A Buffer Alternative for Automated Social Media Marketing
You can discover many social media tools that let you free of hassles of social media management. You would have heard about or probably experimented with Buffer, Hootsuite and a lot more alternatives in order to find out the best one. Buffer is one of these stupendous tools that promises to give an efficient social media management.
It buffers the posts for a chosen schedule, updates various social media profiles with thorough insights of shares, likes, retweets and clicks. With an easy to use social media dashboard, it is efficient in many respects. But I found a few features where Buffer could work well but it does not so. Check out the areas where Buffer lacks in, and we need to look for an alternative and competitor then.
Why Buffer Sucks
- Too Restrictive:
Like other social media tools, Buffer has different purchase plans:
- Free (basic) plan
- Awesome level of service ($10/month)
- Business Plan (Small: $50/month, Medium: $100/month and Large: $250/month)
But what is really bad about the free version is its restricted mode. It has very limited features including, management of one profile on every social media channel (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn).
- Limited Number of Posts:
All paid and free accounts limit the number of posts. You can buffer only 10 tweets with a free account. This is obviously a limitation that makes free plan useless. Very few social media management tools are offered in the paid plans.
- Pinterest on Paid Account:
Unluckily, Buffer does not let you connect with your Pinterest profile directly with free plan. For this purpose, you need to purchase a paid plan.
- No Way to Post to Blogs:
It has limited functionality in a way that does not provide the tools to distribute your social content from your websites or blogs to your social media accounts, and vice versa. It only supports 5 social media networks.
- No Monitoring for Hashtags:
It has a serious downside when it comes to monitor hashtags. The tool does not monitor searches, hashtags and mentions that is obviously required to be done for better insights. And you would need another tool for this monitoring.
- No Tool for Content Generation
When we go for the automated social media marketing option, content generation and curation are the facilities that we need at first. But unluckily, Buffer does not cater this crucial requirement of social media marketing. It does not let you search for trending topics, news and other related stuff, nor curate any such content on our behalf.
- Unable to Find Top Social Media Pages
The software is incapable of finding top social media pages or accounts related to your niche. This is definitely a big downside as discovering the top influencers or social media pages help a business to track about their competitors and devise their social media strategy accordingly.
- Facebook Video Marketing
Facebook video marketing is becoming an essential part of automated social media marketing. But Buffer lacks this significant aspect well. By posting videos to Facebook, one can get a potential user engagement. But Buffer does not serve on thsi ground and there is not any option for Facebook Video Posting or marketing.
- Limited Analytics Report:
Since, analytics are very crucial to monitor the progress of your pages. Although, Buffer provides easy to use and understand analytics report with clear analysis of shares, likes, clicks and retweets. But still it does not offer that much with Analytics that other tools offer. As it does not tell anything about the tweets not sent through Buffer.
Use Fan Page Robot As The Better Alternative of Buffer
While using Fan Page Robot for the last few months, I found it really interesting and useful with a lot of overwhelming features. Besides automated social media marketing, it manages social media channels with an utmost efficiency. I really feel easy and relaxed while managing multiple profiles through Fan Page Robot. Let’s discover some of its notable features:
- Competitive Price Plans:
What is really good about the software is its competitively priced plans. It offers two plans:
- Pro Plan ($9/month that manages up to 4 Facebook pages and 28 pages on other social media channels)
- Unlimited Plan ($29/month with the management of unlimited accounts on 8 social media and blog platforms with priority customer support)
- All-In-One Social Network Integration:
Fan Page Robot is a comfortable style of automated social media marketing. Whether you go for Pro or Unlimited plan, it integrates all major social media and blogging platforms in every price plan. You can automate posts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, WordPress, Tumblr and Blogger.
- No Hidden Charges:
The software does not incorporate any kind of hidden charges. Once you get subscribed to a plan, you will get all features in every version. No hidden charges, no additional cost as many of the other management tools ask for.
- No Facebook Penalties on Promotion:
One of the interesting features with Fan Page Robot that you can avail, is a very efficient promotion while avoiding Facebook penalties. The campaign builder of the software allows you to market your business without getting overly promotional.
Generate interesting viral content with the Content Generator tool and share it with users as you do normally. When the user clicks on the link, he/she will be directed to the link but with the view of your lead generating form first
Fan Page Robot deploys smart content curation and management options with its social media dashboard. The Content Generator tool in the software lets you discover exciting and trending news, articles, videos, memes and a lot more as per your niche. You can share the content virally on various social media pages with a single click.
- More Likes and Shares with Best Hashtags:
It does not let your post buried in a plethora of other posts. Instead, with its skilled monitoring and searching criteria, it comes up with the suggestions for hashtags. It gives you details about which hashtag may get your post discovered on a wide scale, and can lead to more shares, likes, followers, and retweets.
- Free Advertising with Increased Lead Generation:
The software (as compared to other social media tools) has brought a revolutionary approach to marketing by turning any web page into a lead page. So, you are capable of doing advertisement for your business on websites like Yahoo, YouTube etc. without any cost. The powerful Rock.ly Campaign Builder lets you enjoy increased leads with the smart lead generation program.
The campaign builder is embedded with 100 appealing templates for lead generating forms. Utilizing an easy drag and drop technology, you can design enticing forms to generate successful leads. Once a user clicks on the shared link, he/she will view your lead generating form first before going to the actual link. This is one of the most lucrative benefits you can get from automated social media marketing of Fan Page Robot.
- Research About Your Competitors:
When you enter the target keywords in Content Generator tool, the “Influencers” button will display you the top influencers from Twitter in your niche, as well as the top Facebook fan pages related to your industry. This is really helpful when you have to research about your competitors, local businesses, sources of viral content etc.
- Automatically Shortens Long Tweets:
With Fan Page Robot, you will be at ease, especially while composing the Tweets. Its proficient detection criteria detects if your Tweet is too long, and it automatically shortens the length without removing any links or images.
- More User Engagement with Facebook Video Marketing:
Video marketing is one of the best tactics to increase user engagement on social profiles. The software can fetch high quality HD videos from different social media channels and websites and can autopost on Facebook pages. This in turn, produces more followers and increases your visibility as well.
Conclusion
People are tired of manual management of social media accounts and want to focus other areas that demand stringent dedication. Thanks to the automated social media marketing tools that are specifically designed to automate the marketing efforts. The social media management tools facilitate you effectively by making your posts automatically posted on a pre-defined time and managing your business profiles on Facebook , Twitter etc.
Although, Buffer is a strong platform with many of the smart features for automated social media marketing. But I believe Fan Page Robot is a better tool for small to medium business to generate more revenue from social media in less time.
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