What social media scheduling tool should I use?
We get this question a lot.
The best answer is almost always “the one your team already uses”, but let’s say you don’t use one. Or the one you use sucks. Or you’re just interested to see what’s out there. Let’s take a look.
TL;DR - Use Assembly if price isn’t a concern, Buffer if it is, HubSpot + Buffer if you already pay for HubSpot
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, which means we get a bit of money for referrals, at no cost to you. The author of this post doesn’t like when that’s not made clear at the start of blog posts, so here we are.
What you should be looking for
These features are table stakes. And don’t worry, every tool listed below has these features.
Scheduling at custom times
Some tools use slots, but all should offer the ability to post at any time.
This will be the core of your posting strategy - you’ll want to schedule things out at least a day, and preferably a week in advance. Doing all your reviews and scheduling at once is much easier than scheduling each night.
Cross-posting
I generally recommend cross-posting content to LinkedIn and Twitter/X, even if you want to focus on one channel for growth.
There’s a few reasons for this.
There’s no harm to posting
It keeps you active on multiple channels
You can see what resonates with different audiences
Scheduling tools make this very easy.
Analytics
Trust me, you do not want to be tracking this manually. Each social media tool should have some way of tracking account analytics like:
Follower count growth
Engagement growth
Likes / comments
This is an easy way to visualize your efforts paying off.
Media (images / gifs / video)
Text-only will not cut it. You’ll be posting infographics, memes, videos…your tool should support all of these formats.
Collaboration
This one is a nice-to-have.
If you want to run lean, you can sign up for an account and then share the credentials with someone who’s posting for you. If you want the full content lifecycle - idea generation, drafts, review, etc - in one place, then look for tools that emphasize collaboration.
Assembly vs Buffer vs Hypefury vs…everything
Assembly
Truly the Cadillac of scheduling tools. Excellent UX, all the features you need, great customer support. The biggest con is its pricing - $45 for an individual plan. That is 4-5x the cost of other tools.
If you’re going to be heavy into approval workflows, and don’t want to use Notion or another management tool for content, this is your tool.
Also, if you’re paranoid about giving someone else access to your account to post - this tool has built-in blocking approvals so that nothing can go out without your approval.
Pros
Easy interface for approvals
Built-in auto engagement from cofounders / team members
Tagging support on LinkedIn / X
Easy-ish analytics
Thread / longform post support
Cons
Steep pricing
Buffer
If Assembly’s the Cadillac, Buffer’s the Toyota. Reliable, great value, and has almost all the features you’d want.
Their pricing is straightforward - free for one channel. If you’re planning on on using analytics (you should) it costs money.
Let’s say you want to crosspost on LinkedIn and Twitter with analytics. That would be $10 / month. Much cheaper than Assembly.
Pros
Partial tagging support on LinkedIn
Easy-ish analytics
Thread / longform post support
Pricing is transparent and much cheaper
Easy to add team members, or just give login credentials to poster
Cons
No auto-engagement
Approval process is not straightforward
HubSpot
HubSpot is…frustrating. Many people already pay for HubSpot, so it’s nice to have a free social scheduler built-in. But, don’t be surprised that the company famous for doing 15 things at once doesn’t have all the features.
It’s basic stuff too - thread and longform support in Twitter/X, tagging and auto-commenting support in LinkedIn. If you really want to maximize value, I don’t recommend using HubSpot long-term.
But if you’re just trying to test the value of content, it’s a fine way to start.
Pros
Lots of people already pay for HubSpot so no extra charge
Easy to add team members
Analytics built-in
Cons
HubSpot’s whole thing is not having the best tool, so there are key features (thread support, long post support, tagging) missing
Hypefury
Hypefury is for anyone who wants to all-in on Twitter. It has rich scheduling slots, AI inspiration and templates, and an excellent interface.
It’s trash for LinkedIn, by design.
Pros
Clean interface
Analytics
Built for scheduling
Inspiration posts and formats
Cons
Built for individuals - no emphasis on collaborative team aspect
No tagging in LinkedIn - basic post support
Typefully
Another in the same vein of Hypefury. Great interface, not built for team collaboration.
Pros
Clean interface
Analytics
Built for scheduling
Cons
Built for individuals - no emphasis on collaborative team aspect, like commenting
