Buffer vs. Social Mention

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Buffer
Score 8.1 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.
$15
per month
Social Mention
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Social Mention is a free tool which is a kind of Google search for the social web. It provides basic search and alerts across a very broad variety of social channels.N/A
Pricing
BufferSocial Mention
Editions & Modules
Publish Pro
$15
per month
Analyze Pro
$35
per month
Analyze Premium
$50
per month
Publish Premium
$65
per month
Publish Business
$99
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BufferSocial Mention
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsHere are the prices of our various plans: Pro: $15/month Small Business: $99/month Medium Business: $199/month Large Business: $399/month Enterprise: Feel free to get in touch with us at onboarding@buffer.com. All plans can be paid on either a monthly or yearly basis. If you choose to pay yearly, you would receive a 15% discount, which works out to be approximately two months free per year.
More Pricing Information
Features
BufferSocial Mention
Publishing
Comparison of Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
7.6
64 Ratings
5% below category average
Social Mention
-
Ratings
Content planning and scheduling9.364 Ratings00 Ratings
Content optimization6.457 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow management7.053 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting/analytics
Comparison of Reporting/analytics features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
7.8
59 Ratings
1% below category average
Social Mention
-
Ratings
Campaign success analytics7.859 Ratings00 Ratings
Account management
Comparison of Account management features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
8.4
61 Ratings
3% above category average
Social Mention
-
Ratings
Role-based user permissions & privileges7.649 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile access9.259 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BufferSocial Mention
Small Businesses
Publer
Publer
Score 9.8 out of 10
Simplify360
Simplify360
Score 7.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.3 out of 10
Mention
Mention
Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.3 out of 10
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BufferSocial Mention
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(84 ratings)
8.0
(8 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(14 ratings)
8.0
(5 ratings)
Usability
8.1
(23 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
6.3
(23 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(2 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BufferSocial Mention
Likelihood to Recommend
Buffer
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.
Read full review
Social Mention
Social Mention is a great tool for monitoring social media. This Tool can also be used to search specifically taking the keywords in the blogs, comments, news etc. It offers a third party API for users. It can be used to send email to clients of their brand performance data. This tool can indicate if your mentions are angry, happy or neutral but the data can't be reliable.
Read full review
Pros
Buffer
  • 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.
Read full review
Social Mention
  • Can predict future response from today's number.
  • Let's you judge which types of campaigns to run.
  • Has a very well managed dashboard of results.
Read full review
Cons
Buffer
  • 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.
Read full review
Social Mention
  • Under the "Free" dashboard you are limited to only receiving weekly results.
  • Can't negate those tags which contain my tags.
  • Lots of tweets missing, no noise filtering. Sometimes we get very old contents which are not needed.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Buffer
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
Read full review
Social Mention
I love that Social Mention is so easy to use. It does not take a long time to learn how to navigate the site when you need information quickly. I don't use it as much in my new job, but I recommend it for basic monitoring and when you need social media information right away
Read full review
Usability
Buffer
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
Read full review
Social Mention
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
Buffer
Buffer is always on hand and very reliable, their software suite rarely has outages
Read full review
Social Mention
No answers on this topic
Performance
Buffer
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
Read full review
Social Mention
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Buffer
  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.
Read full review
Social Mention
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Buffer
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
Read full review
Social Mention
It doesn't work as well since we changed our name. We used to have a very unique twitter handle etc. so it was easier for social mention to find us. For folks who have unique names it's excellent if you don't it may not be that helpful.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Buffer
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.
Read full review
Social Mention
Social Mention streamed everything together, calculated my sentiment for me, allows me to filter what results I am personally looking for, extract my RSS feed and navigate to one of the channels of buzz.
Read full review
Scalability
Buffer
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
Read full review
Social Mention
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Buffer
  • 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
Read full review
Social Mention
  • The paid-version actually had a negative ROI for us as it would sometimes feed us topically inappropriate articles and didn't allow us to filter by source so as to eliminate inappropriate blogs and inappropriate news sources (like highly politically partisan ones).
Read full review
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