What Is Social Media Scheduling?
Are you wondering how you can get your social media organised?
There are some fantastic tools available that can help you to plan and schedule your social media posts in advance!
A social media scheduling tool will save you time and the unnecessary stress of what should I post!
Even better? These tools aren’t limited just to Instagram but can be used for Twitter, Facebook & Linkedin too!
What Is Social Media Scheduling?
Scheduling your posts on social media is where you use a third party piece of software that allows you to upload your content, add captions and select the platform and time/date for your post to be published.
The best part? The tool will automatically publish the content for you!
Why Should You Use a Scheduling Tool?
When you manage a business, sometimes social media can seem like a chore and can often be neglected or forgotten. Social media platforms are an extremely valuable tool to communicate with your audience for many reasons, including customer service, promotion and aiding your brand awareness.
By using a scheduling tool, you can easily schedule all of your content WAY in advance. Months and months if you wish! By doing so, you can save yourself and your team a hell of a lot of time.
A scheduler works great if you have different team members involved in content creation, whether you have a graphic designer creating the content, a copywriter writing the caption and a senior member of the team approving it. Using a scheduling tool will ensure that content creation and approval are seamless because there is NOTHING worse than an unapproved post going out.
I also think it’s necessary to set boundaries with social media, and implementing these tools helps with that! The world of social media is 24/7, but that doesn’t mean you need to be on it 24/7.
What Is the Best Social Media Scheduling App?
There are many scheduling programs and software out there, some you have to pay for, and others free. I have pretty much tried them all!
Later
Free/pricing plans available
On the free version, you can post up to 30 posts per month, per social platform. If you wish to publish more there are paid plans available.
Preview App
Free/Pricing plans available
A great app to have the ability to visualise your feed and is mainly used via the app. Preview as a brand also shares great advice on Instagram and even have the option to add pre-written captions. (Although I do recommend writing your captions for authenticity!)
Buffer
Free/pricing plans available
Similar to Later, this tool has varying amounts of functionality based on the pricing plan you are on.
Hootsuite
Free/pricing plans available
What I would say is the original social media scheduler! An excellent tool if you are managing multiple accounts across multiple channels.
Facebook Creator Studio
Free
A great tool if you are new to this and want to schedule your posts to Instagram & Facebook. The platform is straightforward to use, and there are no limits on how many posts you can schedule ahead of time.
My Personal Favourite Scheduling Tool?
Sprout Social! A tool I use, and I LOVE IT. It’s a little more expensive but for everything we need to use it for it is perfect!
I also think one thing that Sprout is good at is creating content! Even if you are not a customer, I’d recommend checking out their Instagram and blog for some excellent advice!
Other Uses of Scheduling Tools
The great thing about scheduling tools is that they are often multi-purpose! In some cases, you will be able to plan your feed based on your grid’s visuals or by calendar view. You’ll also be able to use the reporting tools that are extremely useful to understand your accounts’ analytics all in one place.
I hope you found this blog post helpful, and you’ll start to save yourself time by using one of these fantastic scheduling tools!
Remember, you don’t need to be on social media 24/7! Utilise the scheduling tools to free up some of your valuable time.
BIG love,
Mary-Anne. X
p.s if you would like to check out more marketing tricks that I’ve been sharing on TikTok, you can view ALL of my videos here.
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