I’m trying out SocialOomph as a replacement for Hootsuite. I did like Hootsuite when I first tried it. Their recent move to eliminating the autoschedule feature despite assurances they were not has driven me from their service. Apparently, they have a history of ignoring user concerns and feedback – even to the point of once mocking them publicly.
Economically, that’s a recipe for disaster.
A history of ignoring user feedback is a recipe for disaster. Share on XHootsuite and CoSchedule have joined that elite group of “overpriced services”. I read reviews of both from people who used their services for years, and both have lost clients because they continue to charge too much.
It would be wonderful if I could design a service that requires only minor attention, and then charge people $1000 a month. It would be fantastic. Reality says that if I price it much lower, I’ll sell more. A profit ratio study by a third party should be done before determining your price. And if you start seeing reviews of “I loved CoSchedule, but they kept raising prices…” that’s a clue.
If I do end up paying the premium price, Buffer is the way to go. Right now, I’m not willing to spend money on a media curating service, so I’m looking at free alternatives.
I kept forgetting SocialOomph, and ran across the name. I signed up for it and found it’s functional, but the interface is very blah. However, I can schedule unlimited tweets for one account.
For free.
Game changer.
Now – if I had time to do it – I could schedule all my tweets for the week in advance. Let’s just say I’m going away for a week or two. I could prewrite and preload the content in advance. No worries.
The best solution is to pay $5 a month for Buffer. It’s really the best option. Unfortunately, I’m paying for Dropbox, a website, and Evernote. Add to that other expenses such as antivirus etc. And you reach a point where you’re at the ceiling of what you’re willing to pay for expenses.
A thousand reasonably priced subscriptions evenually is $5000 a month!
So, I’m trying SocialOomph. The interface is very blah, but it works. To set the time and date is almost as fast as the old Hootsuite, but faster than the current method of setting time and date.
For SocialOomph, you just click the window for date and time, click the date, and the AM or PM hour. It then presents you with one click options for the minute.
Much faster than Hootsuite’s new manual scheduling method, but not anywhere as fast as Buffer’s. If you’re scheduling 50 tweets a week and 5 LinkedIn posts a week, speed does become a factor. I don’t want to spend two hours scheduling!
That’s where I’m at right now.
Conclusion
If you’re a writer, consider giving SocialOomph a try. The interface may be more satisfying for you than for me, but there’s no arguing with how they allow you unlimited tweets!
