Which Social Media Management Solution is Better: Sprout Social vs Planable

Sprout Social vs Planable Overview

In today's digital age, effective social media management is paramount for businesses and individuals alike. With numerous platforms available to connect with audiences, selecting the right social media management solution can significantly impact an organization's success.

Among the myriad of options, two platforms stand out: Sprout Social and Planable. Both offer robust tools to streamline social media workflows, but which one reigns supreme? In this article, we'll delve into the strengths, weaknesses, and key features of Sprout Social and Planable to determine which social media management solution emerges as the better choice for your needs.

What is Sprout Social?

Sprout Social emerges as a comprehensive solution for managing social media endeavors. Offering an extensive array of tools and functionalities, it facilitates the efficient handling of various social media channels, not limited to marketing strategies but extending to diverse facets within a company.

Tailored to cater to the requirements of myriad online businesses, Sprout Social empowers enterprises to optimize their social media endeavors through insightful analytics, planning support, and listening tools. While it may not be the most budget-friendly option available, Sprout Social distinguishes itself by delivering a superior user experience. Its feature set surpasses those of competing software solutions, encompassing influencer identification and integrated CRM functionality.

Moreover, its intuitive user interface simplifies the landscape of social media marketing, rendering it accessible even to individuals with limited experience in the field.

Interesting fact:  Sprout Social was founded by three college friends who noticed a gap in the market for comprehensive social media management tools. Their vision led them to create Sprout Social in 2010, which has since grown into a leading platform trusted by thousands of businesses worldwide. This entrepreneurial journey highlights the power of recognizing opportunities and seizing them to create impactful solutions in the digital landscape.

What is Planable?

Planable stands out as a cloud-based platform designed for seamless collaboration and coordination of social media posts. Ideal for those overseeing multiple accounts simultaneously, its interface is structured around projects and participants, ensuring a clear delineation of responsibilities.

Catering to SMM specialists, agencies, and their clients, Planable streamlines content planning and approval processes. It facilitates post-publishing message viewing across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram while enhancing teamwork and result discussions.

With Planable, social media planning becomes effortless, rapid, and enjoyable. Mimicking the live environment of social networks, it offers a familiar interface for both clients and managers. Users can add posts, preview their channel's appearance, invite collaborators for real-time collaboration, solicit swift feedback, and expedite post approvals. Simplifying and expediting the approval workflow, Planable ensures efficiency throughout the content management process.

Interesting fact:  Planable has experienced significant growth since its launch, with thousands of users worldwide relying on the platform to streamline their social media management processes. The platform's user base includes a wide range of businesses, marketing agencies, and professionals seeking efficient collaboration and content-planning solutions for their social media channels.

Sprout Social vs Planable: Features

Ease of Use

Both Sprout Social and Planable are social media management tools designed to streamline the process of planning, scheduling, and analyzing social media content. When it comes to ease of use, both platforms offer user-friendly interfaces and intuitive features, but there are some differences to consider:

 Sprout Social:

• Sprout Social is known for its user-friendly interface and comprehensive feature set.
•   It offers a clean and organized dashboard that makes it easy to navigate.
•   The platform provides robust scheduling and publishing tools, as well as social listening, analytics, and engagement features.
•  Sprout Social offers a unified inbox for managing messages and interactions across multiple social media channels.
• The platform also provides collaboration tools, allowing team members to work together on social media content and campaigns.

Planable:

• Planable is also designed with ease of use in mind, particularly for teams collaborating on social media content.
•  It offers a visually appealing calendar-based interface for scheduling and organizing posts.
• Planable focuses on simplifying the review and approval process for social media content, making it easy for team members and clients to provide feedback and make edits.
• The platform supports various social media channels and allows users to preview how posts will appear once published.
•  Planable's emphasis on collaboration and content approval workflows can make it particularly user-friendly for teams working on social media campaigns.

In summary, both Sprout Social and Planable are user-friendly platforms with intuitive interfaces. Your choice between the two may depend on specific features you prioritize, such as advanced analytics and engagement tools (which Sprout Social excels at) or streamlined collaboration and approval workflows (which are strengths of Planable). It's recommended to explore demos or trial versions of both platforms to determine which one best suits your needs in terms of ease of use and overall functionality.

Social media interaction and publication

When comparing Sprout Social and Planable in terms of social media interaction and publication, both platforms offer robust features, but they may cater to different needs:

Sprout Social:

•  Sprout Social provides comprehensive social media interaction and publication tools. It allows users to schedule and publish posts across various social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
•  The platform offers advanced scheduling features, including the ability to queue posts for optimal timing, schedule recurring posts, and use a ViralPost feature that determines the best times to publish based on audience engagement.
•  Sprout Social's unified inbox aggregates messages, comments, and mentions from all connected social media profiles, making it easy for users to monitor and respond to interactions in one place.
•  It also provides engagement tools such as message tagging, task assignment, and conversation history tracking to streamline social media interactions and collaboration among team members.

Planable:

•  Planable focuses more on simplifying the content creation, review, and approval process rather than advanced social media interaction features.
•  While Planable does offer scheduling and publication capabilities for posts across various social media platforms, its primary strength lies in its visual planning and collaboration tools.
•  Planable's interface is designed to facilitate team collaboration, with features such as real-time editing, commenting, and approval workflows. Users can easily preview how posts will appear on different social media platforms before publishing.
•  The platform also allows for content versioning, making it easy to track changes and revert to previous versions if needed.

In summary, Sprout Social excels in providing a comprehensive suite of social media interaction tools, including scheduling, publishing, and engagement features, while Planable focuses more on visual planning, collaboration, and content approval workflows.

Social multi-channel integration

Both platforms offer capabilities for managing multiple social media channels, but they differ in terms of depth and focus:

Sprout Social:

•  Sprout Social is well-known for its robust multi-channel integration capabilities, supporting various social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
•  It provides a unified dashboard where users can manage all their social media profiles in one place, streamlining the process of monitoring, scheduling, and engaging with content across different channels.
•  Sprout Social offers advanced features such as social listening, which allows users to track keywords, hashtags, and mentions across multiple social media platforms, providing valuable insights into brand mentions and industry trends.
•  The platform also provides comprehensive analytics and reporting tools that aggregate data from all connected social media channels, enabling users to track performance metrics and measure the effectiveness of their social media efforts across channels.

Planable:

•  Planable also supports integration with multiple social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and others.
•  While Planable offers basic scheduling and publication capabilities across these channels, its primary focus is on visual planning, collaboration, and content approval workflows.
•  Planable's interface is designed to facilitate team collaboration and streamline the process of creating, reviewing, and approving social media content across multiple channels.
•  While it may not offer the same level of advanced features for social listening and analytics as Sprout Social, Planable provides a user-friendly platform for managing content across different channels and collaborating with team members.

So, both Sprout Social and Planable support multi-channel integration, but they differ in terms of their focus and the depth of features offered.

Social media listening

When comparing Sprout Social and Planable in terms of social media listening capabilities, it's important to note their differences:

Sprout Social:

•  Sprout Social offers robust social media listening features that allow users to monitor conversations, keywords, hashtags and mentions across various social media platforms.
•  The platform provides real-time monitoring, enabling users to stay updated on relevant discussions and trends related to their brand, industry, or specific topics of interest.
•  Sprout Social's social listening tools provide insights into audience sentiment, allowing users to gauge the overall perception of their brand and identify opportunities for engagement or intervention.
•  Users can set up custom keyword searches and filters to track specific topics or conversations, helping them stay informed about relevant discussions and identify potential influencers or brand advocates.
•  The platform also offers reporting and analytics tools that provide data on social media mentions, sentiment trends, and engagement metrics, helping users measure the impact of their social media listening efforts.

Planable:

•  Planable focuses primarily on content planning, collaboration, and approval workflows rather than social media listening.
•  While Planable allows users to schedule and publish social media posts across various channels, it does not offer advanced social media listening capabilities such as real-time monitoring or sentiment analysis.
•  Planable's platform is designed to streamline the content creation process and facilitate collaboration among team members, providing a user-friendly interface for planning, reviewing, and approving social media content.
•  While Planable may not offer dedicated social media listening features, users can still monitor interactions and engagement with their posts within the platform, providing some level of insight into audience reactions and responses.

Analytics

Sprout Social:

•  Sprout Social offers comprehensive analytics tools that provide insights into various aspects of social media performance.
•  The platform provides detailed analytics on metrics such as engagement, reach, impressions, clicks, and follower growth across multiple social media channels.
•  Sprout Social's reporting features allow users to generate customizable reports, visualize data with graphs and charts, and export data for further analysis or sharing with stakeholders.
•  In addition to basic performance metrics, Sprout Social also offers advanced analytics features such as social listening, sentiment analysis, and competitor benchmarking, providing deeper insights into audience behavior and industry trends.
•  The platform's analytics dashboard provides a centralized view of key metrics, allowing users to track performance trends over time and make data-driven decisions to optimize their social media strategies.

Planable:

•  While Planable offers basic analytics features, its primary focus is on content planning, collaboration, and approval workflows.
•  Planable provides analytics on metrics such as post engagement, reach, and impressions, allowing users to track the performance of their social media content.
•  The platform's analytics capabilities are integrated into the content planning workflow, providing users with insights into the performance of scheduled and published posts.
•  Planable's analytics may be sufficient for users who primarily need to track basic performance metrics for their social media content, but it may lack the depth and granularity of analytics offered by Sprout Social.

Dashboard Experience

Sprout Social:

•  Sprout Social offers a well-organized and intuitive dashboard that provides users with a comprehensive view of their social media accounts and activities.
•  The dashboard provides customizable streams for monitoring various aspects of social media, such as messages, mentions, scheduled posts, and analytics.
•  Users can customize their dashboard layout to prioritize the information most relevant to them, allowing for efficient monitoring and management of social media accounts.
•  Sprout Social's dashboard includes features such as social listening, task assignment, and message tagging, providing users with the tools they need to engage with their audience and collaborate with team members.

Planable:

•  Planable also offers a user-friendly dashboard experience focused on content planning, collaboration, and approval workflows.
•  The dashboard provides a visual calendar view of scheduled and published posts, allowing users to see their content schedule at a glance.
•  Planable's dashboard includes features such as real-time editing, commenting, and approval workflows, facilitating collaboration among team members during the content creation process.
•  While Planable's dashboard may not offer the same level of customization and advanced features as Sprout Social, it provides a clean and intuitive interface for managing social media content and collaborating with team members.

Customer support

Sprout Social:

•  Sprout Social is known for providing excellent customer support offering various channels for assistance.
•  The platform offers 24/7 support via email, and users can expect prompt responses from the support team.
•  Sprout Social also provides phone support during business hours, which can be beneficial for urgent issues or inquiries.
•  Additionally, Sprout Social offers extensive online resources, including help articles, tutorials, and webinars, to help users learn how to use the platform effectively.
•  The platform's customer support team is knowledgeable and responsive, providing assistance with technical issues, account setup, and best practices for social media management.

Planable:

•  Planable also offers customer support through various channels, although it may not be as extensive as Sprout Social's support options.
•  Users can contact Planable's support team via email for assistance with technical issues, account setup, or general inquiries.
•  While Planable may not offer 24/7 support or phone support, users can expect timely responses from the support team during business hours.
•  Planable provides online resources such as help articles and tutorials to help users get started with the platform and troubleshoot common issues.

Sprout Social vs Planable: Price

 Sprout Social:

Planable:

Sprout Social vs Planable Comparison Chart

Conclusion

In the realm of social media management, the choice between Sprout Social and Planable ultimately boils down to your specific requirements and priorities. Sprout Social excels in offering a comprehensive suite of features, including advanced analytics, social listening, and engagement tools. It's an ideal choice for businesses and marketers seeking a holistic solution to manage their social media presence effectively.

On the other hand, Planable shines in facilitating collaboration and streamlining content approval workflows, making it a preferred option for teams focused on content planning and collaboration. By carefully evaluating your needs and considering the strengths of each platform, you can make an informed decision to elevate your social media management efforts and drive meaningful results.