Last year we published one of our most popular articles on the best social media APIs for posting and scheduling. It got a lot of attention from platforms, CMS, agencies, and companies that want to programmatically post on behalf themselves or their users. For 2021, we’re updating the the list and giving more in-depth analysis so you can find the right solutions for your business.
Why Use a Social Media API?
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If you want to manually post and schedule social media to networks like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or YouTube, there are some excellent web-based posting tools out there. However, if you run an app or platform, say for example a CMS that allows user to create content, your users typically want a simple process to post to social media networks without having to download the content and do it manually. This sharing can be part of a workflow or an automatic process, but the point is you want to make sharing simple and easy for your users without them leaving your platform.
A social media API makes it possible to programmatically publish from your backend system, allowing you to control the content, posting schedule, management, and reposting on behalf of your users.
There are two ways to integrate with the networks:
- Direct API connection with each social network. This often requires an approval process at each network and continuous maintenance, but the networks do not charge for standard access.
- 3rd party social media API. While integration is easier and they handle maintenance, there typically is a monthly charge.
Here are some 3rd party social media scheduling tools that offer API access in alphabetical order.
List of the Top Social Media APIs
1. Ayrshare
Tagline: Powerful APIs that enable you to send social media posts effortlessly. For developers and businesses of all sizes.
API Documentation: link
Pricing: Free to $14.99/mo for Unlimited Premium. Free plan offers 8 social accounts and 30 posts a month. Business Plans for multiple users as low as $1.85/mo.
The Good: In our humble opinion, Ayrshare is the best choice around if you’re looking for a social media API…I mean it is our product and all. We’re the only API-first social media scheduling tool, so everything we build is about working seamlessly with your backend system. That is why we offer numerous SDK packages and coding examples.
The Bad: The manual posting dashboard is basic. If you’re looking to spend your day manually posting in a desktop GUI, there are better choices than Ayrshare. In fact, we wrote and article Why You Shouldn’t Use Ayrshare.
2. Buffer
Tagline: Tell your brand’s story and grow your audience with a publishing, analytics, and engagement platform you can trust.
API Documentation:link — no new developer accounts since 2019
Pricing: $15 to $99 a month. Free plan offers 5 social accounts and 10 posts a month.
The Good: We love Buffer! It was the first tool we used before developing Ayrshare. Buffer’s dashboard is perfectly simple and really a model for all other apps. The API is clear and has all the features needed to schedule posts, with some cool features such as reorder and shuffle future posts.
The Bad: Simple — Buffer shut down new developer access. Unless you already have a developer account, you’re out of luck.
3. Planly
Tagline: Streamline Your Social Media, Simplify Your Success
API Documentation: link
Pricing: $15 to $80 a month. It also offers a 14-day free trial to explore its features.
The Good: Planly's API offers a robust and intuitive way to integrate advanced social media management features. With seamless authentication, it provides comprehensive control over scheduling posts, tracking analytics, and managing content. The API supports essential operations like creating and updating posts, accessing performance insights, and handling team collaboration effortlessly.
The Bad: While Planly's API offers extensive features, it may require a steep learning curve for new users due to its comprehensive set of functionalities.
4. Hootsuite
Tagline: Easily manage all your social media and get results with Hootsuite.
API Documentation: link
Pricing: $49 to $599 a month. The Free plan recently was changed to 2 social profiles and 5 posts a month.
The Good: Hootsuite is one of the most popular scheduling tools. They have a great reputation, feature set, and have been around a long time. Their API is well documented and straight-forward. And if you’re looking to manually post, they have one of the best GUIs around.
The Bad: Hootsuite’s API has not been updated in over 2 years and they are lacking many newer integrations, such as Instagram. Also, Hootsuite just raised prices for a lot of their users.
5. SocialOomph
Tagline: Boost your productivity with advanced post scheduling tools.
API Documentation: link
Pricing: $20 to $83 a month
The Good: SocialOomph take a unique approach where each user sets up their open webhook and provides that to the platform. The platform then calls the webhook to post to that user’s account.
The Bad: The use of webhooks is very technical and might be a lot fo the average customer/user to understand and setup.
6. Social Flow
Tagline: We help publishers extract more revenue from their best content on social platforms.
API Documentation: Not publicly available
The Good: SocialFlow is focused on publishing and advertising for the media industry. It is used by many publishers such as The New York Times, National Geographical Channel, and Fast Company.
The Bad: Because SocialFlow keeps a tight lipped on pricing and their API, you’ll need to contact them directly.
Do you know of other Social Media APIs that we should include? If so, let us know.
Originally published at https://www.ayrshare.com on May 6, 2021.
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