Why You Should Schedule social media posts and How To do it
Some say Las Vegas is the city that never sleeps, but Vegas is nothing compared to social media. Social media is a busy world. It is on all the time and if you’re not careful you can easily get sucked up into the cycle of constant posting and scrolling and it can be very, very time-consuming.
Or.. you could forget about doing all of those things, resulting in damage on your social media pages instead.
It’s a fine balance and very difficult to manage, but with social media scheduling, your life can become less stressful and you can feel like you’re ahead of it instead of always feeling like you’re behind
Why You Should Schedule social media posts and How To do it
Scheduling your posts is a great way to avoid the problems mentioned above plus to make sure your social media posts are being made at the right times to get the highest engagement.
By having social media posts created and consistently scheduled in advance, you also ensure that your social media pages are up and running even if something would happen to the person running them.
A lot of social media platforms have introduced the ability to create posts in advance, for example, Instagram drafts and Facebook scheduled post, so why would you prefer third-party tools instead? Well, the best reason is that you can manage all your social media accounts at the same time with scheduling services, which saves a ton of time and helps you keep track of everything better.
On the market today, there are two primary social media management tools for scheduling your posts. Those are Hootsuite and Buffer.Both tools can connect to several different social media networks including Facebook and Twitter. They also both have link shortening tools and analytics tracking tools for shortened links.
Both of these tools offer the ability to connect several social media accounts from different platforms at the same time – including Twitter and Facebook. On top of that, they offer rich insights on how you’re performing on social media plus link shortening which is super useful for link tracking.
1. Hootsuite
Hootsuite has a large number of free features on their website, and most importantly, you can schedule a large amount of social media posts for free! You also have the ability to connect several of your social media accounts at the same time for free. In addition, a generic monthly report on your social media campaigns is sent to all free accounts. With Hootsuite, you can schedule posts as far in advance as you’d like and minimum five minutes in advance.There are also multiple types of paid plans for businesses of different sizes, allowing teams to collaborate on social media and send each other internal messages about specific campaigns.
Of course, you can also choose from different types of paid plans. There are plans for businesses of different sizes so teams can work together on social media and send each other internal messages about specific campaigns.
Some examples what you can use Hootsuite for:
- Manage your social posting scheduling
- Monitor social mentions of your brand
- Engage with fans and followers as a result of mentions or retweets, etc.
- Monitor social mentions for certain keywords
- To monitor your social performance
2. Buffer
Buffer is another social media post scheduling tool but as with Hootsuite, it can do a lot more than that. It’s suggested scheduled times for posts are incredibly useful; when you sign up, the site will automatically calculate the best times of day for you to be posting content. Buffer also offers several analytical tools for you to measure the result of your social media efforts. There are multiple paid plans for businesses of different sizes.
Buffer, as Hootsuite offer several paid plans for businesses in all sizes.
You have the ability to schedule social media posts as far in advance as you like, but free accounts can only schedule 10 posts at a time. If you want to schedule posts further ahead you’ll have to pay for one of the premium membership plans.
If you want to schedule more posts further ahead, you have to pay for a membership plan. I
Do you have any other social media scheduling tools to recommend? Let us know about them in the comment section below!
