Social media scheduling tools can save you a lot of time. Below are several popular options to schedule posts to social media. Scheduling tools take the pressure off so you can spend more time on other tasks you enjoy in your business. Automation, however, doesn’t mean you won’t need to engage with your followers.

I’m sharing what I’ve learned to help you decide which scheduling platform will be best for you. The post may contain affiliate links which means I may a commission at no cost to you (full disclosure).

Planoly

Planoly is a social media scheduler that allows you to schedule content for Instagram and Pinterest. You can preview a mockup of your Instagram feed based on the posts you upload to the platform, and the app allows you to upload any file with keyword-optimized image titles for SEO on Instagram.

Inside the Software 

Planoly lets you schedule stories ahead of time to Instagram, you can also plan your feed visually by dragging photos around in the left side bar. You can also schedule reels in Planoly to save time.

Below, you’ll see the menu options that allow you to plan content ahead of time, analyze stats from the platform to see how your content is performing, see and respond to comments on your content, link your social media accounts, and lean more about new features.

If you’re primarily using Instagram and Pinterest, this social media management tool is a great option to explore. Planoly makes it easy to link your Instagram account.

To test out this software, I uploaded images from my camera roll. Screenshots of my account are shown below so you can see what it’s like inside the platform.

Benefits of Using the Platform

These options will help you keep track of engagement with your posts and comments all from the platform. When you click on a post, you’ll see the option to auto share it to Facebook (this way you won’t need to manually go back and forth between the platforms).  

The company also has training manuals and guides to make set up really easy:

• PLANOLY Instagram Planner 101: Everything You Need to Know to Get Started 
• How to Link Your Instagram Account to Planoly

Considerations

While thousands of people use Planoly successfully, I experienced a few glitches that caused me to look for another social media scheduling solution. It’s common for software conflicts to happen, and it doesn’t mean the product is bad or that it won’t be an amazing option for you.

Ifound that the number of Pins I wanted to schedule ahead of time overwhelmed the platform. It’s common to schedule a few hundred Pins ahead of time. Pinterest is a search engine, so if you promote your content on the platform, you’ll need to create at least three covers or designs for your posts. I found that a lot of pins weren’t showing up on my schedule or they didn’t go out after I’d published them.

That being said, the customer service representatives were very helpful. The pricing is very reasonable and the brand holds consistent webinars with content creators to help you make the most of the software. You can also start with a free trial and experiment with the platform.

Canva

Canva is a graphic design platform that allows you to create templates for your business as well as use pre-made templates for fliers, email opt ins, free downloads, e books, and more. The platform has thousands of designs that are easily accessible on the platform whether you have a paid or free account.

The paid account will unlock the canva scheduling tool available. The tool allows creators to publish designs directly to social media.

This feature is convenient because everything you need is in one place.

You can create folders to hold your designs for different projects or social media platforms. There is also an option to create a brand kit, work with shared design documents, and access the content planner.

The Content Planner

The content planner allows creators to publish content to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Pinterest. You can also post drafts to your calendar and they will not be shared until you change the status to allow the platform to publish.

Below is an example of a post with the draft status that I did not decide to publish. I can easily drag this post to another day on my calendar if I decide to use it.

I use this because for 12.95/month, the features are well worth the price. I’m able to easily access my HEX codes and brand colors in my brand kit, create custom pins, and easily upload pins to the platform of my choice.

Benefits of Using the Platform

Using Canva to schedule designs to social media platforms is very convenient. On Canva, it’s easy to schedule your designs to different channels, and if you’re using Pinterest you can easily send designs to different boards. If you use the free version of canva, you can schedule designs right away. If you use Canva pro, you can schedule designs ahead of time. Canva is a great low-cost scheduling option.

Considerations

If you want to schedule a Pin to Pinterest more than once, you’ll need to make a copy of the design for each post. For example, if you’d like a Pin to go out to three boards on different days, you need to make three separate copies of the design for that pin. This can overwhelm your home page with copies of multiple designs. If you have multiple pins in one design, you can’t schedule them all to Pinterest from the same Canva page. For example, the screenshot below shows a post about blue beauty and each copy has five pins with different designs. However, I need to make a copy for every pin/design that gets posted to Pinterest.

In addition, once you schedule a design, you cannot edit it without affecting the posting schedule for social media.

Tailwind

Tailwind is another popular social media scheduling tool for Instagram and Pinterest. After experiencing a few glitches with Tailwind, I decided to mix up my strategy but this platform works well for many people and is worth a try.

The way Tailwind uses data is extremely beneficial for content creators. You can see the best times to post based on when users will be on the platform, you can connect with other creators in Tailwind Tribes, and you can plan to share content from other creators by scheduling it ahead of time in your feed so you can support creators you follow.

Tailwind keeps track of your followers activity and will automatically pin posts when the platform knows your followers are active on social media.

Pinterest regularly updates the software, so your strategy will always be changing.

It will take a lot of time to see results on Pinterest, and it’s important to understand that the number of followers you have doesn’t indicate your success on the platform.

The numnber of page views you get to your site, the readers who follow your work by signing up for your email list is more valuable than the number of followers you have.

Pinterest is a search engine that prioritizes results and readers finding helpful content. While followers are nice, you can still get thousands of views to your website with only a few followers and vice versa.

Pinterest scheduling software does experience periodic glitches, so it’s best to save a copy of your work. I like to create a folder for each blog post I publish. After I create the folder, I save pins related to that post as well as the descriptions. Although this can take time, it’s easy to loose your work in a Pinterest scheduler so it’s always best to save a copy.

Buffer

Buffer is an amazing social media scheduler because you can answer comments from all of your channels in one place. It supports multiple platforms as well as different calendar views (monthly and weekly)

The platform is very affordable and you can decide the times you want your posts to go out each day. For example, if you want posts to only go out in the morning, you can make sure the schedule is only open in the morning.

Considerations

• Buffer will not allow you to post the same post to one platform more than once in seven days. If you’re creating a Pinterest campaign and need the same pin to go out multiple times, you’ll need to change the Pin description.
• If you’re using a plugin like Tasty Pins, you’ll still need to upload images for Pinterest individually to Buffer if you want images to be posted with the correct image ratio

Other Platforms to Consider

If you need a platform that is designed for posting content to many different social media platforms, and you don’t use Canva, then Hootsuite or Grow Social are also popular options. The software company offers a 30-day free trial to help you decide if the platform is right for you.

Later is also a popular platform, especially for Instagram scheduling because you can see a preview of what your feed will look like. I don’t have as much experience testing this platform.

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