Buffer vs. Shoutlet (Discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Buffer
Score 8.4 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
Buffer is a social sharing tool. When browsing content, clicking on the Buffer icon automatically stores the content and schedules posts to social media channels throughout the day.
$0
Shoutlet (Discontinued)
Score 2.0 out of 10
N/A
Shoutlet is a cloud-based social relationship platform that enables marketers to publish, engage and measure social marketing campaigns and activities on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Google+, and YouTube. The product’s focus is on quantifying return on social, integrating social data into business and scaling social across the enterprise. Features include tools for social CRM, creative design, social listening, ads, workflow management, contest design…N/A
Pricing
BufferShoutlet (Discontinued)
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
Essentials
$6
per month per channel
Team
$12
per month per channel
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BufferShoutlet (Discontinued)
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsA discount is offered for annual billing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BufferShoutlet (Discontinued)
Features
BufferShoutlet (Discontinued)
Publishing
Comparison of Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
8.6
Ratings
7% above category average
Shoutlet (Discontinued)
8.3
Ratings
3% above category average
Content planning and scheduling9.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Content optimization8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow management8.80 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Audience targeting00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Reporting/analytics
Comparison of Reporting/analytics features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
8.3
Ratings
5% above category average
Shoutlet (Discontinued)
7.7
Ratings
3% below category average
Campaign success analytics8.30 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Real-time tracking00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Competitor analysis00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Account management
Comparison of Account management features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
9.0
Ratings
12% above category average
Shoutlet (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
Role-based user permissions & privileges9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile access9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Listening/monitoring
Comparison of Listening/monitoring features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
-
Ratings
Shoutlet (Discontinued)
8.0
Ratings
4% above category average
Filtering out noise/spam00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Engagement
Comparison of Engagement features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
-
Ratings
Shoutlet (Discontinued)
9.0
Ratings
13% above category average
Automated routing and prioritization00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Customer interaction histories00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Marketing
Comparison of Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
-
Ratings
Shoutlet (Discontinued)
8.7
Ratings
12% above category average
Lead generation00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Content marketing00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Campaigns and promotions00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Channel coverage/integration
Comparison of Channel coverage/integration features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
-
Ratings
Shoutlet (Discontinued)
9.0
Ratings
7% above category average
Twitter00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Facebook00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
LinkedIn00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Google+00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
User Ratings
BufferShoutlet (Discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(0 ratings)
1.3
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(0 ratings)
7.7
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.2
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
6.1
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BufferShoutlet (Discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
It is a very interesting tool for entrepreneurs or CEOs of startups who do not have much time to manage social media communication and also have few resources at the beginning of their venture. It can also be convenient for small companies that do not have specific personnel with training in community management and require easy-to-use tools to carry out the basic actions of scheduled publication on social media.
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Shoutlet has potential benefit for everyone, from small start-ups to large organizations. Whether you're just starting out establishing a social media presence or are a seasoned veteran, it just makes sense to run your social media strategy through a tool this comprehensive and that offers as many special features as Shoutlet does
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Pros
  • I can plan and publish content on social channels.
  • Buffer's interface is quite tidy and generates the necessary facilities to save us time in publishing consistent content.
  • It has a special price; it is pretty affordable.
  • It has the possibility of integrating with other tools to improve its functions.
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  • Community Management - efficiently post to multiple platforms and targets at the same time
  • Contest and Facebook tab creation in-house, no development resources required
  • Amazing and proactive client support - the whole team at Shoutlet will go out of their way to find solutions and fix problems
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Cons
  • Analytics-- The analytics on the Pro plan are limited at best. You can simply review your posts from the past 30 days, but you can't access any analysis (or even simple tallying of Likes, Shares, etc.) without upgrading to the Premium or Business plans, which are otherwise more than we need at the moment.
  • Publish+Reply+Analyze-- It's a bit tedious to have these basic social media functions/tools separated out as three distinct products, as well as overkill for a small nonprofit without a dedicated social media team. I imagine each tool is good at its job if you need 'em.
  • Linking to Accounts-- Buffer seems to lose touch with Facebook and LinkedIn somewhat frequently. It's vaguely annoying but very simple to fix, so I just roll with it.
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  • Couldn't tag other pages directly from Shoutlet (ie: posting a Mashable post and tagging Mashable).
  • Had to manually set the best time for it go out when a lot of other platforms have the capability to set the best posting time for you.
  • No guarantee on quality of photo size.
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Likelihood to Renew
Ease of use, affordability, time saved and just love for the app and the team. It's not a miracle tool that will suddenly increase your company's value or leads, you still need to put in quality posts, thoughts and content but when used regularly and with thought, you'll be happy in the long run
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We have been using Shoutlet for so long, and have seen so much growth and versatility, I believe we are confident that all of our social media management needs are being met with Shoutlet. It really helps that the Shoutlet team has open to recommendations in terms of usability and are interested in meeting our specific needs.
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Usability
Easy enough to use even my boss got it right away. It helps to off-set the workload to less active times, and we can preschedule way in advance, which also helps to keep the team on track as we know what we have planned and want to reach our milestones before posts go online.
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While some things do require a little training, a quick phone training session or reading an online guide usually suffices. I've never needed multiple training sessions for any part of Shoutlet. As someone with very little coding/programming background (read: absolutely none), I am always able to accomplish what is needed without feeling over my head or needing help.
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Reliability and Availability
Buffer is always on hand and very reliable, their software suite rarely has outages
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No answers on this topic
Performance
Buffer performs well on both desktop and mobile platforms. The one area as I have stated before is that it does not always want to automatically push to Instagram and the user will have to go do it manually. Buffer works very well pushing to other platforms. The instagram issue is the only reason buffer does not get a 10 on this section
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In general, the software works really well. I get weird errors for time to time. Tech Therapy does a great job helping when things go awry
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Support Rating
  1. It really helped to my business to grow online.
  2. I was able to take actions mindfully as the analytics are damn good.
  3. Also used for managing clients social media accounts and it proved to be a best resource.
  4. Clients were really happy as they got high demand and growth on internet and the secret is Buffer.
  5. The user interface is really easy to understand and manage. Support is 24/7 available to help.
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I feel that the level of support I get from Shoutlet is far beyond the level of support I've received from other companies in a variety of services. It would be nice to have a regular update from Tech Therapy that lists out any potential bugs they're working to fix for the various browsers they support. Sometimes I wonder if I'm experiencing an issue simply because I use Firefox vs. Chrome.
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Implementation Rating
We were very satisfied with the implementation of Buffer. We had no issues switching from the platform that we were using over to buffer. Our staff did not even miss a beat when it came to posting content. It was an easy transition and I feel that is something that buffer has really done well. They have an "out of the box" usability platform
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Both of them are great at their own levels but I find Buffer quite easy to go and the way they perform every task is quite like my way of work so I personally like Buffer more, it has helped me save my most of the time hence improved my work efficiency and also the creativity they put into my work is outstanding. The support I get whenever I run into problems they provide a quick response every time.
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The main reason that we selected Shoutlet over other competitors was the ease of use, content tagging and ability to work seamlessly across a variety of functions. It was in a sense the entire package in once place. Social content management, social listening, social analytics and more. It's been the best bang for our buck and compared to all the above mentioned products it really just offered the whole picture for one price. We still use additional analytics to measure social results as well but Shoutlet is the easiest approach to adapt your social strategy into one solid format
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Scalability
Buffer does what it say on tin as they say! you can always count on Buffer. Buffer can be scale to 25 social account with 2,000 scheduled post which is enough for most agencies or businesses
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • It has saved money by allowing us to automate our social using one person
  • It allows us to connect one channel at a time instead of wasting money on larger account management tools
  • We are making money, because it has already delivered several clients
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  • Allows our small staff to provide our clients with world-class service and data.
  • Exponentially improved fan base expansion for our clients.
  • Rapid response for customer service issues for clients - allowing us to help our clients prevent their social media presence from becoming the Complaint Department, rather a true community of fans and supporters of a brand.
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ScreenShots

Buffer Screenshots

Screenshot of The Buffer dashboardScreenshot of Customizable posting scheduleScreenshot of Tailored PostsScreenshot of List or calendar view of scheduled postsScreenshot of Browser extensionScreenshot of Social media analytics