It’s no secret that social media can help freelancers network and find writing work. Compared to the old days of having to go to stuffy networking events and cold-call people, you now can build your social media profiles and find clients and readers.
Even though social media can help you grow your freelance career, it can take up a ton of time if you’re not careful with how you use it. We’ve all been down the Twitter and Instagram infinite scroll rabbit hole.
One way to get the best of both worlds is to use social media management tools to keep you active on social media without taking up all of your time.
In this post, we’ll be going over all of the best social media management tools to keep on top of your platforms so you can grow them while saving time. Considering most of you are solopreneurs or operate a small team, we’ll be focusing more on platforms catered to that instead of big, corporate platforms.
Buffer
Buffer has been around for a long time and lets you schedule your content on almost all social media platforms. You’re able to get data and analytics as well so you can figure out what is showing the best results on your platforms. It’s also an official marketing partner for some of the big social media platforms, giving it the stability people need to schedule posts without worry.
Features:
- Publish regularly on your platforms
- Analytics to measure results and figure out your best posting time
- Stay engaged with your audience through community features
- Scheduling platforms include Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Pinterest
Pricing:
- A free plan that allows you to post on three different platforms
- $5 per month per channel gets you unlimited features
- This includes unique features such as being able to schedule the first comment after you post or tag things in your Instagram post
MeetEdgar
MeetEdgar is a different kind of social media scheduling platform. Instead of you having to do all the work of figuring out when to post, it stores and organizes your posts into categories. Once you set a schedule, it will auto-schedule your posts by the categories you selected so your feed stays full and engaged.
Features:
- Helps you auto-fill your content schedule
- Can suggest other posts you could use
- Ability to sync with your blog, YouTube channel, or podcast to keep your feed up to date with your content creation
Pricing:
- There is no free plan at the moment, but there is a 7-day trial
- Small plan starts at $19 per month with three social channels
Sendible
Sendible is another option that allows you to schedule and visually map out of your content. One unique feature about Sendible is that you’re able to see the post before it goes live so you can make sure it looks aesthetically pleasing. That way, you don’t have text or images that look out of place.
Features:
- Visually plan your month
- See how posts would look before they’re live on your social media channels
- Reports and analytics
Pricing:
- While it doesn’t offer any free plans there is a 14-day trial period
- From there, plans start at $29 per month
HelloWoofy
HelloWoofy is a newer social media management platform, at least compared to some of the other options, but it offers a ton of features some of the other ones don’t. It can connect with newer platforms, such as TikTok, and it also has advanced integrations you don’t see in some of the other social media management tools, such as Amazon’s Alexa.
Features:
- Connects to: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google business, Medium, TikTok, Twitter, WordPress, and more
- Connects with advanced features like Alexa
Pricing:
- Paid plans starting at $49 per year (which breaks down to about $4 per month) which gives you access to 25 accounts and allows you to add in a team of 9 members (which may or may not apply to your freelancing business)
Crowdfire
Crowdfire is a great option for freelancers who just want to manage a handful of profiles. They have a free plan that you can use and then upgrade later if you need to post to more profiles. Crowdfire offers the ability to get suggested content based on the categories and industries you post about.
If you create content as a freelancer, you are also able to link your sites through Crowdfire so your content is automatically posted and shared across your social profiles. That way, you don’t have to go in and manually create posts every time.
Features:
- Upgraded accounts give you 90 days of advanced analytics
- Get ideas for content based on the categories you choose
- Ability to post content from your own blogs and sites
- Tailored posts for each site, so you don’t need to tweak each post for the specific platform
Pricing:
- Offers a free plan with three linked accounts
- Can manage Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram from free plan
- From there, the plans are at a manageable price starting at $7.48 per month with five linked accounts
- Upgraded account allows you to also manage Pinterest
Tailwind
Tailwind only works for Pinterest and Instagram, but if you’re looking to only focus on those platforms, this might be a great fit. One of the best features it offers is that it will automatically design your image to look like a graphic designer created it. You can include text, graphics, more images, or anything else, to create a branded post. Tailwind designs the image itself so you don’t need any fancy graphic design skills to make it stand out.
Features:
- Only for Instagram and Pinterest
- Once you upload a photo, it automatically gives you hundreds of ways to style it
- Automatically assigns the right size to the image for the platform
- One calendar for all of your social profiles
- Automatically finds hashtags
- Recommends communities for you to connect with
Pricing:
- Paid plans start at $9.99 per month
- Small plan allows one Pinterest account and one Instagram account with 200 post designs per month
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is one of the biggest scheduling tools out there, and one of the most well-known. While they offer a ton of advanced, professional plans, they also have a free plan so you can schedule out your posts as a freelance writer.
Paid plans give access to “one inbox” which is a place where you can manage all of your incoming messages across all of your social media platforms. This helps make sure you can keep on top of your messages without having to switch between a bunch of social network sites, ultimately saving you time.
Features:
- Platforms available for publishing: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook (profile, page, group), LinkedIn (profile, group, company), and WordPress
- Some of the most advanced analytics available in a scheduling platform
Pricing:
- Free plan which offers 2 social accounts with 5 scheduled messages each
- From there, paid plans start at $49 per month which gives you access to 10 social accounts and unlimited scheduled posts
While we’ve covered some of the main options, there are still a lot of different social media schedulers out there. If you’re a freelancer, the most important thing for you to decide is what platforms you want to focus on and what you need most out of a platform.
Do you need images? Certain networks? Analytics? Something really basic? Answering those questions will help you narrow down which one would work best for you.
Need even more social media tips? Check out all of our posts on the topic here.
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