As a social media manager and SEO specialist, I spend a lot of time creating, scheduling, and monitoring accounts for multiple clients. My company and I have gone through several prominent and obscure hubs for posting on social media, including SEMrush, HootSuite, loomly, and a few others that are not as well known. SocialPilot has been the one we've stuck with the longest because of its ease of use, number of features, and wide range of platforms that it integrates with.
Primarily, we have struggled to find a good platform that accommodates Google Business Profile posting; while this is more common nowadays, I know that there are still plenty of platforms that don't have GBP posting.
In addition, I am someone who relies heavily on the monthly (not weekly) calendar view when outlining the month's schedule. The excellent UI means that I can check, at a glance, what is still outstanding for the month.
The price point of many platforms has also been a difficulty. We usually have between 10 and 20 accounts throughout the year, depending on what projects we are working on. As a small business that doesn't charge an arm and a leg for social management, most platforms are not cost-effective for our team to use at the scale we do. SocialPilot has excellent price points for us, and we can easily add to or remove from our "maximum account" limit when we onboard or offboard clients. This makes a huge difference - if we go over our limit, we don't have to increase our tier (gaining a huge cost for a higher limit but also features that we won't use). When we recently lost a few big social media clients with several accounts due to the economic dip, we considered looking for a smaller platform in order to save money. However, SocialPilot's pricing was the absolute best that we found for small businesses, and we have continued with them even though our current clients are primarily using our other services.
Their customer support has also been stellar. I haven't needed to contact them often, but they always have swift replies. They are also on top of contacting their customers when there are API outages. I have also been contacted by their team to discuss ideas for their platform after submitting suggestions on their website; this is a first! Most companies just say "thank you" and then never follow up. I've spoken with a client manager and software engineer about my user experience, and they were very polite and receptive - though I have no idea if my suggestions were new or innovative, they still made me feel like the company was paying attention to their customers. :)
Another item that makes me suggest SocialPilot to other businesses is that they have a wide variety of white-label reporting options for analytics. They also let users add team members and client accounts for collaboration and approval. While we don't use this feature, I think it's an excellent option for customers to have. When we've implemented this before, it has been straightforward and fast.
Finally, if you're someone who likes a lot of bells and whistles or someone who likes to keep their software simple, SocialPilot lets you adapt the UI and tools to your needs. I've never felt overwhelmed or pressured to utilize tools that I simply don't need - and they've never gotten in the way of my work. The platform integrates with Canva, has a content library for an additional cost, lets you manage messaging, and allows users to set up regular scheduling per account (which is very easy to utilize when posting). Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
There is very little to say about the downsides of SocialPilot, and most of them are limitations reflected in other platforms.
It would be easier if, when scheduling a post, I could see the recommended posting times for the account like I can when posting directly from the content manager in Meta Suite. If I want to do this, I need to either analyze the data myself or go to the Meta Suite manager to see what Facebook says.
The scheduler is also set for specific times over a week. I don't post at the same time every week on Facebook or Instagram, so I use this feature for GBP only. It would be a better system for me to use if I could set up a queue based on a schedule that I arrange on a month-to-month basis. Unfortunately, I don't think this is something that will be implemented on any posting platform.
Sometimes I receive errors when posting to different accounts, and it is not always clear when the issue is based on the error code. This takes a lot of time to troubleshoot if it's an obscure issue.
Finally, a note for some users - Facebook posting doesn't permit you to add a messaging or call button to your post. This limits my ability to use SocialPilot for some clients due to the nature of their requests. This is something that I would like to see eventually. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Hi Rebecca,
Wow, thank you for such a detailed and comprehensive review! It's fantastic to hear that SocialPilot's ease of use, features, and wide range of platform integrations have been valuable for your company. We're especially pleased that our pricing flexibility and scalability align well with your business model, allowing you to adapt to the changing needs of your clients.
Your suggestions around scheduling and recommended posting times are insightful, and I want to assure you that we're actively exploring ways to enhance these features though you can set your own schedule with SocialPilot. Your feedback regarding errors in posting is noted, and I'd be happy to investigate any specific issues you've encountered. Please drop me an email at ranajit@socialpilot.co, and we can delve deeper into resolving any concerns.
I'd love to connect with you personally and give you a tour of any recent updates and features that might address your concerns. Feel free to drop me an email, and we can schedule a time that suits you.
Thank you once again for your detailed insights and for being a part of the SocialPilot community. We're here to support you every step of the way!
Ranajit,
Customer Success Manager
