Do you use a Social Media Scheduler?

[Shawn Gossman1]

I've used Buffer for quite a while.

I have two paid channels using it.

How about you folks?

If you use one, what do you use?

 

[Dilip]

Not sure what Buffer is? A 3rd party tool?

 

[Shawn Gossman1]

Not sure what Buffer is? A 3rd party tool?

Buffer is a SaaS product that allows you to schedule posts for social media. I use it for Twitter scheduling. It's $6 a month per channel but they have a free version with limited features.

 

[Dilip]

After what Twitter did to the 3rd party tools, I am a bit worried. Even before, there were cases when FB acted on 3rd party tools.

 

[Shawn Gossman1]

After what Twitter did to the 3rd party tools, I am a bit worried. Even before, there were cases when FB acted on 3rd party tools.

I've used Buffer on Twitter for a few years now. They even just added a feature where you can schedule Tweets.

 

[Dilip]

If they are safe, I would say it's awesome!!

My only worry is the account getting banned. FB does that a lot.

 

[Uncrowned]

I use them a lot. I currently use the one that Zoho includes with my package and it is not okay at best. Hootsuite was amazing, but gets very expensive. Most of my social media is handled through Zapier tasks.

 

[Shawn Gossman1]

I use them a lot. I currently use the one that Zoho includes with my package and it is not okay at best. Hootsuite was amazing, but gets very expensive. Most of my social media is handled through Zapier tasks.

So, I've never used Zapier.

Do you use the free edition or paid?

What makes it unique?

 

[Uncrowned]

So, I've never used Zapier.

Do you use the free edition or paid?

What makes it unique?

I use a paid tier. It offers so many benefits for so many automations. I can have it share my site's content automatically, or add items to to-do lists, notify me when something happens, etc. The limits are basically anything you can imagine and it does not require much coding or technical skills to setup. Granted, it does need to support the app you want to integrate, but nearly every major app is supported and you can even code web apps and such.

It really offers solutions that most social media managers simply don't offer. Like posting to reddit, discord, and numerous other platforms. Although it is meant for automation, so manually posting content and updates via Zapier often requires strange work arounds.

 

[Shawn Gossman1]

I need to try it out more. There are a lot of things I use that would likely connect with it.

 

[Uncrowned]

I need to try it out more. There are a lot of things I use that would likely connect with it.

If you can think outside of the box, there are basically endless ways for Zapier to do things. Granted, the straightforward setups are incredibly robust.

For a good example, I have an article that gets updated weekly instead of a new article being written. That makes it kind of hard to grab into a social media flow. Granted, I could schedule it to repost on X day at X time, but that requires I ensure it is properly updated on time every week and every now and then I do fall behind. Plus it also results in the same repost and Twitter hates that. So I have Zapier wait for me to complete the task in my To-Do list and that ques it up for social media and Zapier pulls info to make the posting a bit more detailed instead of the same text.

 

[Shawn Gossman1]

So I have Zapier wait for me to complete the task in my To-Do list and that ques it up for social media and Zapier pulls info to make the posting a bit more detailed instead of the same text.

That's an interesting tactic.

Do you use the premium version of Zapier at all? I'm curious about the free vs. premium features from a user perspective?

 

[Uncrowned]

That's an interesting tactic.

Do you use the premium version of Zapier at all? I'm curious about the free vs. premium features from a user perspective?

You can very much get started with the free plan. I use a paid plan. The single step on the free plan is a pretty big limit, but for something simple like sharing a link from an RSS feed to social media, it would be fine.

The starter plan is pretty much going to be a need if you really want to get Zapier going as 100 tasks a month is pretty small and you will likely very much want the multi-step zaps also the filter & formatter are both super helpful.

Granted, the $20 a month is still much less than most good social media managers once you start needing multiple platforms and such.