Later Review 2024: The Creator’s Best Social Media Management Tool?

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Later became popular as an Instagram scheduling tool.

But now, Later lets you schedule on multiple social media channels.

And just like any tool, Later has its strengths and weaknesses.

If you’re planning to buy this social media management tool, you need to understand what to expect.

That’s why I’ve explored its features to perform common social media tasks.

In this Later review, you’ll see the tool’s key features, pros, cons, and common social media tasks you can execute.

Let’s dive in.

Who is Later for?

Based on its features and how it works, Later (or Later.com) is best for freelancers, solopreneurs, and content creators/influencers.

These include people who use Instagram and TikTok heavily and need to drive their audience to buy products.

However, if you need to work with team members and clients or run customer support on social media, Later won’t meet your needs.

For these needs, I’d recommend you consider Vista Social instead.

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Later key features

Later post builder

The post builder lets you create posts to schedule on your calendar.

Once you click the “Create post” button or drag a media file to the calendar, Later will bring up the post builder.

Here, you can select multiple social media channels to schedule to.

Currently, Later supports these 7 social media channels:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• TikTok
• Pinterest
• YouTube

Of course, the settings for each channel differ.

For example, for Instagram, you can add the first comment and location and tag people and products. If you want to link this image to a URL, you can also add the bio link here.

Beyond that, you can use the AI caption writer to create captions if you have writer’s block. Then, Later has hashtag suggestions for your posts based on your caption.

If you want to use a caption in the future, Later lets you save it.

Then, there’s an image and video editor that lets you edit images to fit a social channel’s requirements.

To ensure maximum engagement, Later suggests the best time to post on Instagram. You can also schedule your stories from the calendar.

My only issue with Later’s post builder is that I couldn’t see the post preview. So, I don’t know how posts will look when published.

Overall, Later’s post builder is easy to use, and you won’t need a lot of time to understand it. This is an important feature to consider when buying a social media management tool, as you can’t schedule a post without it.

Later social calendar

The Later social calendar provides an overview of your social media queue.

First, you can see your calendar in the week, month, and list formats. Then, Later has a visual planner that shows how your scheduled posts will look on your Instagram profile.

Apart from that, you can see the media library beside the calendar. This eases the use of images and videos for social media posts.

Later also lets you filter media files based on usage and media type.

Lastly, you can schedule and view your Instagram stories in the calendar.

Later Linkin.bio

The linkin.bio feature is one of Later’s most popular features.

With it, you can create a link in bio page to drive Instagram and TikTok followers to your web pages.

My favorite part of this feature is its simple and beautiful design. You can use one of Later’s themes, edit fonts, change background colors, and more.

But beyond the design, Later’s Linkin.bio offers many useful elements.

You can add your social icons to this page. This encourages your audience to follow your other social media channels.

You also have buttons that can link to your website, blog, online store, and other business pages.

If you sell products, you’ll like the Instagram and TikTok grids. It lets you drive prospects to product pages associated with each Instagram or TikTok post.

You can mirror your Instagram grid and link each post to a relevant business page.

Later also lets you add a featured banner or media. 

So, you can embed a YouTube video that explains what your business is all about. Or you can feature a product promotion your audience will love.

Overall, the link in bio tool lets you drive your audience to important business pages.

Creator & Brand Collabs

This feature is unique, and it’s tailored for creators.

In the collaboration section, you can collaborate with brands for social campaigns. You’ll also see campaigns from brands that you can join.

Later lets you create a media kit to specify your rates and services, show media highlights, and provide more information about yourself.

Brands can also find you and reach out for influencer collaboration opportunities.

The creator & brand collabs is a feature creators will love.

Media library

The media library holds your images and videos. So, you can easily use them when scheduling posts.

Beyond your computer, Later lets you upload files from Dropbox and Google Drive.

The media also shows up beside the calendar, which means you can drag an image or video to the calendar to create a social post.

Apart from your files, Later lets you collect media from different sources on the web. 

For example, you can collect from Instagram tags and mentions. You can also search by Instagram profile or hashtag.

This is useful if you want to collect user-generated content (UGC) from your customers.

Of course, remember to get permission and credit images from other people to avoid copyright infringement.

Later also allows you to get images from Unsplash photo library and contributors.

With the media library, you have many options to get media files for your social media posts.

Ideas

The Ideas feature is simple.

You’ll enter your brand description into Later, and in return, Later will provide content ideas for your social media posts.

For instance, when I entered a description for a marketing and SaaS freelance writer, here are the ideas I got:

While the ideas could be more creative, the feature is still in the beta stage. So, it should get better with time.

But no matter how good it is presently, the main benefit is clear.

You can get ideas for a few weeks of social media posts.

If you like an idea here, you can use it to create a draft in your post builder.

Conversations

Conversations are Later’s social media inbox. With this feature, you can respond to comments on Instagram and TikTok posts.

Later offers 3 views:

• Inbox
• Post
• User

The inbox view shows your recent comments, while the post view shows your latest posts with their comments.

Lastly, the user view sorts your comments by users.

Generally, I find Later’s Conversations underwhelming. 

First, you’re limited to only Instagram and TikTok. Second, you can’t reply to mentions and messages.

That’s poor compared to a tool like Loomly that offers these and even lets you collaborate with team members in your social inbox.

So, if you want to run social media customer support with your social media management tool, Later will come up short.

Analytics and reporting

With Later Analytics, you get important social metrics for Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and TikTok.

This section shows metrics for your:

• Audience
• Post performance
• Reel performance
• Story performance
• Hashtag
• Linkin.bio

In these tabs, you can see metrics like impressions, reach, website clicks, follower growth, best performing posts, and more.

These metrics will provide insights into your social media campaign performance. They can also help you improve your future campaigns.

Later also lets you create reports from your analytics.

You can copy the report link and share it with a client or potential collaborator.

I couldn’t see an option to schedule a report here. So, you can’t send social media reports automatically to your boss or client.

Later mobile apps

Even though its mobile app is less functional than its desktop version, Later has a respectable mobile app.

Frankly, I think Later’s mobile apps are a better effort than most social media management tools.

Many social media management tools don’t even have mobile apps. 

So, you can’t do much outside the desktop version.

The Later mobile app has 4 sections:

• Media library
• Schedule
• Trends
• Account

My favorite features in the app are the library and trends. 

People go everywhere with their smartphones (unlike their laptops), even to the toilet. And you never know where ideas will hit you.

With the library, you can capture moments on your smartphone anywhere you go and upload them to your Later account for future use. Luckily, the library in the mobile app automatically syncs with the desktop version.

For Trends, you can see what’s popular on Instagram and TikTok. 

This can help you exploit popular trends to gain more impressions and engagement.

Overall, the Later app is not perfect, but it serves important purposes.

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How to manage social media in Later

Create and schedule a social media post in Later

To create a post in Later, you can either drag a file from your library to the calendar or click the “Create Post” button.

Once you drag the file to your calendar, the post builder will open up.

By default, Later selects a single social account for your post. If you want to publish a post on multiple platforms, click on the profile drop-down and select other accounts.

I had to click on “customize 3 posts” before Later brought up media for the 3 profiles. I was expecting Later to do that automatically once I selected the profiles.

There are a few things I need to do here. Edit the image for Instagram and select a board for Pinterest.

Later lets you edit images right in the post builder. You can crop the image to the right size, and add filters and text.

Apart from that, Later lets you add alt text to your images.

Beyond that, you can customize your post for each social media channel.

For your captions, you can use the AI caption writer to generate them. You can select a casual, professional, or custom tone for your caption.

For the custom option, you just have to state the tone you want.

Once I clicked on “Generate captions,” Later delivered 3 captions for my description. To be honest, the captions are good, and I just need to customize one of them a little bit before publishing.

After inserting your preferred caption, you can edit it to your taste.

Apart from using AI captions, you can also use a saved caption. And Later lets you save your current caption too.

Another neat feature is the hashtag suggestions. Later can suggest hashtags related to your caption. 

You can also search hashtags by entering a relevant hashtag. The results will produce similar hashtags.

I tried both options, and they were similar in accuracy.

This is a good feature, as the right hashtag can boost your post’s reach.

Apart from captions on Instagram, you can add the first comment and location as well as tag people and products. You can also add your link in bio for the post.

Beyond Instagram, you can set up other social media channels according to their requirements.

For example, you can track links on Twitter and select a board for Pinterest posts.

Once you finish creating your post, click the “Schedule” button in your post builder.

If you want to schedule Instagram stories instead, click “Stories” at the top of your calendar.

Later also lets you save your posts as drafts. But keep in mind that a draft will account for one post in your plan.

This means if your plan allows 15 posts, having 5 drafts means you can only publish 10 posts for that month.

Create a link in bio page in Later

To create a link in bio page, click “Link in Bio” at the left sidebar of your Later dashboard.

On the next page, you can enter your link in bio username. If you have a Linktree page, Later lets you import it after creating your page.

After entering your username, click “Create Your Page.”

Once you do this, you can set up blocks for your link in bio page. 

There are 6 main blocks here, which are:

• Your profile: this is pulled from Instagram and contains your image, name, and bio.
• Social icons: these link to your business’s social media pages. Later automatically links to the social accounts you’ve integrated with. You can import these links or add links manually. You can add more social channels like YouTube, Google Business, or even WhatsApp.
• Buttons: you can use this to drive traffic to your web pages or online store.
• Instagram and TikTok grid: You can mirror your grids and link each image to a specific URL.
• Featured banner or media: if you want to highlight a video, link, or product promo, you can feature them at the top of your page.
• Mailchimp: Later lets you integrate with Mailchimp to collect emails.

Once you finish adding your blocks, you can now make your page more beautiful in the design tab.

Here, Later provides themes you can use. And even for each theme, you can change the color and background. You can also design your blocks and buttons.

The analytics tab links to the analytics section for your link in bio page. Here, you can see metrics such as button clicks, post clicks, click-through rates, and location of page views.

In the settings tab, you can manage your link in bio page settings and enable UTM tracking of links for Google Analytics.

After completing your link in bio page design, you can enter the customized bio link into your Instagram or TikTok bio.

Collaborate with other creators and brands in Later

If you’re a creator, you always look for the right brands to work with. 

This is usually a brand in your industry that delivers products and services relevant to your audience.

To find collaboration opportunities in Later, click “Creator & Brand Collabs” at the left sidebar of your Later dashboard.

To exploit this feature, you have to join the creator database.

Later will ask for your personal and demographic information and social profiles before you can join.

Once you enter all the required information, Later will accept you into the creator network.

After joining the network, you can create a media kit. 

This will contain your media highlights, rates and services, and information about you.

Brands can see the media kit before they reach out to you for collaboration.

Through the “Find Campaign” tab, you can see campaigns to apply for.

This is how it works.

Brands publish campaign details like date and reward. When you open a campaign, you’ll see its deliverables and other information.

This feature can help you find work opportunities with relevant brands.

Later also has a tab for managing your campaigns. You can see your active campaigns, invitations, and applications.

I tried finding how a brand can create these campaigns but couldn’t see it.

While this feature is still in the beta stage, I see it as a good opportunity for creators.

Later pros and cons

Later pros

• Easy to use
• Affordable
• Great for creators
• Creator collaboration
• Great link in bio feature
• AI post ideas

Later cons

• No social media post preview
• Underwhelming social inbox
• Limited social media collaboration features
• Content curation and listening features are absent

Later customer support

If you have any questions about Later’s features and how to use them, you can answer your questions through:

• Chatbot
• Live chat
• Support tickets through chatbot
• Help center articles
• Later community

These channels ensure you can answer your questions and schedule social media posts effectively.

Later pricing

Later has 4 pricing plans:

• Starter: This plan comes with 1 social set and 1 user. You also get 30 posts per social profile and 5 credits for AI features. It costs $25 monthly ($16.67 on an annual plan).
• Growth: This plan comes with 3 social sets and 3 users. In addition to that, you get 150 posts per social profile and 30 credits for AI features. It costs $45 monthly ($30 on an annual plan).
• Advanced: This plan comes with 6 social sets and 6 users. Beyond that, you get unlimited posts and 50 credits for AI features. It costs $80 monthly ($53.33 on an annual plan).
• Agency: With this plan, you get 15 social sets and 10 users. Also, it comes with unlimited posts and 100 credits for AI features. It costs $200 monthly ($133.33 on an annual plan).

Apart from offering more than a 30% discount on annual plans, Later also allows a 14-day free trial for these plans. So, you can go through its features and perform tasks during these 2 weeks.

Later also offers a free plan, but the details of what you get are absent on their pricing page.

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Frequently asked questions (FAQs) about Later

Can I use Later for Instagram?

Yes, you can use Later to schedule posts on Instagram. You can schedule feed posts, reels, and stories on Instagram. You also get a link in bio page to drive traffic from Instagram to your web pages.

Can I use Later on my phone?

Yes, you can use Later on Android and iOS devices. Later’s smartphone apps let you upload images, schedule posts, and see trends.

Which social platforms does Later post to?

Later currently supports Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

Does Later have link in bio?

Yes, Later has a link in bio feature. On this page, you can feature your social pages icon, online store products, and link your Instagram posts to web pages.

What is a social set on Later?

A social set on Later consists of each of all the social media channels Later supports.

What is Later’s cheapest plan?

Later’s cheapest plan is the Starter plan, which costs $25 monthly (or $20.83 on an annual plan).

Does Later have social inbox?

Yes, Later has social inbox for Instagram and TikTok. However, it’s limited since you can only reply to comments on these 2 social media channels.

Conclusion

If you’re a creator who uses Instagram and TikTok heavily, Later is one of the best social media management tools you can use.

With features like a robust post builder, creator collaboration, and link in bio page, Later is a solid platform to publish posts, collaborate with brands, and sell products to your audience.

However, if you run a social media team, Later lacks the collaboration features that will ease team work.

So, your needs will determine if Later is the right fit for creating and scheduling your social media posts.

If Later sounds like what you need, ensure you go through the 14-day free trial before paying for a plan.

If you have any questions about Later, let me know in the comments.

If you want to explore other options, check out great Later alternatives.