Sign up here to receive our free Work Tech newsletter in your inbox.
Charter Work Tech reviews—including our picks and the products we choose to review—are editorially independent. If you purchase something through a link on our site or in our newsletter, Charter may earn an affiliate commission.
In an era where social media trends come and go in a matter of days, and social media content influences purchasing decisions for some 85% of Gen Z users, staying on top of multiple social feeds is an essential skill for marketing and social media managers. To accomplish that feat, multi-channel social media management platforms have become an essential tool to engage, expand, and convert audiences across TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more.
We tested six of the leading social media management platforms—Buffer, CoSchedule, Later, Loomly, Hootsuite, and Sprout Social—for performance, ease of use, features and integrations, visual appeal, instructions and support, and value. Our picks are Hootsuite, an all-around high-quality platform, and Buffer, a budget-conscious pick that offers a more limited but still useful suite of functions.
Both of our picks have multiple subscription levels, with a free trial or tier to try out the platform. (See the Pricing Deep Dive section below for more on how to choose a subscription tier for your team’s needs.)
Both platforms also offer tools powered by artificial intelligence. Buffer provides a limited number of credits to try out its AI assistant, which helps users brainstorm post ideas, generate copy, and repurpose posts from one platform to another. Hootsuite’s AI tool, called OwlyWriter, can generate post ideas and copy based on previous posts, a website link, or keywords. While these tools are nice-to-haves, we found that they didn’t make or break our experience while testing, and they won’t be a major focus in this review. (For readers specifically looking at AI-powered social copy generators, keep an eye out for a future Work Tech edition focusing on those tools.)
Hootsuite
Our all-around pick for its premium features, stellar performance and ease of use, and its support and resources for users, although it may be pricey for teams with smaller budgets.
Pros:
- Intuitive and speedy editing, scheduling, uploading, and posting, and no issues with load time or saving content.
- Premium features like Grammarly and Canva integrations, performance benchmarking against industry averages and specific competitors, and the ability to follow trends and keywords across social platforms.
Cons:
- Pricey platform, with less freedom to customize the number of social accounts, which may be a dealbreaker with smaller budgets and fewer social channels.
- Slightly clunkier interface when compared to Buffer.
Buffer
Our budget-friendly pick for teams looking for more flexibility in pricing with fewer social accounts to manage. In spite of its lower price tag, users will make few compromises in terms of base functionality, although we did experience some performance issues and the platform doesn’t provide the premium features that Hootsuite does.
Pros:
- Relatively budget-friendly for smaller teams, with customizable costs based on not just pricing tier but also the number of social accounts.
- Has the cleanest, most streamlined interface of any platform we tested.
Cons:
- Occasionally, we experienced issues with longer post times when we selected “publish now,” and one of our posts failed to send when we posted it.
- The tagging feature seemed to work less well for LinkedIn and Twitter, with some manual searching necessary on the websites for the specific account or page.
Read the full review at charterworks.com.