Are you looking to automate your Facebook posts so that your social media feed stays up-to-date even if you’re away from your computer running errands, taking care of your family or while you are on vacation? Thankfully, there are several free and low-cost options you can choose from so that you can quickly and effectively schedule all your social media posts during the time you will be away.
As a side-note, it’s important to note that personal Facebook accounts cannot be scheduled. Instead, Facebook only allows the scheduling of business pages and in certain instances, group posts if you are the sole owner or moderator of the group.
What Are The Best Facebook Automation Tools?
Facebook’s Integrated Scheduler
Facebook offers its own integrated scheduler for Facebook Business Pages. This scheduler can be found from your business page by going to Publishing Tools. To create a post, simply click on the +Create button located in the top right corner. This will allow you to write a post for immediate publication to your business page or for a future date.
Pros of Facebook’s Integrated Scheduler:
- It’s completely free to use and fully integrated into Facebook.
- You can share posts immediately, schedule them for a later date or for a previous date.
- You can schedule as many posts as you need to schedule with no limitations.
- You can view each post’s reach and clicks directly from the Published Posts Dashboard.
Cons of Facebook’s Integrated Scheduler
- There is no way to bulk upload posts via a spreadsheet.
- Each post must be scheduled by itself for a single time and day.
- Scheduling posts may seem tedious due to the number of clicks involved.
WoopSocial
WoopSocial allows you to easily schedule Facebook posts via either their free or paid version. The good news is that the free version is fully featured and allows you to schedule as many Facebook posts as you need to schedule. The paid version, which costs $10 a month includes analytics that can help you determine which types of posts do the best.
Woopsocial Pros
- You can schedule posts as close together as every five minutes. (Facebook may flag posts that are scheduled less than 8 minutes apart as being spam.)
- You have the ability to schedule as many posts as you need to schedule via their manual scheduler.
- WoopSocial is very easy to use and understand.
- The manual scheduler is relatively fast when compared to other automation manual schedulers.
- Each free account gets 10 days of free analytics tracking
- The support team is extremely responsive to inquiries and concerns when contacted on Facebook.
- You can add images to your scheduled posts.
- In addition to Facebook, you can also schedule social media posts to Twitter.
Woopsocial Cons
- There is no way to bulk upload scheduled posts via a spreadsheet.
- Woopsocial doesn’t send failed scheduled post emails.
- Woopsicial also offers Instagram integration, but it can be tedious to get Instagram to connect to WoopSocial.
- The manual scheduler can feel a bit tedious if you plan to schedule many posts for each day while you are away from your computer.
HootSuite
HootSuite is an extremely popular way to automate social media feeds with evergreen posts. Along with Facebook integration, HootSuite can also be used to schedule posts to Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram as well as many other popular social media sites. Their free plan allows businesses to schedule up to 30 posts at a time. Once a post sends to the social media site, another post can immediately be scheduled.
HootSuite Pros
- Paid social media scheduling plans start at $45 a month ($29.99 if full year is purchased up-front).
- They offer bulk upload of schedule posts via a spreadsheet for each of their paid plans.
- Hootsuite offers third party integrations that can expand its features.
- Paid plans offer unlimited manual scheduling.
- The streams feature allows you to manage your social media feeds without going to Facebook, which can increase productivity.
HootSuite Cons
- The bulk upload scheduler is limited to 350 posts at a time.
- No paid plan offers the ability to upload unlimited bulk scheduled posts.
- The manual scheduler is slow and extremely tedious to use when compared to other schedulers offers by other automation sites.
- Hootsuite has a high failure rate for scheduled posts when compared to other social media automation sites.
- Hootsuite’s analytics are unreliable and tend to break often.
- Free version can be extremely limited if you need to schedule many posts each day you are on vacation or away from your office.
Eclincher
Eclincher is a relatively new player when it comes to social media automation. While Eclincher doesn’t offer any free plans, their lowest-priced plan is $59 a month, and it includes features that are hard to find on other social media automation sites, including the ability to create evergreen queues that recycle content according to your preferred schedule, and the ability to upload up to 100 posts at a time via a spreadsheet.
Eclincher Pros
- Eclincher works seamlessly with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as well as many other popular social media sites.
- You can upload up to 100 posts via a spreadsheet at a time with no limitation as to how many times you upload 100 posts.
- Their evergreen queues ensure that your Facebook feed is always posting new content.
- They offer a free 14-day trial without the need to input a credit card.
- Manually scheduled posts can be set to post for multiple times and days and even added to evergreen queues, which speeds up productivity.
- They offer the ability to become an influencer for an extra $20 a month, which means other users may find and publish your posts to their social media feeds.
Eclincher Cons
- The cheapest plan they offer is $60 a month, which can seem high when compared to other social media automation sites.
- Eclincher’s monthly subscription is managed by a third party.
- Once you input your credit card number and choose a package, your credit card will be charged immediately, regardless of how many free days you still had left on your trial.
- Automated evergreen queues are limited to 100 posts a day, which means you may still need to manually schedule and bulk upload posts.
SocialBu – Social Media & Facebook Automation
SocialBu is another relatively new social media automation platform that works well with Facebook as well as other social media sites, including Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. SocialBu does offer a free plan that includes up to two social accounts and five posts in your automation queue. Paid plans start at $8 a month and go as high as $199 a month. They are also willing to work with individual clients in order to create custom social media automation solutions.
Pros of SocialBu
- They offer a free plan so that you can test their functionality with your Facebook account.
- Paid plans start at $8 a month.
- You have the ability to create a certain number of automated evergreen queues, depending on your package.
- The $59 a month plan provides no limits on how many posts can be scheduled each day or month.
- They offer yearly subscriptions.
Cons of SocialBu
- The cheaper plans are extremely limited in what they offer.
- Insights and reporting are only offered for paid plans $19 and up.
- May be unaffordable for small businesses that need to schedule thousands of Facebook posts a month.
Choosing the Right Social Media Scheduler for Your Facebook Business Page
When it comes to choosing the right facebook automation tool for your Facebook feed while you are away from your computer, you’ll need to consider many factors, including whether or not you’ll want to use the scheduler after your vacation, the number of posts you need to schedule and the number of people who manage your social media accounts.
If you schedule very few posts a day or month and only plan to take a short vacation, you may be just fine with choosing HootSuite’s free plan. If you need to schedule 50 or more posts a day while you are gone and have a very limited social media budget, you may want to go with WoopSocial. If you plan to continue using the automation software after your vacation or business trip and/or need thousands of posts scheduled each month, you may want to consider Eclincher or SocialBu for your social media automation needs.
