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Email marketing is one of the oldest and best tricks in the communication playbook, and newsletters are an excellent tool for brand awareness, audience engagement, and lead nurturing. But newsletter planning is challenging. Coming up with and delivering fresh ideas...
Nov 22, 2024
StoryChief is a content marketing platform that streamlines content creation and distribution. Although it’s good, the platform also has shortcomings when it comes to its collaboration features and the depth of its analytics capabilities.
So, if you’re looking for the best StoryChief alternatives currently available, check out my tried-and-tested list below.
StoryChief offers numerous features designed to make the content marketing and distribution process a breeze. Its standouts include a handy AI assistant useful for content ideation, research, and editing and a built-in SEO copywriting tool that scores your content and offers suggestions to maximize visibility on search engine results.
As for its drawbacks, the platform lacks real-time collaboration capabilities, which can significantly slow down the content creation and distribution process.
Additionally, the platform’s analytics tool allows you to track content performance across multiple networks. But StoryChief doesn’t include any network-specific metrics, like your LinkedIn audience’s seniority levels or your TikTok hashtag performance. It also doesn’t give you the insights necessary to adjust your approach on specific networks.
StoryChief includes an intuitive calendar that allows you to schedule numerous content types — from social media posts to newsletters, blogs, webinars, and more. You can easily filter between scheduled content by post type, approval status, and channel, for instance.
I found the option to create editorial briefs within the calendar particularly convenient — you can leave instructions, attach files, and specify the word count under each scheduled post.
However, I noticed that there’s no option to quickly reschedule posts once you added them to the calendar. You’ll need to click on the post, unscheduled it, and then reschedule it for a later date, which takes more clicks than necessary.
StoryChief allows you to invite both internal and external collaborators to the platform and assign specific roles, like guest writer, publisher, or internal writer, for instance.
You can leave feedback through comments on each post directly within the calendar, with the option to make comments visible only to internal collaborators — handy for working behind the scenes.
There’s also a separate tab where you can request edits. You can tag specific team members and leave notes about what needs to be changed.
But again, StoryChief lacks any real-time collaboration capabilities, which can lead to unnecessary back-and-forths between content creators and reviewers.
StoryChief’s approvals are straightforward — you can have multiple approvers for your content. They can either approve or reject the content, as well as leave feedback. As long as approvers have the publisher role assigned, they can post content even if the other team members haven’t approved the content yet.
Pricing: StoryChief includes two products — the Social Media Calendar and the Content Marketing Suite. Each has its own separate pricing package.
The Social Media Calendar starts at $40 per month (billed quarterly), while the Content Marketing Suite starts at $80 per month (billed quarterly). There’s also a 7-day free trial for both of the products’ entry-level plans.
You may be looking into StoryChief alternatives for:
Planable is a content scheduling and collaboration platform with a Universal Content feature that handles any type of written content — from social media posts to email, newsletter copy, blogs, and much more.
After testing both platforms, I found that Planable offers a more polished and complete feature set than StoryChief, with better collaboration features for more efficient content planning.
Collaboration, approval, and schedule features in Planable
For one, rescheduling content on Planable is just a matter of dragging and dropping a post onto the calendar — no need to browse through numerous menus and sub-menus. Its approval functionalities are also more structured and in-depth.
And there’s even more to it. So let’s go through a brief rundown of Planable’s key features.
Planable’s planning capabilities strike a perfect balance between functionality and ease of use. You can plan content by simply dragging and dropping it onto the calendar.
Content planning calendar in Planable
The platform lets you schedule the same post across multiple social media networks simultaneously through its SYNC ON/OFF tool. You can turn off the feature to make adjustments specific to each platform.
Planable also lets you organize scheduled content through color-coded labels, which is not possible with StoryChief. Other notable features include the option to easily edit an already-scheduled post, access to numerous views (Calendar, Grid, List, and Feed), and recurring post scheduling.
Collaboration is one of Planable’s hallmarks. Unlike other platforms, in Planable you can add Suggestions directly in the captions. You can also leave feedback next to each post through general comments or highlight and leave comments under specific fragments of text — ideal for long-form content like blog posts or video scripts.
Collaboration with comments and suggestions in Planable for a newsletter
Planable also includes internal notes and posts, which are perfect for hiding away work-in-progress content from clients.
Other functionalities include the option to share content with external collaborators via shareable links, mark feedback as resolved, and add file attachments in comments, as well as get notifications.
Planable’s approval workflows are highly customizable. You can pick between four workflow types: none, optional, required, and multi-level.
The platform’s multi-level approval workflows are the standout here — they ensure your post is reviewed and approved by multiple team members before publishing.
Multiple approval layers in Planable
A blog post can first be approved by the editor, followed by the content manager, while the client gives the green light, for instance. Planable can automatically schedule posts once they’re approved by all parties involved. Each approval level can have as many team members as you like.
You can also approve posts directly within the calendar with just one click.
Pricing: Planable starts at $11 per user per month (billed annually). Pricing is flexible based on how many users and workspaces you wish to include. There’s also a free version available that allows you to schedule up to 50 total posts and includes all Planable has to offer.
Drawbacks: Although Planable allows you to work and collaborate on any type of written content like blogs, there are no integrations with CMS platforms yet — you’ll have to copy/paste content from Planable to your CMS for publishing.
Takeaway: Planable is the best StoryChief alternative if you’re looking for a content collaboration platform with excellent scheduling and approval functionalities.
Bynder is a digital asset management platform that allows you to store and handle images, videos, logos, and other documents from a centralized dashboard.
The platform stands out through its automatic asset optimization capabilities — it can generate metadata for SEO visibility and automatically resize image files for faster loading speeds. Bynder also allows you to create and collaborate on written content, like blogs.
Pricing: Pricing is upon request for all of Bynder’s pricing plans.
Drawbacks: No direct publishing tools available.
Takeaway: Bynder is among the solid StoryChief alternatives for businesses seeking to easily create, modify, and manage branded digital assets.
Allfred is a workflow management platform specifically designed for advertising agencies. It aims to simplify all business processes — from resource planning to budgeting, invoicing, and more. Allfred also offers a built-in CRM so you can easily track and manage clients or contractors.
Allfred’s Team Burnout Prevention feature is one of the platform’s standouts. It monitors your delegated tasks to identify which team members are at risk of overloading to help prevent assigning too much work to specific members.
Pricing: Pricing for the platform’s all-in-one solution starts at $12 per user per month (billed annually). You can also use Allfred’s budgeting or resource planning and time tracking tools independently for $8 per user per month (billed annually).
Drawbacks: No built-in content scheduling tools are available.
Takeaway: Overall, Allfred is an excellent StoryChief alternative for advertising agencies seeking a solid project management tool complete with budgeting and resource management capabilities.
CoSchedule provides a centralized platform for content planning and marketing that stands out through its versatility. It blends a content calendar with project management functionalities, social media management, content ideation tools, and an AI-powered writing assistant.
The platform supports popular social media networks, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and Pinterest. It also integrates with Google Business Profile, Mastodon, and Bluesky.
Pricing: CoSchedule includes a free version available for one user and two social media profiles. The platform’s paid plans start at $19 per user per month (billed annually).
Drawbacks: The platform’s approval workflows are locked behind its top-tier plan. The free plan also lacks Twitter publishing.
Takeaway: CoSchedule is an excellent option for a small business on the lookout for a platform that allows for easy content planning across numerous networks.
Asana is a comprehensive project management platform complete with team collaboration and file-proofing capabilities. The platform stands out through its solid free plan — it allows for up to ten team members and includes all the necessities like unlimited tasks, projects, comments, and various views (like list, board, and calendar views).
Pricing: There’s a free plan available. Paid plans start at $10.99 per user per month (billed annually).
Drawbacks: Asana lacks native time-tracking features.
Takeaway: Overall, Asana is a great choice for a small business seeking a solid free project management tool.
ContentStudio is an all-in-one social media management platform that allows you to publish, analyze, manage, and curate content across numerous social media networks — be it Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, etc. It also covers team collaboration and multi-level approvals.
The platform also allows you to publish blogs to WordPress, Shopify, Medium, and Webflow websites in upper-tier pricing packages, making it ideal for omnichannel content marketing.
Pricing: ContentStudio starts at $20 per month (billed annually) with a 14-day free trial available.
Drawbacks: Users often report a rather clunky UI.
Takeaway: ContentStudio is a solid choice for companies seeking to streamline their content marketing efforts across both social networks and websites.
Overall, effective content marketing requires a lot of teamwork and a structured workflow to make sure your content rolls out error-free.
That’s why you should definitely give Planable a shot. Its comprehensive set of features, seamless collaboration capabilities, and multi-level workflows provide everything you need to streamline your content creation and marketing efforts.
Ready to try it out? Get started with the free 50 first posts!
Digital marketing enthusiast, language nerd, and content writer. Horea loves writing about SaaS and anything that involves boosting online presence – from SEO to social media, web design, and more. His content is allergic to fluff and eats research for breakfast.
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