Buffer is the best all-around social media scheduler. While it's still not perfect (API limitations with social media apps make it hard for any of these scheduling apps to be), it's the closest we found.
Buffer has the best interface and user experience, it is a modern social media management tool, while the others out there like Metricool and Hootsuite feel quite outdated and klunky, and are also less stable and reliable.
We used Buffer to schedule short form video content on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X and the platform worked as we'd except (with one LinkedIn exception - see full Buffer Review for details).
We decided to skip using Buffer for YouTube Shorts as you can't add a thumbnail from Buffer or add in any tags, and since YouTube is our most important social media platform, we didn't want to compromise on the limitations. We also decided to skip using Buffer for TikTok as you cannot format the caption (TikTok API limitation).
Not only is Buffer is the best all around social media scheduling tool, it also has a super generous free version for up to 3 social media platforms. Definitely worth giving a shot.
Social Media Scheduling Process
Social Media Scheduling ProcessGiven all the limitations we encountered, we decided the best path forward was to use combination of the best social media posting tool we found, Buffer, in combination with manual posting.
YouTube Shorts
YouTube ShortsWe do not use a social media scheduling app for posting on YouTube Shorts. Instead, we use the native YouTube app, upload our short, select our thumbnail and related video, then schedule it to post right within the app. Then, we go intoYouTube Studio via browser on our computer, add a description & tags.
Yes, it's quite involved, but YouTube is second largest source of traffic (other then our website via Google) so we want to do it right 💪
TikTok
TikTokWhile we don't care a ton about Tiktok, we do like that SEO still plays a role on the platform (meaning, we can post a video and months/years later, it is still getting views and engagement from people searching for the topic).
With TikTok, we upload all of our content into the app on the phone, save them as drafts, and we post manually on the days that our YouTube Shorts go out. We don't optimize for the best time to post as it's a secondary social channel for us and it's too exhausting trying to keep up with the best time to post.
Instagram
InstagramThis is the platform we care about the least and where we haven't found our audience. Instagram doesn't use SEO so once you post content, it gets thrown into a general algorithm, and you pretty much find out how many views your post will ever get within the first 24 hours. We also found that silly content performed best on Instagram, and while it's fun getting 230K views on a post, it's also virtually meaningless for our business when it's not related to software 😄
We found Buffer was the best platform for posting on Instagram. And when we had a ton of content, Buffer is what we used for this. Now that we are posting less frequently as our podcast mini-series has ended, we are finding that we are just saving posts as drafts (like with TikTok), and manually posting.
X + LinkedIn
X + LinkedInWe group these two together because they are more professional networking social platforms (well, we suppose on which end of X you are 😄). Alex is most active on X and he loves Typefully and uses it for all his posting.
You can read our full Typefully Review, but the TL;DR is that Typefully offers a better experience that posting natively on X (less likely to lose what you wrote due to X outage, and also great for storing post ideas and drafts).
Alex also hardly ever posts on LinkedIn (honestly, we don't love the platform, since posts you "liked" are shown to your network, we find people are very hesitant to engage with content as the know their boss and co-workers will see), but because Typefully allows you to easily cross post on both X and LinkedIn at the same time, it's no extra time to toggle on LinkedIn also — so you can end up naturally expanding your reach.