Buffer has become a powerhouse in social media marketing, and for good reason, too. Still, Buffer alternatives have arisen, and they’re just as necessary.

For starters, Buffer doesn’t seem too keen on implementing automation into its tool, at least not without the use of third-party apps and plugins. Plus, its Tier 1 to Tier 2 pricing jumps quite a bit if you happen to need more than 100 scheduled posts in a month or work with one other team member.

In this post, we present you with seven alternatives to the social media management giant known as Buffer.

1. SocialBee

SocialBee HomepageSource: SocialBee

SocialBee is a dedicated social media marketing management tool that enables you to manage your social media calendar for multiple platforms. It’s been used by over 14,000 customers to send over 15 million social media posts.

Key Features

  • Support for 6 Platforms – Post to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google My Business. You can post to Instagram via a Buffer integration and Pinterest via a Hootsuite integration.
  • Categories – Take control of your social media marketing strategy by organizing your posts into categories.
  • Auto Posting – Keep your accounts filled with a never-ending queue of posts by having specific categories recycle posts.
  • Scheduled Posts – Choose to publish posts at a specific time. You can even schedule posts based on categories. Individual schedules for different social media profiles are available as well.
  • Expire Posts – Remove posts from the queue after a specific date or after a specified number of shares.
  • Post Variations – Add alternative text, images and links to ensure recycled posts look different when they’re reshared.
  • URL Shortening – SocialBee has a built-in link shortener you can use, but integrations with Rebrandly, Bitly, Replug, RocketLink, JotURL and PixelMe also exist.
  • Hashtag Categories – Save groups of related hashtags as categories for easy access later on.
  • Importing – Import media files, links, past tweets via CSV files, RSS feeds and articles you want to share from Pocket.
  • Collaboration – The most expensive pricing tier comes with collaboration features, including multiple workspaces for different brands as well as the ability to onboard additional users and communicate with them within SocialBee’s dashboard.
  • Research – Research Twitter accounts you may want to collaborate with, discover your competitors’ audiences, find out who’s posting about a specific topic and more.
  • Reports – SocialBee collects stats on your posts so you can keep an eye on how they’re performing.

Pricing

Pricing for SocialBee starts at $19/month. You can add up to five social media profiles with this plan and create up to 10 content categories and 1,000 social media posts for each. As many as 10 RSS feeds are also available.

Each plan comes with a 14-day free trial.

Get SocialBee

2. Hootsuite

Hootsuite HomepageSource: Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a dedicated social media marketing application that allows you to plan out an effective social media calendar with scheduled posts and curated content. It’s an especially suitable tool for teams and businesses that publish a high volume of posts on numerous accounts.

Key Features

  • Supports 35+ Social Media Platforms – Hootsuite allows you to post to accounts from over 35 platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest and LinkedIn.
  • Scheduled Posts – Use a card-based social media calendar to plan and schedule posts. You can even schedule in bulk and have specific posts reshare automatically in between posts you’ve scheduled manually.
  • Curate Content – Curate relevant content to share to your audience by searching for content based on hashtags, keywords and location. RSS feeds are also available.
  • Content Library – Build a library of pre-approved images and messages your team can use to schedule posts on the fly.
  • Ad Campaigns – Create ad campaigns complete with targeted audiences to promote specific posts directly from the Hootsuite dashboard. Facebook and LinkedIn advertising are supported.
  • Monitoring – Set up individual streams for showcasing mentions, retweets, likes and more for each social media profile. Review monitoring is available as well.
  • Collaboration – Manage your organization’s accounts without sharing passwords. You can also assign tasks and assignments and block posts until they’re approved.
  • Analytics – View a snapshot of the number of engagements you received from each platform, and build custom reports showcasing specific information, such as likes and follows. Data on your team’s response performance are available as well.

Pricing

Hootsuite has a free plan you can use for three social profiles and up to 30 scheduled messages. Premium plans start at $29/month and come with support for 10 social profiles and unlimited scheduled messages.

The higher tiers unlock features like custom branded URL’s, content templates, campaigns and more. All premium plans come with a free 30-day trial.

Get Hootsuite

3. MeetEdgar

MeetEdgar HomepageSource: MeetEdgar

MeetEdgar is a simple yet highly effective social media marketing tool. Its founder discovered the effectiveness re-sharing old content to social media had in her own strategy. Auto-scheduling became this tool’s premier feature as a result, but you can also fill your calendar with posts you’ve written and scheduled yourself.

Key Features

  • Support for 4 Social Media Platforms – Schedule posts for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
  • Scheduled Posts – Fill your social media calendar for the week, month or year with scheduled content. Categories are available as well for content organization.
  • Auto Posting – The tool is designed to fill your queue with old posts automatically when it runs out of new posts to share. It even creates different variations of posts for you by finding “quote-worthy text from articles or blogs” as a way for you to avoid spam and duplicate post violations.
  • Content Library – Add posts, RSS feeds, images and videos to an unlimited content library. MeetEdgar will reference this library when it schedules posts for you automatically. You can also apply expiration dates to specific posts.
  • A/B Testing – Create different variations of posts and share them at different times as a way to split test different types of images and messages.
  • Link Shortening – MeetEdgar has its own link shortener you can use as part of its service, but you can also integrate your account with Rebrandly and Bitly.

Pricing

Pricing for MeetEdgar starts at $19/month for three social media profiles, up to 10 scheduled posts per week and four content categories. The only other plan is $49/month and includes 25 social media profiles, up to 1,000 scheduled posts per week and an unlimited number of content categories.

All plans come with a free 30-day trial.

Get MeetEdgar

4. CoSchedule

CoSchedule - Social OrganizerSource: CoSchedule

CoSchedule is a content marketing management tool first and foremost, but it has social media management tools built into it naturally. It integrates with content management systems like WordPress and allows you to turn your blog posts into an optimized editorial calendar. However, we’re going to focus on its social media features for the purpose of this article.

Key Features

  • Support for 5 Platforms – Share your posts to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
  • Scheduled Posts – Create a queue of scheduled posts, or publish posts straight to social media on the fly.
  • Campaigns – Create a series of scheduled posts as part of a marketing campaign to promote events and product launches.
  • Social Templates – Create templates for different promotion strategies that designate which days of the month posts should be shared to different platforms and at which time. You can then use this template to fill in your social media calendar automatically.
  • Social Media Automation – Fill in the gaps between scheduled posts by adding old posts back into the queue for resharing.
  • Social Media Inbox – Monitor comments, mentions and direct messages across all platforms, and respond directly from the CoSchedule dashboard.
  • Analytics – Monitor engagements across all social media platforms.

Pricing

Pricing for CoSchedule starts at $24/month or $228/year, the latter of which is a 20% discount. It allows as many as five users and 10 social media profiles. The next plan is $49/month or $468/year and allows as many as 10 users.

It also lets you manage your email marketing strategy and expands the calendar function so you can view email marketing projects, website content, events and more in one real-time calendar rather than just your blog posts.

A marketing suite for larger teams is available as well, but you’ll need to contact CoSchedule for a quote. A 14-day free trial is available for the aforementioned plans.

Get CoSchedule

5. Publer

Publer HomepageSource: Publer

Publer is a dedicated social media management tool that allows you to schedule posts in advance and create a queue of recycled content. It’s one of the only tools to let you post directly to Google My Business.

Key Features

  • Support for 5 Platforms – Post to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Google My Business.
  • Schedule Posts – Schedule posts in advance so you don’t need to worry about what to share day after day. You can also schedule posts from RSS feeds, CSV files, a multi-media bulk uploader or a multi-post scheduler.
  • Recycle Posts – Schedule posts to recycle back into your queue after they’re posted.
  • Signatures & Shortcodes – Add signatures for text or hashtags that insert at the end of every message automatically. You can also create shortcodes for bits of text used by your team repeatedly.
  • Link Shortener – Integrate your account with link shortening services Rebrandly and Bitly.
  • Collaboration – Create multiple teams, and assign different roles and access levels to each member.
  • Analytics – View reports on your engagement levels for each platform.

Pricing

Publer’s pricing system, while cheaper than most, is a little complicated when compared to the fixed rates used by the other tools on this list. There’s a free plan that includes support for five social media profiles, 50 scheduled posts, 24 drafts and basic posting features.

However, its free plan and both of its premium plans have daily post limits that change per platform. Plus, pricing is based on the number of social media profiles and team members you use rather than flat fees.

The premium plans start at $10/month and $20/month for five users and zero additional users, but each additional profile costs $2 and $3 extra while each additional team member costs $1 and $2 extra.

7-day and 14-day free trials are available, and you’ll receive discounts when you purchase three-month, six-month and annual plans.

Get Publer

6. Revive Old Posts

Revive Old Posts HomepageSource: Revive Old Posts Homepage

Revive Old Posts is a freemium WordPress plugin you can use to promote your posts on social media automatically. It works as a lightweight version of the previous tools on this list. Instead of allowing you to write and schedule any social media post you wish to share, your social media calendar is filled with messages generated by Revive Old Posts to promote your content.

Key Features

  • Support for 5 Social Media Platforms – Connect your WordPress site to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Tumblr directly. Instagram is available via a Buffer integration.
  • Auto Post to Social Media – Share blog posts, pages, products and custom post types directly to social media as soon as you publish them.
  • Promote Old Posts – Share old blog posts to social media when the queue runs out of new posts to share.
  • URL Shortener – Integrate your account with multiple link shortening services, including Rebrandly, Bitly and Ow.ly.
  • Predefined Text & Hashtags – Add predefined text that appears at the beginning or end of every social media post, and create a collection of hashtags you use on a regular basis.
  • Variations – Create multiple versions of the same post. Revive Old Posts will choose one variation when it adds the post back into the queue to avoid spamming your users with the same messages.

Pricing

You can install Revive Old Posts Lite directly from your WordPress site. This version allows you to post to one Twitter account and one Facebook page. You can also exclude posts, integrate your account with link shorteners and automate hashtags.

Pricing for the premium version starts at $75/year for a single site license, and a 30-day free trial is available for all plans.

We also wrote a detailed review as well as a helpful tutorial for Revive Old Posts, check them out here:

Get Revive Old Posts

7. ContentStudio

Buffer Alternative - ContentStudioSource: ContentStudio.io

ContentStudio is a content discovery tool that makes content curation for blogs and social media effortless. It lets you discover, plan, publish and analyize high quality content all on one platform. With ContentSutdio you can find and post more relevant and targeted content fast and hassle-free.

Key Features

  • Content Discovery And Insights – Browse and share personalized, highly relevant and trending content suggestions that suite your niche or brand.
  • Multi-Channel Composer – Create new content for your different channels in one intuitive editor. It also provides a SEO optimization toolbox, image editor, trending hashtag suggestions and much more.
  • Planner & Calendar – Use the interactive calendar or list view to plan your content. You can also collaborate with team members by planning, approving, rejecting or scheduling your content for all channels together in one tool. This way you are always in control of your content and social media strategy.
  • Automation Recipes – ContentStudio also offers step by step templates, that help you set up different types of automation campaigns in no time.
  • Analytics & Reporting – Easily measure your success and track KPIs by using helpful analytics reports. Adapt and fine-tune your social media strategy with informed decisions based on the right statistics.

Pricing

You can choose between five different plans. The smallest PRO plan costs $49 per month and gives you one workspace which you can use for up to ten social accounts and one blog. Similar to all other plans you can share unlimited social media posts as well as blog posts per month. You also have unlimited custom topic feeds and searches per day. So if you are working solo, this plan already offers you plenty of options. However it is not possible to add team members and the amoount of automation campaigns you can set up is limited to ten.

If you want to collaborate or need more workspaces, social accounts or blogs, you can upgrade to the SMALL ($99/month), MEDIUM ($199/month) or LARGE ($299/month) plan. They all come with unlimited automation campaigns too.

You can test each plan with a 14-day free trial.

Get ContentStudio

Final Thoughts

Moving away from Buffer or deciding not to use it can be difficult, but as you can see, there are plenty of worthy contenders out there when it comes to social media management.

SocialBee is a direct competitor of Buffer as it offers much of the same features and a little more, including the ability to reshare posts automatically. Publer acts as a cheaper version of this tool depending on the number of social media profiles you manage as well as your team size.

MeetEdgar is a great option if you’re looking to utilize reposting quite heavily in your social media marketing strategy. Plus, it has a content library you can use to make creating new posts more efficient. Hootsuite is ideal for this as well, and it’s a suitable option for marketers who use Facebook and LinkedIn advertising often. Unfortunately, it’s more expensive.

CoSchedule and Revive Old Posts are particularly useful if you primarily use social media to promote your content. Revive Old Posts is even specifically designed to bring new traffic to posts you’ve published in the past, and its a great companion for Buffer if you’re not quite ready to move away from it but want the ability to reshare old blog posts and other content easily.

If you want to learn more about Revive Old Posts, check out our review as well as our tutorial on how you can use it to plan your social media calendar.

image sources

ClickWhale - WordPress Link Manager