Social media strategy involves various components including text, visuals and hashtags. But even with the perfect combination of all three, engagement can lag behind expectation. That’s when automated tools can help. Scheduling content can help optimize visibility and therefore engagement. In regards to both to drafting and posting times, social media professionals typically choose between Buffer vs Hootsuite. These paid options can cost as low as $9 or $10 a month. However, when making your decision about which social media tool, consider your priorities when it comes to these five distinguishing factors:
1. Engaging with Mentions and Your Newsfeed
Choose: Hootsuite vs Buffer
In terms of monitoring activity with and around your account, Hootsuite will serve your needs better. On Hootsuite, you can add different streams to check your posts, your newsfeed, your mentions and your private messages. Every time someone mentions or replies to your tweet, you can view and respond from your Hootsuite dashboard. As for the newsfeed, being able to see posts and tweets will make replying sharing, and commenting a lot easier. Nevertheless, if you only use Hootsuite for one account, you can just log onto the profile. But for multiple accounts, your dashboard can show you each account and stream to suit your monitoring needs.
2. Posting at the Optimal Time.
Choose: Buffer vs Hootsuite
Buffer individualizes the optimal posting time per account, rather than assigning general times across-accounts like Hootsuite. Buffer’s times are decided by the number of posts you want to share per day, per account. Then it chooses the best times, spread out across the day, so your profiles have consistent, strategic posting times. It’s also possible to change the goal for number of posts for different days (think weekday vs weekend).
3. Creating Drafts Quickly and Effectively.
Choose:Buffer vs Hootsuite
Buffer’s scheduling and drafting layout can’t be any easier. On Hootsuite you have to select the account, the social media platform, then write the post and choose a custom or auto-schedule time. On Buffer, just click the account and create the post and add to queue. Therefore, if you come up with 20 tweets in one day, Buffer will add it to your queue automatically with the times you created above.
4. Creating Visual Material
Choose:Buffer vs Hootsuite
There are a number of great tools for making quick social media visuals. However, when it’s already built-in to your automated social media tool, creating visuals can be faster than ever. Buffer’s Pablo lets you select from pictures (or upload your own) and add text. There’s little room for customization, in terms of texts, alignment and sizing, but these limits help you produce content faster without all the fuss!
5. Sharing Online Content Directly to Social Profiles
Choose:Buffer vs Hootsuite
Buffer has a Google chrome extension that lets you add any photo or article to your queue. You can directly pick which Buffer account and add text to the social media post. Buffer will also automatically shorten the link and add to queue. This is great if you typically find content inspiration on the fly!
Overall Buffer vs Hootsuite Score: Buffer 4 vs Hootsuite 1
In this break down of Buffer or Hotsuite, Buffer rules. After an independent testing period, Growing Social Media will make the switch from Hootsuite to Buffer. To review the social tools from a price perspective, visit the pricing pages for Hootsuite and Buffer. Please share your experience with social media tools in the comments section. What other components do you prioritize in social media tools? What tool do you use and why?