In this blog article I’ll take a look at two popular social media scheduling tools MeetEdgar and Buffer and their differences and possibilities.

In this article you'll learn:

• How to choose your social media scheduling tool

• How to get started

• Comparing the pros and cons of Buffer and MeetEdgar

When you are managing a business it’s highly likely that you have at least one or possibly a few social media platforms to manage. With a high social media presence at one point there might come a need to start scheduling your posts. There are many different social media scheduling tools that help you follow through on your marketing strategy and handle your channels with ease.

How to choose your social media scheduling tool?

There are different social media scheduling tools which all cater to different needs. Choosing your scheduling tool can have a big effect on your business since it can help you increase engagement, traffic and help you analyse your progress. You need make your needs and priorities clear to yourself and choose the tool accordingly.

The aspects you might want to take into consideration are:

• Supported social media platforms

• Cost

• Ease of use

• Customer support

• Extra values

Supported platforms

MeetEdgar and Buffer both offer scheduling for multiple social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. In Buffer you can also schedule Google+, Pinterest & Instagram. Buffer Pinterest comes with the advanced package and Instagram needs a Buffer app for you phone that send notifications and you can approve your pre-scheduled posts. This is not a perfect system since you still need to manually approve your posts, but it’s still much less work than posting organically since you still have a queue ready for you to post at the right moment.

With Pinterest and Instagram support we can say that when you have a more visual marketing strategy and in these platforms, Buffer is the choice for you.

Setting up

Setting up your Buffer account is easy enough. You register, connect it your social media platforms and start adding content to your queue.

With MeetEdgar it takes a bit more effort to set up since there are more options. What you still need to do of course is connect your accounts to it. After that you can create different content categories that really help you with your social media marketing strategy when scheduling content.

When you have created categories you can move on to libraries that are the important part. Since you can categorise your libraries however you wish which makes it so much easier to add content to them since it’s not yet the place where you have to think about scheduling your content. All you need to do is add enough relevant content to your library.

MeetEdgar also offers you to automatically import some content which can make your life easier if this is what you are looking for or if it’s not you can also download a chrome extension to add your content with ease regularly.

Scheduling

This is where we see the biggest difference between our social media tools. Whilst Buffer is easy to set up it means there is more work to be done during the scheduling. You have to add posts to queue manually and whilst there is a Re-Buffer choice on your already posted content you have to Re-Buffer them manually for them to be back in your queue. With the advanced package you can create a custom schedule but with the basic you can only choose the days and times you want to post.

Adding content to Buffer has to be done manually and you have to keep your queue topped up at all times. One thing that helps with that is the advanced option called Power Scheduler that allows you to share the same content at intervals. Integration with 3rd party apps and a chrome extension also help you keep your queue up in Buffer. So if Buffer is what you are going for be sure to use all the options that are available to you.

MeetEdgar however offers a more elegant solution to your scheduling needs. As you have already created your categories and libraries it couldn’t be easier to set up your posting schedule. When creating the schedule you take your platform of the choice and customise your schedule by scheduling different categories at the days and times you wish.

When MeetEdgar runs through your content library it will simply start over. This allows your content to resurface freely and get even more engagement. Of course there is also a post only once option for your content that you don’t wish to reuse. When MeetEdgar recycles your content you can also see your two-week queue and rearrange to your best liking.

Ease of use

Both Buffer and MeetEdgar are easy to use. The difference is the automation of MeetEdgar's recycling and it’s easy to use calendar view of all your accounts together or separately if needed. This function makes your social media scheduling easy to see and manage. But while the recycling is useful you still need to keep an eye on your posts in order to remove the ones that are no longer relevant and should not be pushed anymore.

Buffer is simpler and easy to use when starting out and need something that will satisfy your basic scheduling needs. Of course one big plus that Buffer has over MeetEdgar is that it has a free option so if you are just starting out and don’t need as much automation as MeetEdgar offers, Buffer could be just for you.

When using the more advanced versions of Buffer you open up many possibilities like the analytics tab, Pinterest, custom weekly schedule and scheduling one post more than once.

What Buffer offers you that MeetEdgar doesn’t is the option to post videos with it. Of course you can still post videos from a third party page but adding it directly to your platforms is not an option in MeetEdgar but is in Buffer.

Price

Take a look at the full MeetEdgar and Buffer plans.

To sum things up when choosing your social media scheduling tool MeetEdgar can save you time by having categories and automated re-posting system but Buffer is the choice for you when your focus is on Google+, Instagram and Pinterest and if you need a cheaper option.

If you want us to help you with your social media scheduling don’t hesitate to contact us.