Social Media Planning Tool suggestion / favourite?

[sjr4x4]

For years I've been using a social media planning tool called ContentCal. I've watched it evolve and get better and better and saves so much time and does what says on the tin.

Then bloody Adobe bought them out, butchered it and dumbed it down into Adobe Express Schedule Unfortunately the time has come, the original ContentCal is getting shut down in the near future, so I'm looking for a replacement scheduler.

Nothing fancy, can post to the usual channels, have a content storage area, for evergreen/reusable stuff, and is reliable. Can be a paid service, as long as does the job.

• Any recommendations?

Out of curiosity, if there are any other ContentCal users, are you moving over to Adobe or like me finding the new offering a bit basic?

 

[YasmeenLondon]

For years I've been using a social media planning tool called ContentCal. I've watched it evolve and get better and better and saves so much time and does what says on the tin.

Then bloody Adobe bought them out, butchered it and dumbed it down into Adobe Express Schedule Unfortunately the time has come, the original ContentCal is getting shut down in the near future, so I'm looking for a replacement scheduler.

Nothing fancy, can post to the usual channels, have a content storage area, for evergreen/reusable stuff, and is reliable. Can be a paid service, as long as does the job.

• Any recommendations?

Out of curiosity, if there are any other ContentCal users, are you moving over to Adobe or like me finding the new offering a bit basic?

Adobe buying companies and ruining them is a tradition, unfortunately.

Check out later for your social media scheduling, I'm not sure if it's the best because I'm yet to try other tools, but it's pretty easy to learn and use and they're constantly adding features,

 

[sjr4x4]

Thanks Yasmeen. Just been checking out "Later" and it looks like it could do the job. Very similar to contentcal and seems pretty intuitive. Am trying the 14 day biz growth trial, shall see how it goes.

 

[sjr4x4]

Bit of feedback in case anyone is interested or is having their own social media planning headache.

Tried Yasmeens suggestion of later, but it didn't have enough features for me. Tried Agorapulse, didn't like it. Social Pilot was very promising and nearly did the job, but the calendar felt very clunky and cumbersome.

Buffer was nice but seemed pricey by the time you start adding in the required channels you need. Would recommend it if you are just scheduling for your own business.

The one I thought I would settle on and subscribed for was planable. Not as slick as ContentCal, but did the job for what I needed it for, and at a reasonable price. This turned out to be buggy at least in the way I was using it, but will give them a 10/10 for customer support. But it became too big a distraction, so they refunded me with zero arguments.

This left me right back at square one, but having now wasted a week. So contacted the development team at Adobe asking why they had downgraded and broken a previously fabulous product. To be fair, I got a phone call and assurances the product will be better in the near future and gave me a workaround. So have now ended up using Adobe Express, and their scheduler, which is a cut down version of ContentCal, and have to use two separate accounts to be able to configure it for two separate calendars.

It's been an interesting but frustrating journey since the last time I needed to search for a social media planning calendar and feels like the world has gone a little bit backwards.

If anyone wants to look at the adobe scheduler, you can find it here: https://schedule.adobe.com/ If you have a creative cloud license, then you already have access. If you don't, you can have an adobe express account for a tenner a month. It's alright if you only need a single calendar, otherwise wait for a few months until adobe pulls a finger out and puts all the good stuff back in.

I still suspect there must be more than a few disgruntled contentcal customers that have been shafted, so curious where they ended up.

 

[fantheflames]

Bit of feedback in case anyone is interested or is having their own social media planning headache.

Tried Yasmeens suggestion of later, but it didn't have enough features for me. Tried Agorapulse, didn't like it. Social Pilot was very promising and nearly did the job, but the calendar felt very clunky and cumbersome.

Buffer was nice but seemed pricey by the time you start adding in the required channels you need. Would recommend it if you are just scheduling for your own business.

The one I thought I would settle on and subscribed for was planable. Not as slick as ContentCal, but did the job for what I needed it for, and at a reasonable price. This turned out to be buggy at least in the way I was using it, but will give them a 10/10 for customer support. But it became too big a distraction, so they refunded me with zero arguments.

This left me right back at square one, but having now wasted a week. So contacted the development team at Adobe asking why they had downgraded and broken a previously fabulous product. To be fair, I got a phone call and assurances the product will be better in the near future and gave me a workaround. So have now ended up using Adobe Express, and their scheduler, which is a cut down version of ContentCal, and have to use two separate accounts to be able to configure it for two separate calendars.

It's been an interesting but frustrating journey since the last time I needed to search for a social media planning calendar and feels like the world has gone a little bit backwards.

If anyone wants to look at the adobe scheduler, you can find it here: https://schedule.adobe.com/ If you have a creative cloud license, then you already have access. If you don't, you can have an adobe express account for a tenner a month. It's alright if you only need a single calendar, otherwise wait for a few months until adobe pulls a finger out and puts all the good stuff back in.

I still suspect there must be more than a few disgruntled contentcal customers that have been shafted, so curious where they ended up.

I've used Social Pilot in the past. In terms of price, it's excellent and in terms of the platform it covers, it's also excellent - but there's two issues with the platform (and one you mentioned).

1. The calendar is poor
2. The amount of times that reconnecting accounts occurs and issues with reconnecting

This meant having to contact customer service at least three times a month.

I mainly using Buffer, Hootsuite, and the integrated scheduling tool on platforms now.

There's tons of others I have used in the past, so I may be able to help you find your next social media scheduling platform.

What platforms do you want to schedule? Instagram and FB? Or something else?

 

[sjr4x4]

...I mainly using Buffer, Hootsuite, and the integrated scheduling tool on platforms now.

What platforms do you want to schedule? Instagram and FB? Or something else?

Thanks Fan the flames, it was a shame with socialpilot, it did seem to have promise, so did planable.

Unfortunately, using multiple platform tools is exactly what I want to avoid, but I do need multiple calendars with associated accounts, usual faceache, twit, insta and linkedin.

The adobe workaround is actually doing the job, albeit a backward step from where I was, but at least the scheduler is familiar and reliable. Unfortunately (for me, not them), Adobes focus is on using the inherited cut down contentcal as a hook to sign people up for adobe express.

But I've been assured by those that know that the grown-up version will be released soon, with all the missing bits that should never have been taken out

So all is good for now.

 

[fantheflames]

Thanks Fan the flames, it was a shame with socialpilot, it did seem to have promise, so did planable.

Unfortunately, using multiple platform tools is exactly what I want to avoid, but I do need multiple calendars with associated accounts, usual faceache, twit, insta and linkedin.

The adobe workaround is actually doing the job, albeit a backward step from where I was, but at least the scheduler is familiar and reliable. Unfortunately (for me, not them), Adobes focus is on using the inherited cut down contentcal as a hook to sign people up for adobe express.

But I've been assured by those that know that the grown-up version will be released soon, with all the missing bits that should never have been taken out

So all is good for now.

The difficult part is the calendar requirements you need. I would say if you have tried Canva, but seems like you need to schedule multiple accounts?

It's frustrating to learn a platform and then have to move. Perhaps it's a good time to take an extensive look to find the platform that works best for you? Sounds like Adobe needs a lot more work.

 

[M_Humphreys]

Thanks Fan the flames, it was a shame with socialpilot, it did seem to have promise, so did planable.

Unfortunately, using multiple platform tools is exactly what I want to avoid, but I do need multiple calendars with associated accounts, usual faceache, twit, insta and linkedin.

The adobe workaround is actually doing the job, albeit a backward step from where I was, but at least the scheduler is familiar and reliable. Unfortunately (for me, not them), Adobes focus is on using the inherited cut down contentcal as a hook to sign people up for adobe exprThatess.

But I've been assured by those that know that the grown-up version will be released soon, with all the missing bits that should never have been taken out

So all is good for now.

Hello!

I'm in the same sittuation.

We're a small company but with 3 distinct brands. The contentcal library worked great, as you could create content, then decide which profile/platform to post it on.

That functionality seems to be missing in most of the others.

Interesting the a grown-up version will be released soon - as this is different to what I was told a few weeks ago.... but I'd love to be proven wrong.

At the moment I don't have an affordable working solution and contentcal dies in 3 weeks....

 

[sjr4x4]

Interesting the a grown-up version will be released soon - as this is different to what I was told a few weeks ago.... but I'd love to be proven wrong.

At the moment I don't have an affordable working solution and contentcal dies in 3 weeks....

Hi Humphreys. I used ContentCal from its early days and regularly fed back frustrations, suggestions or bugs, so I built a rapport with the team. Because I was grumpy about being left in the lurch after the Adobe takeover, one of the directors who has now moved over to Adobe phoned me and we had an honest chat. I can only take him at face value, but he has been as good as his word over the years, and he conceded the adobe product was missing a lot of functionality we were used to. But the proper version was coming down the line and is being worked on as we speak.

The reality is though, the decisions now will be out of the original contentcal team and this will be commercially driven by adobe who see this as a hook into their premium adobe express product. The current functionality will suit 80% of small business owners, which doesn't help us. So I'm optimistic the grown-up version will finally reappear, but when is anyone's guess.

In the meantime, if you use adobe products and have a cloud license, then you already have access to adobe express. If you don't, then take out an adobe express account for a tenner a month. If you want to separate with 3 different brands, take out 3 express licenses, so will cost you £30 a month, which isn't a huge expense in the scheme of things. The biggest pain for me is having to use different browsers for different accounts to save logging in and logging out every 5 mins.

But nice to meet another contentcal fan, and someone else who seems to have the same problem! If there were a lot more of us, then adobe would pull their finger out quicker, but unfortunately, I suspect we are in the minority

 

[M_Humphreys]

Hi Humphreys. I used ContentCal from its early days and regularly fed back frustrations, suggestions or bugs, so I built a rapport with the team. Because I was grumpy about being left in the lurch after the Adobe takeover, one of the directors who has now moved over to Adobe phoned me and we had an honest chat. I can only take him at face value, but he has been as good as his word over the years, and he conceded the adobe product was missing a lot of functionality we were used to. But the proper version was coming down the line and is being worked on as we speak.

The reality is though, the decisions now will be out of the original contentcal team and this will be commercially driven by adobe who see this as a hook into their premium adobe express product. The current functionality will suit 80% of small business owners, which doesn't help us. So I'm optimistic the grown-up version will finally reappear, but when is anyone's guess.

In the meantime, if you use adobe products and have a cloud license, then you already have access to adobe express. If you don't, then take out an adobe express account for a tenner a month. If you want to separate with 3 different brands, take out 3 express licenses, so will cost you £30 a month, which isn't a huge expense in the scheme of things. The biggest pain for me is having to use different browsers for different accounts to save logging in and logging out every 5 mins.

But nice to meet another contentcal fan, and someone else who seems to have the same problem! If there were a lot more of us, then adobe would pull their finger out quicker, but unfortunately, I suspect we are in the minority

Sounds like you used to chat to Andy! Definitely a good guy!

Can we export any of the content from CC to AE at all?

Thought I'd sorted it with SocialBee - but you have to assign new content to a social media platform at the the point it is created. I love being able to create the content and then assign it to a platorm.

 

[sjr4x4]

Sounds like you used to chat to Andy! Definitely a good guy!

Yep spot on!

You can export all the raw data from CC, but can't import into AE which is as good as a chocolate teapot.

Big things I miss are the content hub and hashtags shortcuts. My workaround is a pinned text file in my taskbar with a list of common hashtags, and my mark1 content hub is a spreadsheet, color coded with embedded images of regular content (we have a lot of similar and reusable content), and the required text. Just C&P this into AE, the URL auto brings up the right image from the OG image on the web page.

All a bit heath robinson and low tech, but after a few weeks I've got into the swing of it. Bespoke posts are created normally, and their the CC interface is pretty much the same, ie you can assign to a platform. Also the calendar is still the same, as I like the way it's presented.