AgoraPulse is a social media management platform. Users manage social media messages, plan their schedules, and publish content across channels. All of which can take place on a single dashboard.
No tool is a one-size-fits-all when it comes to marketing. It’s important to test and try different tools to learn what drives business best for you and your team. AgoraPulse may not be the right fit for you, but here are 10 outstanding tools that could help streamline your marketing team.
1. CoSchedule Social Media Calendar
Features
Unified Calendar View: For planning and scheduling across various networks.
Auto-Scheduling: Schedule your posts for optimal engagement times and get the most out of your campaigns.
Clear Team Workflows: Collaborate with team members flawlessly and track content contribution and approval.
Integration: Seamlessly integrate with content management systems, email marketing platforms, and analytics tools.
Drag-And-Drop Functionality: For easy content management, and flexibility.
Content Rescheduling: ReSchedule your social posts seamlessly to maintain a consistent online presence.
Security & Compliance: Give users an easy and secure way to log into Social Calendar using SSO (Single Sign-On) authentication.
Digital Asset Management: Create, schedule, publish, and measure your social media strategy in a single, AI-powered social calendar.
Customer Service & Support: Fast, effective customer service and support help so you can be as productive as possible.
Social Media Management: Create and manage all of your social media content in one place for an optimal posting experience.
AI Marketing: Write first-draft copy, generate new ideas, and upgrade your marketing workflows with CoSchedule’s AI-Powered Marketing Intelligence Assistant.
Pros
- Visualize your marketing schedule in real time
- Manage work through every stage of the creative process
- Maximize your team’s productivity
- See your high-level marketing strategy at a glance
- Deliver projects on time, every time
Cons
- This tool offers so many benefits and features that it may take your team a little time to get used to it.
Pricing: Regarding pricing for Social Calendar, at $19/Month you are getting a cutting edge social media marketing tool to optimize your social media campaigns. CoSchedule offers other plans and a forever free marketing calendar if you want to try that out first.
“CoSchedule has improved our efficiency immeasurably, enabling us to scale with a very small team. Additionally – it has given us such an easy way to communicate the volume and status of work we are doing to the business teams we support. We have tried other tools, and nothing really compares.”
– Customer from ABS Group
2. SproutSocial
Sprout Social serves as a social media management and intelligence tool. Suited for brands and agencies of all sizes, this tool helps manage conversations and drive business.
Features
Engagement: Streamline and scale your customer care and community management.
Publishing: Effortlessly plan, create, manage, and deliver social content and campaigns.
Analytics: Drive strategic decision-making across your entire business.
Listening: Uncover key learnings from millions of unfiltered thoughts, feelings, and opinions to enhance your current strategy and guide future action.
Pros
- Sprout Social stands out from competitors with their listening and advocacy features.
- The listening feature allows users to discover millions of unfiltered thoughts, opinions, and emotions related to their brand.
- This feature helps uncover crucial insights more quickly.
- The advocacy feature aids in building your brand and extending its reach.
- The advocacy feature simplifies content sharing.
Cons
- One recurring issue for Sprout Social is the lack of customer support.
- Users often find themselves waiting for responses or not getting the necessary guidance.
- The limitation on the number of social media profiles is another hurdle.
- Users have expressed the need to connect to more than 5 social profiles, but upgrading costs are prohibitive.
Pricing
3. Hootsuite
Hootsuite prides itself on being a social media management platform that has the means to handle everything a social media manager does daily. Hootsuite can guide users every step of the way, from creating content to publishing and analyzing the results.
Features
Speed-Up Publishing: Users can use built-in AI features, like OwlyWriter AI, for transparency across their team to publish at a faster rate.
Brand Monitoring: Gain deeper insights into your brand’s performance and progress.
Boost Engagement: Learn what criteria will best resonate with your target audience to yield the strongest results.
Pros
- Hootsuite offers AI-powered content creation.
- Hootsuite suggests optimal times for posting based on your needs.
- Hootsuite provides in-depth social media analytics.
- One of Hootsuite’s strengths is its extensive range of integrations.
- Hootsuite supports all social media platforms that your business may operate on.
Cons
- Hootsuite’s two main drawbacks are their pricing and a steep learning curve.
- Hootsuite has discontinued their free option, forcing users to opt for their priced plans.
- Users have struggled with Hootsuite’s usability and feel overwhelmed by their platform.
Pricing
4. Planable
Planable is a social media management tool known for its visually driven planning and top-notch collaboration features. This tool is designed for social media managers and marketers who manage cross-channel social media accounts.
Features
Social Media Management: Easily engage with your audience across all platforms, reaching them wherever they are.
Marketing Calendar: Visualize and plan all of your marketing in one single calendar.
Analytics: View in-depth analytics that will optimize your marketing efforts.
Increase Teamwork: Mesh everything you need together so you and your team can streamline line efforts all in one place.
Pros
- Planable is designed for a wide range of users.
- Its easy-to-use features make it user-friendly for both individuals and teams.
- It’s suitable for multi-locational brands, multi-brand companies, and agencies.
Cons
- The most common challenges users encounter with Planable relate to pricing and social media limitations.
- Users occasionally find the pricing structure confusing for personal use and when explaining it to clients.
- Users have reported difficulty posting seamlessly across all platforms rather than just a select few.
Pricing
5. Buffer
Buffer helps users expand their reach and their audience organically. Driven by high values, Buffer provides intuitive marketing tools for companies looking to broaden their horizons.
Features
Increase Productivity: With Buffer, you can automatically assign content to AI so your team doesn’t slow down on more tedious projects.
Efficiently Re-vamp Content: Users have the ability to rewrite and repurpose content with just a click. Gain more traction from old campaigns and outperform them!
Develop Content Easily: Buffer offers a “Start a Page” feature where users can build a landing page in just minutes. One that speaks volumes for their brand and kickstarts their marketing.
Pros
- Buffer eliminates guesswork in content creation and publication.
- With Buffer, users can confidently share the appropriate content on the correct channels at the optimal time.
- Buffer enhances collaboration speed through permission levels and approval workflows.
Cons
- Buffer users frequently experience failed posts during content publication.
- This issue has been reported across all channels.
- Users have expressed that the analytics provided by Buffer do not meet their needs.
Pricing
6. Loomly
Loomly is another great alternative for a social media management platform. Loomly helps individuals, non-profit organizations, and businesses to create, publish, and analyze content.
Features
Multi-Calendar View: Loomly offers multiple views of calendars so users can stay updated when needed.
Media Studio: Increase your ease of use through all social media platforms. Users can create content in half the time.
Hashtag Manager: Benefit from the most effective and trending hashtags to boost your marketing.
UTM Parameters Generator: Users can create easy-to-read URLs for their sites, generating more clicks and views.
Pros
- Loomly excels at maintaining organization and tracking of your content.
- Loomly offers post previews, ensuring you and your team know what is being published, when, and on which channel.
- This feature reduces miscommunication within the team.
Cons
- The primary concern for Loomly users is the platform’s inability to post directly to Instagram.
- Many users are seeking this integration feature.
- Users also encounter difficulties when creating Instagram stories through Loomly.
Pricing
7. Sendible
Sendible is an efficient scheduling platform that helps users to scale and drive their marketing efforts. Users can grow their audience and reach their media goals in one platform.
Features
How-To Guides: With a wide variety of “How-To Guides,” users can learn best practices from experts who have used Sendible’s templates. Their helpful guides foster an extremely beginner-friendly environment.
Efficient Scheduling: Schedule posts individually, by bulk, or via queues. Then, users can monitor them through their unique calendar.
Separate Client Dashboards: Work seamlessly with your team and create individual dashboards for each client, keeping your work organized and optimized.
Pros
- One of Sendible’s top strengths is effectively onboarding and familiarizing users with their platform.
- Sendible offers exceptional customer service, best practices, and guides.
- Users report feeling comfortable and at ease when using Sendible.
Cons
- Sendible cannot post directly to Instagram, a feature highly requested by daily users.
- The reliability of Sendible’s mobile app is questioned.
- Users have experienced crashes and breakdowns while posting content through the app.
Pricing
8. Later
Later is a calendar-focused social media platform. Their expertise lies in the ease of use of their platform using a drag-and-drop interface.
Features
Beginner Friendly: Later provides in-depth webinars, training, and certifications to teach users how to use the platform. No second guessing or confusion for any new users.
Social Media Training: Users can revamp how they post on social media. They can learn social media best practices for specific platforms and tailor posts to their marketing strategy.
Caption Writer: Users can speed up the process of writing captions for social media posts. With their AI-powered Caption Writer, users can begin writing effective captions.
Pros
- The platform is user-friendly and can be easily learned by users of all levels, from beginners to advanced.
- Users can quickly become proficient in using this platform.
- Later is a reliable tool for pre-planning content.
- The platform offers an auto-posting feature, allowing users to relax without worrying about manual posting.
Cons
- Later does not provide integration with Instagram or TikTok, both of which are highly desired platforms.
- A significant challenge users face is the need for placeholder images for posts.
- This requirement has been found to decrease efficiency and necessitates that teams ‘backtrack.’
Pricing
9. Social Pilot
Social Pilot is a marketing tool that helps users automate their social media content, giving users more time and freedom within their content creation process.
Features
Approvals On-The-Go: Waste no time progressing through projects and campaigns with approvals on-the-go. Team members can seamlessly send work for approvals or edits and receive it back with just a click.
Bulk Scheduling: Users can publish content in bulk to any platform of their choice. Saving time and energy, you can post at the optimal times without any worry.
Content Library AI Assistant: Gain access to your very own library AI assistant. Produce content that relates with your brand voice and your audience, in half of the time.
Pros
- Social Pilot excels in providing scheduled posting features.
- It offers comprehensive analytics to customers.
- The analytics are based on the customers’ published content.
Cons
- Social Pilot can encounter problems during the process of bulk posting, a feature it offers.
- The platform may crash during bulk posting and does not notify the user about unsuccessful posts.
- Some users have reported that manual posting is time-consuming on this platform.
Pricing
10. Brand Watch
Brand Watch is an all-in-one social media management tool. It offers a suite of connected platforms for collaborative social media teams.
Features
Streamline Influencer Marketing: Gain access to untapped engagement through powerful influencers. Learn how to collaborate and find success through influencer marketing.
Measure The Competition: With data-backed insights, users can measure their progress relative to their competition to stay ahead of the curve.
Enhanced Customer Care: Provide exceptional customer service, with round-the-clock care personalized to them.
Pros
- Users can be confident that their marketing efforts are performing optimally.
- The platform provides insights into consumer behavior.
- Brand Watch is compatible with all popular social media platforms.
Cons
- A significant challenge for Brand Watch is the depth of their analytics.
- Users find that the analytics do not provide sufficient insights for growth.
- The data appears only to scratch the surface of the information users seek.
Pricing
Remember: these alternatives are exactly that. Alternatives. Remember your team’s needs and non-negotiables when reviewing different options. Think about price points, integrations, efficiency, approval workflows, etc.
There’s a perfect tool out there for a team or business of any size. It may not be the one your neighbor uses, and that’s ok! Social media management tools should breathe fresh air into your process and help you find new life.
