A fill-in scorecard for social media scheduling tools

What the scorecard is for, and how to lay it out

After three demos, most people remember one presenter, one feature and one irritation. The scorecard replaces that memory with a record. Draw it on paper or in a spreadsheet. It takes five minutes.

• Rows. The five criteria, plus up to two of your own.
• First column. Your weight for each row, from 1 to 3, set before any demo.
• One column per option. The score from 0 to 2, with a few words on what you saw.
• Bottom line. Weight times score for each row, added up.
• Above the table. Your knock-outs, with a pass or fail for each option.

What earns a 2 on each row

Score 0 when something was not offered or not shown. Score 1 when it was shown with a gap or a workaround. Score 2 only when you watched it work on your own content.

• Platform coverage. Every network you use was connected and published to in front of you.
• Calendar and queue. You saw your own week laid out and could tell what would go out next.
• Approval step. A draft from one person waited for another, and could not be published around them.
• Content supply. You left with posts you would publish, and you know where next week's will come from.
• After publishing. You saw where comments and messages arrive and which results are reported.

How the arithmetic works

Multiply each row's weight by its score and add the five results. A row weighted 3 and scored 2 contributes 6. A row weighted 1 and scored 2 contributes 2, which is how the sheet stops a pleasant extra from outvoting a need.

Work out your ceiling as well: the sum of your weights, doubled. With weights of 2, 3, 2, 3 and 2, the ceiling is 24. Reading each total against the ceiling tells you whether the leader is good or merely ahead. If nothing reaches about two-thirds of it, the honest result may be that no option on this shortlist fits.

Rows you add yourself

Five rows cover the work, not your circumstances. Add one or two rows of your own and weight them like the rest. Common additions are price, the number of accounts you need to connect, a mobile app, and a single scheduler feature you rely on, such as bulk upload.

Four rules that keep it fair

A scorecard is easy to bend toward the option you already like. These rules make that harder.

• Weights are frozen once demos start. If you want to change one afterward, write down why.
• Score what you saw. A promise on a call scores 0 until it is shown.
• One scorer, or the same pair, for every option. Different judges produce different totals for the same demo.
• Knock-outs override totals. A tool that fails a must-have is out, whatever it adds up to.

Scoring Link AI

Our recommendation, Link AI by Linkme, gets no pre-filled column. Linkme's page gives it something to show on every row: five named platforms, a planned week and a Publishing Queue, drafts a person approves, images and videos made by the agent, and reply drafts with Analytics afterward. Whether each becomes a 1 or a 2 depends on what you see with your own posts.

For rows you add, such as price, account numbers or bulk upload, this reference states nothing, so they start at 0 until shown. Print the sheet first. Book a demo to try Link AI, and write each score during the session, not after it.

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