Social Media Marketing platforms like most SAAS platforms come in many shapes, sizes and prices and over the years I have spent many hours trying to find the perfect platform and just like unicorns, it doesn’t exist. However, after trying many, many platforms the likes of which include Buffer, Hootsuite, Postcron, ContentCal, Sprout Social, Later, I have finally settled on SmarterQueue, which has most of the features I love and doesn’t cost me an arm and a leg.
Feature Rich Platform
Let me introduce you to SmarterQueue’s best features.
Evergreen Posts
Yes, there is a lot of controversy around using evergreen posts, however, there is a place for it in your social media marketing strategy. If your post retains its relevance, is not time-sensitive and continues to drive engagement, there is no reason not to re-use it, as long as you have a good-sized gap so it doesn’t feel to your audience like it’s a repeat.
Here is the cool thing about SmarterQueue though, you can use the same image in your evergreen post but create multiple different “blurbs” so each time the image is reposted you have different wording to go with it. Not only that but you can specify how many additional times to post so that it’s not on repeat forever. This is great for things like special offers and sales promotions.
Analytics
Yes, I know, you’d rather stab your eyes out with a fork than look at analytics, but I’m sure you also like to spend more time creating posts that work and not ones that fall flat. Analytics is the only true way to know that and SmarterQueue gives a nice simple overview of how your posts are performing.
Direct Publishing to Platforms Supported
Smarter Queue supports the most popular platforms with direct publishing, including Facebook groups, Instagram and Pinterest.
Smarter Queues
It really does do what it says on the tin! The power in this software is the ability to set up queues for your content based on platform, timeslot AND category. So if you want Friday funnies to go out on Facebook only, you can set up a queue for that. Blog posts to go out to Linkedin, Pinterest and Twitter on Wednesday afternoons, create a queue that will auto-post those.
The Posting plan and categories areas ensure you get the content going out to the right people at the right time and the added colour coding makes it super easy to see what you are doing. You can also set up the same category for different times, so if you want a motivational quote to go out to Instagram on Tuesday but Facebook on Fridays you can use the same post and pick the same category with the correct platforms and Smarter Queue will post according to the schedule you have set up.
Curated Content
Pull in your favourite curated content sources and easily schedule those that are relevant to you. SmarterQueue will pull in from RSS feeds as well as Facebook and Twitter feed.
Instagram Mastery
Don’t even get me started with the magic this software is able to do with Instagram. First of all, it direct publishes to Instagram Business accounts. On top of that, you can create snippets for your frequently used hashtags, captions, @mentions and emojis which you can reuse with one click. You can preview how your posts will look on Instagram in a grid format, making it crazy easy to set up some really great branding magic. The drag and drop functionality makes it easy to rearrange posts to get the best layouts and there is the ability to add the first comment as part of your original post.
Manage your inbox
All your channels come together in your in-box making it easy to monitor messages, shoutouts and connections. You can handle all your responses here too.
Seasonal Categories
Do you have certain times of the year where you like to post specific content, like Black Friday promotions or Back to School Specials? Seasonal categories are not just for Christmas! It’s rare to find a Social Media Marketing software platform that allows for seasonal posting.
Here is how you can easily set up a seasonal category.
Super Simple Posting
Smarter Queue makes it really easy to keep adding posts to your queue. You can post immediately, on a set date or add to the bottom or the top of your existing queue. Make your post evergreen or add it as a one-time post.
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Add snippets, emoji’s or text variations to keep things spiced up! You can even add multiple images. If you are posting across platforms with the same post you can tweak the main text to be the correct length under each profile to ensure it fits correctly. Smarter Queue will show you the number of characters you have used under each profile and will show on the original tab in red if any profiles have too many characters.
Ummm hello, Pinterest!
Not only does SmarterQueue post directly to Pinterest, but you can also choose the board that you want to post to and set these up to post at specific times just like other platforms. Since Pinterest puts weight on new pins vs repinned or repeated content, the ability to create those text variations is a game-changer for this!
With only a few other Social Media Marketing software platforms able to post directly to Pinterest, this does put SmarterQueue into a league of its own.
According to SmarterQueue, Having a few Pinterest-specific categories to help you maintain a healthy ratio of new personal pins vs. content from other sources in your Posting Plan could be the key to staying on top.
This would also allow you to easily pause specific posting Queues, in order to easily reassess and adjust posting patterns specifically for Pinterest.
What makes SmarterQueue the best alternative to Hootsuite, Buffer and MeetEdgar?*
- Twitter Complaint Evergreen Recycling
- Advanced Scheduling with queued, pinned and recurring posts
- Mix one time posts with Evergreen posts in the same categories and advanced queue sorting options
- True cross-posting with the option to customize your post text for each of the selected profiles
- Publish the first comment with Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin posts
- Find royalty-free images to add to your posts from Giphy, Unsplash and Pixabay
- Integrate with Canva to import and use your designs in your posts
- Pause publishing for individual categories or social profiles
- Mentions for Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin profiles compatible with creating content for cross-posting
- In-depth analytics including your Social History and Competitor analysis.
*source SmarterQueue.com
OK, but how much does it cost?
Starting at $19.99 a month to a max of $79.99 a month (with additional discounts for paying annually) the plan you need depends on the number of profiles you need to connect, the number of posts per day, content categories needed, queued posts and RSS importers required. If you are on the fence, why not use our link and grab yourself an extended trial for 60 days!
In our opinion, SmarterQueue is the best Social Media Marketing platform for small businesses, ticking the boxes for features, pricing and usability, but of course, as usual, the software is only ever as good as the person using it. If you are looking to boost your social media presence in 2022 while saving yourself a ton of time, SmarterQueue is well worth a look.
