Having an online presence isn’t an option but a necessity for many businesses. Besides that, mastering the art of social media can be a game-changer for fresh entrepreneurs and established companies alike. Therefore, one of the key steps toward achieving that is learning how to schedule social media posts optimally.
In this article, we’ll show you how scheduling social media posts allows you to harness the full potential of these incredible platforms. You’ll learn what this process is about, what its main benefits are, and how you can use it to your advantage. Without further ado, let’s dive right in!
What Does It Mean to Schedule Social Media Posts, and Why Should You Do It?
Before we get into the intricacies of social media post-scheduling, let’s first find out what it actually is and why you should be interested in the process.
#1. Save Time
One of the primary goals of scheduling social media posts is to save time. Doing it by automating routine tasks can directly help you increase profits in business.
By setting aside a specific amount of time to schedule content ahead of time, you’ll save yourself the trouble of having to do so every day or even a couple of times per day. Such fragmentation of simple assignments typically leads to a waste of time and resources that could otherwise be spent in a more productive way.
#2. Post Consistently
Consistency is the key when posting on social media. A steady stream of content on these platforms leads to growth in following, user engagement, leads, sales, and more.
When you schedule social media posts, you ensure that you’ll have a post ready and uploaded at a specified time, regardless of the circumstances at that moment. This regularity can help you build a loyal following that will grow to expect and look forward to your content.
#3. Plan Ahead
Social media schedulers make it easier to plan ahead and take a strategic approach to your posts and accounts. You can create an entire strategy around an upcoming event, a product drop, a sale, a promotion, etc.
This allows you to align your social media game plan with your business efforts. By making sure that everything is synchronized, you’ll always be one step ahead instead of adjusting on the go and potentially missing significant opportunities.
For instance, say that you’re following the 4-1-1 rule of uploading four entertaining/educational posts, one soft sell post, and then one hard sell post. By planning ahead, you can get the most out of this method by ensuring everything goes smoothly and is coordinated with content marketing strategies.
#4. Reduce the Chance of Errors
By posting on your social media in real time, you always risk making a mistake. These can be anything from making a typo when writing a caption to missing a hashtag or even uploading to the wrong account.
When you schedule social media posts in advance, you can take the time to double-check everything, polish your writing, and ensure that there are no mistakes. Once the first post goes live and you verify that everything is in order, you can rest assured that the rest of your content will follow suit.
#5. Improve Flexibility and Creativity
Using a social media scheduling tool to upload content removes the pressure of doing so daily, allowing more space for creativity, in addition to saving time. It allows you to focus on brainstorming ideas and coming up with even better content and strategies for the future.
On top of that, you get additional flexibility to manage your campaigns and make adjustments and improvements while they are running. You can review uploaded posts and decide whether you need to adapt the upcoming content to better align with your brand’s voice, message, and goals.
How to Schedule Social Media Posts With Publer
Publer offers an all-in-one solution to all your social media scheduling and automation needs. Let’s see how you can start scheduling content in minutes with our tool:
#1. Create a Free Publer Account
To create an account with Publer, you only need an email address. You can also easily connect with your Facebook/Meta, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn accounts, Gmail, or Apple iCloud email.
After that, you’ll be asked a few questions that will help optimize your account, such as what role best describes you and how you intend to use Publer. Following that, you’ll get to create a workspace and select your industry before adding your social media accounts.
#2. Connect Your Social Media Account
The next step is to connect your social accounts if you haven’t done so during the sign-up process. You can do that via the Social Accounts section on the sidebar.
Choose the platform you want to connect with Publer, and you’ll be redirected to it with a prompt to provide authorization. After that, you can return to Publer and connect your account.
You can repeat the process to connect additional accounts.
#3. Create a Post
You’ll find the Create option on the sidebar of your Publer account. You can choose the platform, the account, and the type of content that you want to create.
From there, you’ll be making the post as usual. You can do everything yourself, including writing the caption and adding hashtags, or take advantage of the built-in AI assist capability. It can help you brainstorm ideas, rephrase your writing, tailor it to specific audiences, and more.
#4. Create a Schedule
Once you finish crafting, you can post your creation immediately or use the scheduling option.
Publer offers four types of scheduling, which are:
- Manual, which allows you to define all the specifics
- AutoSchedule, where you can select from the available timeslots, making it perfect for creating bulks of content
- Recycle, which is ideal for reuploading pieces that performed well
- Recurring, which is excellent for promotions, contests, giveaways, and similar occasional events
5 Pro Tips for Scheduling Social Media Posts
Here are some expert tips and guidelines that can help you get the most out of social media post-scheduling.
#1. Decide How Often You Should Post
Before you create a schedule to follow, you should first come up with an optimal strategy, which involves deciding how often you should post. The social media game is about finding the right balance between engaging your audience and not overwhelming them with your content and presence.
How much you should post depends on your goals, plans, and resources, as well as on the social media platform. Twitter, for example, might require several posts per day, while on Instagram, it’s enough to post once a day or even just a couple of times per week.
#2. Organize Your Content
You should organize your content before scheduling it for posting. That way, you can create a cohesive arrangement that is consistent with your goals and strategy.
By using a content calendar, you can visualize how you’re going to upload posts over time. That will allow you to create an optimal blend of entertaining, educational, and promotional content and get the most out of it.
Ultimately, good organization helps you avoid creating a monotonous feed and schedule. It contributes to keeping your brand’s message fresh and vibrant, maximizing your reach and engagement while keeping everything aligned with your long-term goals.
#3. Create a List of Hashtags and Relevant Keywords
Hashtags and keywords can be the difference that makes your posts go viral or get buried by the social media algorithm. They can be essential in boosting the discoverability and reach of your brand and content, thus directly impacting your engagement and sales.
Before you start posting, you should conduct research to find the best-performing hashtags and keywords in your niche. Once you have a list ready, you can apply it to all of the upcoming posts or tailor it to be a better fit in specific instances.
#4. Monitor Metrics
Monitoring the performance of your posts and campaigns is one of the best ways to improve them. Once you have a batch of posts scheduled for uploading, you should focus on metrics like reach, likes, shares, comments, and more.
You should analyze the posts that performed best, compare them to those that underperformed, pay attention to when your audience is most active, etc. That way, you can discover areas where you can improve. The ongoing analysis will help refine your strategy and align your goals with the audience’s needs.
#5. Pay Attention to the Trends
Keeping up with the latest trends is vital to staying relevant and creating engaging content on social media. Many social media trends can have a high impact on your business, but they are short-lived and need to be capitalized on as fast as possible.
By having a consistent schedule with your social media posting and pending content, you can make quick changes when needed and adapt the current campaign to the latest trends. This can include everything from adjusting relevant hashtags and keywords to modifying your posts to follow a trending format or theme.
How to Create a Social Media Posting Schedule
Creating an optimal social media posting schedule involves three crucial steps. Let’s find out what they are.
#1. Identify Your Target Audience
The first step to success on social media is identifying your target audience. You need to understand what your target demographic wants to see and get from your profile to deliver it in the best way possible.
This revolves around analyzing their interests and preferences, figuring out what time of day they are most active, finding patterns in their online behaviors, etc. If you’re only starting, one of the easiest ways to do so involves checking out your competitors and looking into their audiences.
The knowledge you gather will help you create content that resonates with the people you’re trying to reach, improving your engagement and driving business success.
#2. Utilize Relevant Social Media Channels
A big part of the success of social media is utilizing the right channels. Different platforms are designed for various types of content and typically cater to distinct audiences.
For example, a lot of users browse Pinterest to get creative ideas or to plan their purchases. On the other hand, people go to TikTok to enjoy entertaining short-form video content.
If your main goal is professional networking, you might want to prioritize LinkedIn above other platforms. However, if you want to leverage the visual aspect of your brand and business, Instagram could be the platform for you.
#3. Use Scheduling Tools
Scheduling tools allow you to take full advantage of social media automation. They allow for more than just scheduling; there are entire suites of valuable features. For instance, Publer allows you to design visual content from scratch and then preview posts in real time before scheduling them in bulk.
On top of that, you can take advantage of an AI assist tool to craft and edit content with ease, as well as leverage calendar view and data-driven analytics to optimize your campaigns.
4 Benefits of Scheduling Social Media Posts with Publer
Scheduling social media posts with Publer brings a ton of other benefits, such as:
- Targeting audiences in different time zones. Instead of staying awake to post during odd hours, you can simply schedule content, which will be up and running whenever you want.
- Reaching a wider audience. By scheduling your posts to go live at optimal times, you’ll be able to reach a broader audience even when you cannot post in real time.
- Maintaining consistent posting. Consistency is key in social media management, and having a bunch of content lined up by Publer to be automatically published ensures you won’t miss a day.
- Experiment with different strategies. The time and resources saved on making a campaign allow you to create several different ones to test their viability and performance.
Conclusion
Scheduling social media posts is one of the best ways to supercharge your content distribution and marketing efforts. It is no longer a convenience; it’s a powerful tool for maintaining a strategic edge over the competition.
Publer can help you achieve that effortlessly while providing you with a ton of additional features to elevate your strategy. Whether you’re a personal content creator or a large-scale brand, you’ll gain unprecedented levels of control over your campaigns, freeing valuable time and resources to focus on other aspects of your business.
Schedule Social Media Posts FAQ
#1. Can I schedule social media posts for free?
You can schedule social media posts for free with certain limitations. For instance, Publer allows you to have up to three social accounts with a free plan. It also allows you to have 10 pending scheduled posts per account and 25 drafts.
#2. Do scheduled social media posts get fewer views?
Scheduled social media posts don’t get any fewer views than regular, day-to-day uploaded content. They behave like regular ones in every capacity. Their performance depends on standard factors, such as the quality of content, the niche, hashtags, followers, etc.
#3. What is the best way to schedule social media posts?
The best way to schedule social media posts is to use an automation platform like Publer. You can save a ton of time and resources by using handy features like bulk scheduling, calendar view, AI assist, media integrations, and more.
Ervin Kalemi
