Adobe Social, incorporates technology from Context Optional and Efficient Frontier.
Adobe acquired Facebook advertising-management platform Efficient Frontier in November. Six months earlier, Efficient Frontier had acquired Facebook page-management platform Context Optional.
Adobe Social is an enterprise social platform competing with Buddy Media and Involver, enabling things like automated content marketing and social sweepstakes and competitions.
Customers tend to be medium to large…
N/A
Buffer
Score 7.9 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.
$6
per month per channel
Pricing
Adobe Social
Buffer
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Free
$0
Essentials
$6
per month per channel
Team
$12
per month per channel
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe Social
Buffer
Free Trial
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
—
A discount is offered for annual billing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe Social
Buffer
Features
Adobe Social
Buffer
Listening/monitoring
Comparison of Listening/monitoring features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Social
7.4
9 Ratings
3% below category average
Buffer
-
Ratings
Boolean keyword searches
7.58 Ratings
00 Ratings
Filtering out noise/spam
7.57 Ratings
00 Ratings
Sentiment analysis
7.58 Ratings
00 Ratings
Broad channel coverage
7.09 Ratings
00 Ratings
Publishing
Comparison of Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Social
7.4
9 Ratings
9% below category average
Buffer
8.0
77 Ratings
1% below category average
Content planning and scheduling
7.09 Ratings
8.677 Ratings
Audience targeting
7.58 Ratings
00 Ratings
Content optimization
7.59 Ratings
7.470 Ratings
Workflow management
7.59 Ratings
7.866 Ratings
Engagement
Comparison of Engagement features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Social
7.7
8 Ratings
5% below category average
Buffer
-
Ratings
Automated routing and prioritization
7.58 Ratings
00 Ratings
Customer interaction histories
8.08 Ratings
00 Ratings
Bulk actions
7.58 Ratings
00 Ratings
Marketing
Comparison of Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Social
8.0
8 Ratings
4% above category average
Buffer
-
Ratings
Lead generation
8.07 Ratings
00 Ratings
Content marketing
8.08 Ratings
00 Ratings
Paid media management
8.07 Ratings
00 Ratings
Campaigns and promotions
8.08 Ratings
00 Ratings
Channel coverage/integration
Comparison of Channel coverage/integration features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Social
7.9
9 Ratings
6% below category average
Buffer
-
Ratings
Twitter
8.08 Ratings
00 Ratings
Facebook
8.09 Ratings
00 Ratings
LinkedIn
7.57 Ratings
00 Ratings
Google+
7.09 Ratings
00 Ratings
Instagram
8.57 Ratings
00 Ratings
Pinterest
8.04 Ratings
00 Ratings
YouTube
8.07 Ratings
00 Ratings
Reporting/analytics
Comparison of Reporting/analytics features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Social
7.8
9 Ratings
1% above category average
Buffer
7.3
70 Ratings
5% below category average
Campaign success analytics
8.09 Ratings
7.370 Ratings
Real-time tracking
7.58 Ratings
00 Ratings
Competitor analysis
8.08 Ratings
00 Ratings
Account management
Comparison of Account management features of Product A and Product B
I used Adobe Social when I use to have my own business on social media. After many months I was having no success in finding the correct clients for my products. Using Adobe Social I was able to market and discover different ways of searching for the correct clients and later on helped my business grow.
It helps me save hours by devoting only half an hour in a month's worth of posting, in addition to that it is quite simple to use. Buffer for scheduling social posts well in advance, but I have begun using it instead of posting natively on the social apps themselves because it makes it super easy to post the same messages to more than one platform.
Adobe Social lacks strengths, as I believe Adobe themselves have acknowledged, given their decision not to continue support or development. But if I need to list three strengths, the first would be it can publish to some social media platforms with a success rate of over 50%. If that's a strength.
It has workflow processes, but they are over-complicated and poorly designed.
It has some basic analytics, but Adobe consultants usually recommend referring to Adobe Analytics instead. Which is great if you actually use Adobe Analytics.
It would be great if Adobe scheduled video uploads for Twitter.
A time change in a social post automatically puts the post back to Level 1 of approvals. It can be a big hassle to have to start the process over for such a small change.
Adobe uses a different algorithm to measure engagement our company does. It would be great to upload your own algorithm into Adobe.
Expensive Analytics: The upgrade you need to access your analytics is quite expensive, and I have come across other tools that provide the same or even more for a lesser priced plan.
No Media Library: The one feature I have found on another social media planning tool that I wish Buffer had is a media library. This allows you to upload photos you aren't using right away to have them readily available when you do decide to use them. This is not a feature in Buffer.
I wasn't in charge of making the actual management decision, but I would absolutely renew Adobe Social. As I mentioned, it provides strong and in-depth analytics and listening tools. The reports that it generates are very thorough and easy to read. I loved the platform and would recommend it to anyone
I am giving buffer this rating because of a couple issues that it has compared to other platforms. It does not always post to instagram and you will need to go in an manually post. Also, one of the biggest qualms that we have with buffer is the price it costs to have robust analytics
The reason why I give this rating is that the overall platform is simple to use. You don't need to be tech-savvy or have a vast understanding of how to work a marketing tool. It is very simple to use compared to different platforms and you learn a lot of different ways to build your business.
We use Buffer for certain website content that should be shared on social networks, having this tool helps us to do it faster and easier since we can send the publications from the internet browser and the stack of scheduled messages. It is really fast and easy for all team members who share access to the account, so at the same time that we analyze the information that we can share, the message stack is prepared
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
The reason why I give this a 9 out of 10 in terms of support is because of the mobile app functionality. I have had many issues in terms of logging in and also loading pages. The app overall is easy to use but at what cost? Other than that it is great and I still enjoy Adobe Social.
Training was long and a little confusing. While a number of features carried over, they were still covered in this elongated training. It would have been nice to have training tailored to experience level with the product.
The implementation was done during our POC. We had a very mixed experience here, and have had some issues arise since based on the way the tool was implemented. An Adobe employee went ahead and made a change to our account that was unauthorized (helpful for our implementation) which caused issues in on boarding another team who needed the same change, but could not get it done without costly Adobe certification
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
Hootsuite Enterprise is superior in many ways, but the biggest factor is probably that it is constantly evolving and adding new features, working directly with social media companies ahead of new releases. Adobe seems to have stopped developing their product.
I also used Combin which is easy and free to use. However, Combin only posts when the computer is active and connected to the internet. So, posting while you are not actively using your computer at that moment is not possible, therefore Buffer is much more efficient as you can even post while being on vacation without working.
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
Although we chose Adobe Social believing it could provide ROI metrics we could not get elsewhere, that turned out not to be the case. Site Catalyst can give us everything we need without Adobe Social
Adobe Social did not create greater efficiencies and speed up our activity within social media. In fact, it has done the oppposite. It is very cumbersome with little clear benefit.