Life is certainly not easy for a digital marketer. From content to SEO and from new marketing tools to scheduling of posts, a digital marketer has to take care of so many tasks.
A social media scheduling tool is perhaps the most important thing a social marketer can use to maintain an effective posting schedule.
Tone problems, typos, and other issues can affect the post in the last minute.
As a digital marketer if you dedicate a set time to create, proofread, and schedule the posts, then your workflow will be smooth. The best part is there’ll be no stress related to posting on social media platforms.
When you use a social media scheduler, you’ll be able to effectively plan your content mix. It allows you to choose a set time for posting so that your reach can grow over time. It helps you to reinforce social messaging across all social media sites.
Here Are Some Steps to Create a Social Media Posting Schedule:
- Start by conducting a social media audit
The social media auditing process is a process of classifying all your social media accounts. You’ll be able to track information like social handles for each account, key demographics for an account, goals for each account, and who is responsible for each account.
With the social media trends, you’ll be able to create up to date inventory for your social media accounts. As a part of your social media audit, you’ll know how often you are posting on your different social websites. The audit process will give you a clear picture of post engagement and conversions.
- Use social listening
After your audit process, its time to use the social listening and social monitoring tool. Using social listening, you’ll be able to understand how the brands approach social media scheduling.
It is a great source of competitive intelligence that guides your overall scheduling strategy. You need to make a list of all the brands and relevant businesses in your industry.
Use the tool Hootsuite stream that’ll help you to monitor the content mix and social posting frequency.
- Decide on the frequency of post
There is no set rule for posting on social media. You need to decide on the frequency of the post looking at the engagement level of the post and competition from other brands.
Don’t pay attention to your frequency. Rather pay attention to the frequency of your social media posts. The more consistent you are with your schedule, the better it’ll be for your conversions.
If you stick to a schedule for posting, your followers will also know what they need to expect from you. Scheduling your posts in advance will allow you to stick to a time frame.
The content that you post should also be superior. You won’t be able to maintain the interest of your followers with subpar posts.
- Decide on the posting time
The social media scheduling tools allow you to schedule posts at an optimal time depending on the audience. The ideal time for posting normally depends on the location, interest, and demographics of the audience.
You need to keep close eyes on analytics to understand what will work for the audience. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter platforms are ideally suited for B2B brands.
Best time to post on Instagram depends on separate analysis as there are many industry types such as fashion, media, retail, food, health care, personal care, technology, and entertainment.
So, the posting time depends on your segment or industry. The idea is to post at such a time that it reaches your audience when they are online.
- Focus on your content
One of the key aspects of social media scheduling is to decide which content to post. The right content mix will help you to get the right kind of exposure on social sites.
Follow the 80:20 rule for your content. Your 80% of posts should be designed in such a way that they inform, educate, or entertain the audiences.
The remaining 20% of posts should focus on driving conversions and promotion of business. You also have the option of sharing the curated content from the industry thought experts.
One-third of the social posts should also follow a personal interaction with followers.
How to Use Free Social Media Scheduler?
Many social media networks allow the use of social media schedulers and tools. Hootsuite is the best and most popular social media scheduler. It offers flexible tools that give you complete control over your social media posting schedule.
It comes with an intuitive calendar view that gives a complete picture of social activity each week. It lets you identify the gaps in the postng plan and also lets you check for any overlaps. In addition to its extensive range of features, Hootsuite also offers a powerful tweet scheduler, enabling users to efficiently plan and publish tweets across multiple accounts at optimal times.
Other than this, you also have an option of Hootlet Chrome Extension that easily allows you to create scheduled posts from the relevant content.
Scheduling Social Media Post at a Single Time
Using the Hootsuite
With the help of Hootsuite composer, you’ll be able to schedule the posts for all your social media platforms. Follow these steps:
- from the Hootsuite dashboard, click on the new post option.
- Now, select from the list of the social network you want to post to.
- Compose your message and check the preview on the right side.
- Click on the schedule for later option and choose the publishing date and time.
There is an auto-schedule option that you can choose as well. Click done and your post is ready as per the schedule chosen.
Scheduling Social Media Posts in Bulk
Follow these steps:
- Using the Hootsuite dashboard, click on the paper airplane icon.
- Click on content on top and then bulk message upload.
- On the right side, click download example to access CSV social media schedule template and format.
- Open CSV files in Google sheet to enter the information on social media posts.
- Return to the bulk message scheduler and choose CSV files with scheduled posts.
- Choose the social networks along with the date and format you used. Click on review messages.
- You’ll receive a notification if there are errors in your CSV files. Fix mistakes if any, review and click schedule all message.
With the help of a planner, you’ll be able to see the posts in the calendar format. Make necessary adjustments when needed.
To Conclude:
Social media posting can be a time-consuming job for a digital marketer. So, a social media schedule tool is truly handy. If you are a digital marketer, you don’t have to worry about your posting anymore.
Once you create content, you’ll be able to set a time of posting on all your social media accounts. The best part is that the tools and templates are easy to use so you don’t require any technical expertise to use scheduling.
There are also many other WordPress plugins that a social media marketer should be aware of. Use the required plugins and tools to increase your website reach.
