Marketers Toolbox - Sprout Social VS Buffer
Who?
Buffer and Sprout Social are social media marketing and management platform tools.
Pricing?
Both tools offer free trials for testing - 14 day free trial for Buffer and 30 day for Sprout Social.
Sprout Social offers three different plans at different prices.
The Premium at $99/user a month provides essential tools for marketing professionals like complete social media management to monitor profiles, keywords, and locations, a CRM toolset, scheduling and publishing of posts, content calendar, group reporting, and 10 profiles amongst other features.
The Corporate plan at $149/user a month includes the premium features in addition to engagement and productivity reports, audience targeting, campaign and competition reporting, and 15 social profiles.
The Enterprise plan at $249/user a month includes all of the previous features in addition to 20 social profiles, customer care and keyword reports, chatbots, an asset library, custom URL tracking, and scheduled report delivery.
Buffer’s pricing offers individual plans that are free for starters and $15/month for professionals and three separate plans for businesses.
All of the business plans include the same features including up to 2000 scheduled posts a year. Other features included are browser extensions, content creation and scheduling tools, RSS feed connectivity, link tracking, and advanced social analytics. The only difference between the plans are the number of social accounts.
The Small Business plan handles 25 social accounts for $99/month for the whole team. Medium’s plan includes 50 social accounts for $199/month. The Largest plan is $399/month for 150 social accounts.
User Friendly?
Buffer is well received. The platform has a drag-and-drop interface that is easy to use and understand. According to Financesonline, a program that reviews tools and collects data of customer satisfaction, 97% of users are satisfied with only 6 negative reviews. The tool’s surface level analysis caters more towards smaller businesses as opposed to enterprises. Some users also find it frustrating that the limited number of user accounts a company must purchase are five.
Sprout Social comes commonly recommended and has overall positive reviews about it’s supportive staff and user friendly platform. PCMAG states that Sprout Social is “one of the best tools of its kind on the market.”
Features?
Sprout Social’s features include:Social Networking
Social Media Management
Reputation Management Features
Analytics
Automated Publishing
Contact Management
Content Management
Conversion Tracking
Customer Targeting
Keyword Filtering
Multi-Account Management
Posts Scheduling
Buffer’s features include:
RSS Feed Integration/Connectivity
Advanced Analytics
Profile Management
Multi-media Sharing
Customized Content Scheduling
Comparison Statistics
iOS and Android Support
Collaboration Across Teams
Social Media Management
Both tools are equally beneficial to tracking, managing, and planning social media content. Sprout Social, though more expensive, will give users a more in-depth, detailed, and advanced report. For larger companies, this tool may be more helpful. Buffer offers impressive management and analytics tools to help companies grow but is a tool that is growing and mostly benefits smaller companies as of now.
Every company and every tool is different. Each tool presents a variety of capabilities, strengths and weaknesses, but ultimately gets the job done. Since no tool is perfect, remember to think about the goals of the company, which features are imperative to the company’s success, and why the tool is needed in the first place. After an evaluation of personal goals, feel free to use the trials of each tool and assess which tool best fits with the staff and company. Here are several other social media management tools to consider when making the selection.
To learn more about other social media tools, check out the #MarketersToolbox.