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5 min read

The best free social media content planning tools

Written by
Anisa Himly
Published on
February 1, 2024

Content planning tools are a great way to plan, manage, and execute your content. They help you create a content roadmap and a content calendar, allow you to track your content, and help you plan your content strategy.

Social media is a powerful tool for businesses, but creating & planning content for each network can be time-consuming and daunting at times. Fortunately, several planning tools make it easy.

Content creation is a great way to build your brand and increase awareness of your business. With the right tools and strategy, you can effortlessly generate high-quality content for your social media platforms. 

Canva

Canva is a web-based graphic design tool that allows users to create professional-looking designs without any design skills. Users can choose from several templates, including:

  • business cards
  • social media graphics
  • logos
  • brochures
  • flyers
  • e-books, and more.

What makes Canva unique is its drag-and-drop functionality. Users can drag and drop images, text, and shapes into a canvas. It is the best way to create social media graphics for any platform with unlimited features available in the free version.

At Bashi Media, we use Canva every day to create all our graphics for both web and social media. As a content creation company, it’s probably the tool we rely on most with regards to this, so trust me when I say, you’re going to want to use Canva for your content creation.

With the use of the Content Planner in Canva, you can create a schedule for the content that you will be sharing on your social media platforms. You can choose to use a calendar on a monthly or even on a weekly basis. 

This content planning tool is easy-to-use and allows you to create a timeline for your content.

Once you have completed your content plan, you can then upload your content to the Content Planner and it will immediately create the schedule for you. This will help your content get scheduled according to your plan.

Currently, you can schedule posts to the below social media platforms:

  • Facebook Groups and Pages
  • Instagram Business Account
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn profile and page
  • Pinterest
  • Slack
  • Tumblr

Though this feature can only be accessed through Canva Pro, Enterprise, and for Nonprofits users. You can also try to use it for free for 30 days.

Canva homepage screen

Airtable

Think of google sheets on steroids. Arrange, organize and plan all your content ahead of time and view it any way you like.

Airtable is a spreadsheet-like database program designed to help people organize data. It is a web-based application that can be used to create, edit, and query data that can be organized in multiple ways.

It is designed to help people collaborate on projects that they are working on. You can plan, track and manage projects in a way that is easy for people to work on most efficiently.

Organizing your data is not an easy task. Mainly, when you’re managing large amounts of data. There are many data management tools available online but not all of them are easy to use. 

Here is a list of the top 6 features that make Airtable one of the best content planning tools for you. 

1. Cloud-based 

2. Sync your data from mobile to desktop 

3. Seamless integration with other apps 

4. Offline access 

5. Multi-user access 

6. Real-time collaboration

All of the content we create for ourselves and our clients is arranged and organized in Airtable before it’s posted anywhere. If you’re someone who is fed up with organizing everything in google sheets, we were too… before we discovered Airtable.

Keep track of all your post ideas and favorite social media images in one place using their social media planner.

For quick and simple access, keep all of your social media graphics, stock pictures, and other visual content in the Assets table.

Use the form to gather new social media post ideas from colleagues around the company and monitor them in the Posts database. Review new ideas regularly and update the status field to move the best ones along the pipeline.

Airtable content planning tool homepage

ClickUp

An online platform that allows users to collaborate on projects, track their progress and view all of their work on a single dashboard. 

With the use of content planning tools like ClickUp, users can create a project, choose the content they want to make, and collaborate with others to complete the project. Its content creation tool is a great way to create content for your website, blog, or social media channels.

If you are looking for a collaboration platform that can help you build your brand, ClickUp is an excellent option. This is great for managers, who are often responsible for a lot of projects and who are often overloaded with information.

At Bashi Media, we’ve tried most project management apps, and ClickUp was the only one that could do every single thing we needed it to do. Every deadline and every project we have to do is listed on our ClickUp, and automation capabilities make it so that we don’t even have to add most of them ourselves.

There are several reasons why you would need a tool like ClickUp. 

  • It is a centralized place to keep track of all of the information.
  • Easier than hunting down information in different applications and having to sync changes across multiple applications.
  • Avoid missing your deadlines for when your content renews. Make an automatic recurring task monthly, so you know when you have to work on it.
  • Generate reports
  • Easily share information among the team 
  • Manage your editorial calendar
Clickup homepage

Later

Later is a tool that allows small businesses, social media managers, and creators to combine the power of marketing strategy, social media scheduling, and a personalized link in bio into one platform.

It allows you to schedule all of your social media profiles, and you get a complete social set for free. That means you’re able to schedule the below profiles entirely for free:

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter  
  • Pinterest 
  • Tiktok

Among the best content planning tools that assist you in growing your business. 

With Later you can:

  • From one single content calendar, plan and create all of your social media postings.
  • Plan a month's worth of social media updates in minutes.
  • Later makes it easy to identify on-brand material, personalize it, and share it on your social profiles in just a few clicks.
  • Schedule when you want your posts to go live across platforms and timezones.
  • Publish to your social networks without having to log in to the app!
  • Drive traffic and increase sales using Linkin. Bio

There are (very) many scheduling tools out there, but we believe later arranges everything the neatest and is the most user-friendly and affordable for businesses.

Later content planning tool homepage

Facebook Business Suite

If you just want to post on Facebook and Instagram, the Facebook Business Suite allows you to do that completely for free and you get more freedom too. You can schedule carousels and stories ahead of time!

For our business and clients, we at Bashi Media stick to the business suite for all scheduling on Facebook and Instagram. That is mainly due to the fact that you can now schedule stories and carousels directly to the platforms, which you can’t yet do with other scheduling tools.

Facebook Business Suite is a Facebook app that allows you to: 

  • Create pages for your business 
  • Create and manage ads (including Instagram ads) 
  • Schedule posts 
  • Edit and manage your page 
  • Schedule and edit events 
  • Schedule image and video posts 
  • See an overview of your Facebook Page and Instagram account
  • View notifications for your Facebook Page and Instagram account
  • View Insights

Facebook Business Suite is available on both desktop and mobile platforms, allowing you to maintain your business presence from anywhere.

Facebook Business Suite allows you to manage all of your linked Facebook and Instagram profiles in one location. It provides several free tools that make managing your online presence easier. Business Suite can assist you in reaching out to more people and staying current.

Fb business suite homepage

Don't let the process of planning and scheduling your content make you feel overwhelmed. Use the above content planning tools to make your life much easier.

If you are looking for a team to handle all of your social media accounts effectively then Bashi Media is the one for you.

Why? Get on a discovery call right now to find out.

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