook, Pinterest, (just for the first pin from my post), and Twitter shares. I love the top post feature because it reminds me to keep sharing my evergreen content. Then I use Tailwind to schedule all repins and other new pins. I love their scheduling, tribes, and the interface. I also use Buffer on occasion because it is very easy to use on my phone. Plus it is super quick if you are trying to schedule out a bunch of shares because you are going on vacation.” – Haley from Haley’s Vintage
“I am slowly getting better at scheduling blog posts and social media content, but I am still all over the map. Currently, I use Tailwind for Pinterest which I have fallen in love with over the last three months; Hootsuite, (free version), for Twitter and Google+; Facebook for Facebook because they don’t play nice with schedulers. (I tried, and it failed miserably!); Instagram for Instagram, (when I remember), because the Hootsuite app drained my phone battery like crazy.
I would love to streamline this. I think I will be choosing the options highly recommended in this article.” – Audrey from That Recipe
“Being able to schedule my social media content has helped me grow my blog exponentially. My favorite tools are CoSchedule and Tailwind when it comes to my own content. I use Buffer for 3rd-party sharing. The guys from CoSchedule are simply amazing. They are always listening to users and updating their tool to serve us better. Tailwind is a great help for Pinterest. Since Pinterest has become more of a search engine, than just a social media platform, having a good scheduling strategy is crucial. Buffer is very easy to use and compliments the other tools. You can even use it in conjunction with CoSchedule if you prefer. I love them all!” – Debbie from Debbies In Shape
“Well, I was looking for tools for scheduling blog posts and social media content with really good features. I found some great ones like Socialdraft and Meet Edgar. Alas, none take Paypal. So I am creating a personal social media team, as in real people who will do the scheduling for me on their own platforms.” – Orana from Orana Creative and Crazy Little Family Adventure
“My favorite is Hootsuite. I use it to schedule on Facebook, (both personal and my business fan page), and also Twitter and LinkedIn. It’s easy for my virtual teammates to schedule as well. I also use it to monitor Twitter trends and hashtags that I’m interested in.” – Holly from Pink Fortitude
“I swear by CoSchedule, (as many of us do). When I schedule a post, I also schedule shares on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. Then about a month later I’ll come back to my CoSchedule calendar and schedule a few more tweets for my post so that it can continue generating traffic. Super easy!
Since CoSchedule doesn’t support Instagram I use Hootsuite for that. I have it integrated with my Dropbox account. I can pull images related to my posts, and schedule those for my Instagram account.
I also love to schedule and share my posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram using the Ripl app right from my phone. This app makes it super easy to customize eye-catching posts that alert my readers about what I’m sharing on my blog. Ripl provides some great templates — you can use their images or your own. As part of the Ripl Insider Program I use their Ripl Pro version, which allows me to schedule my posts, add my custom logo, and even include music, (great for Instagram). I highly recommend it! You can become a Ripl Insider too! It’s a great program with lots of perks. FYI: Ripl links are not affiliate links – just a great program bloggers might want to join.” – Monica from NYC Tech Mommy – NOTE FROM TINA: Right now Ripl is only available for Apple, but there is a list you can join on the site for an upcoming Android app.
“I’m probably one of the unorthodox bloggers out there. I only use Pinterest and Twitter. The scheduling tools I use are Tailwind and BoardBooster for Pinterest, and I manually promote through Twitter. I tried CoSchedule and personally, I was totally underwhelmed by it. It could be because I don’t utilize Facebook or Instagram anymore for blogging. I tried Hootsuite and Buffer. I like Buffer, but since I’ve never really gotten much traffic from Twitter, I don’t use it anymore. I hope this helps you some.” Stacey from Stacey Loring
What Is The Verdict?
Again, I say, use whatever tools make scheduling blog posts and social media content less overwhelming. Don’t try them all at once. Pick what you need now and start there. Plus you can see that bloggers have different opinions about what works for them. That is cool. We don’t all have to like the same thing. That’s why we have options. Isn’t it good to know what they are?
If you have another tool in mind for scheduling blog posts and social media content, please tell us about it in the comments below.