Failure to plan is a sign that you are planning to fail. Although Benjamin Franklin wasn’t talking about social media posting times when he said this, it is possible that he was thinking about shoe sizes.
It doesn’t matter if you have the most sophisticated social media strategy, but is it being shared when everyone will see it? Or, a better question is: Are your posts being seen by your target audience?
This is everything you need in order to determine the best social media posting plan for your company.
Bonus: Get a free social media calendar template that you can customize to organize and plan all of your posts ahead.
A posting schedule will help you stay organized and make sure you have enough content ready for your social media marketing campaigns. There is no one-size fits all schedule. Your industry and audience will determine the frequency and timing of your posts on social media.
This five-step guide will help you determine the best times to post on social networks. You’ll be armed with a complete plan to dominate social media.
1. Know your audience
This is the most important step. This is the most important step to make your social media calendar work.
Who are your target audiences? What times do they use the internet? Where and when do they go online? Do they spend their day on Twitter or do they scroll through Instagram to find doom? (Don’t you think we are all?)
Do not worry if your audience lives in a different time zone than you. Later we’ll discuss social media scheduling tools that allow you to auto-post your content at optimal times. (Hint: It’s Hootsuite. Hootsuite does this.
Many people blame the algorithm when content fails to perform.
Each social platform has an algorithm. This is a fancy way of saying “A system that aims at understanding what its users want and then delivers it to their screens.”
The algorithm that determines how often you post content is one factor.
Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri stated that two posts per week and two Stories per days are the best practices for success in June 2021.
This post is on Instagram
An Instagram post by @Creators (@creators).
TikTok recommends that you post at least once per day, and as many as four times per day for the best results. It may not seem like much, but it’s actually a lot of work.
Recency is a key algorithm factor for Facebook. Even when you combine other ranking factors, newer posts will always be given more weight. It is important to identify your target audience on Facebook so that you can post the appropriate content.
Check out our posts on each social media platform for more information about algorithms:
Guide to Instagram algorithmTwitter algorithm guideFacebook algorithms guideYouTube algorithm guideTikTok algorithm guideLinkedIn algorithm guide
3. Your campaigns should be planned in advance
You should plan ahead for your major product launches, announcements, and seasonal campaigns.
A high-level calendar is a great way to organize everything. This is not just for planning and writing your posts. This is an important part of your social media strategy. It will help you make sure you have everything you need.
It is your guide for what you should post and not just when.
You could make a list of all the things you need to do to ensure everything gets done on time, without any last-minute stress.
September
Draft copy for Black Friday/CyberMonday campaign posts>5 text posts7 photos/graphic ads1 video Ad
October
Create visual assets for the BF/CM campaign. Finalize by October 15th
November
Promote BF/CM posts and schedule them
Hootsuite allows you to plan campaigns directly with your team if you are more of a “amazing digital tools for getting things done better” type. Here’s how it works.
Bonus: Get a free social media calendar template that you can customize to organize and plan all of your posts ahead.
Get the template now!
4. Assess your performance
Although you can post at any time that is “hot”, this article and hundreds more online sources will allow you to do so, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the most convenient.
We have already discussed the importance of knowing where your audience is online. You also need to conduct experiments.
You might have a very average organic reach of 5% or 1 in 19 followers. But what if 6% could be seeing your posts! Or 7%? Or 10%? !
Your growth will be affected if you continue to post the same content on social media quarter after quarter and year after year.
You don’t have to change things drastically every week. To determine if your experiments are successful, you need a baseline. One experiment per month is a good idea. Try switching to a different posting day or time for a month, and see which one performs best.
It is possible to achieve big results by making small tweaks and experimenting over time. It’s like A/B testing social media.
5. TL;DR? Post at these times
This article has reached the cheat sheet section.
All of this is true. However, you shouldn’t post content randomly at times that you find online without conducting proper audience research.
Posting on social media is best done on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 10:00 am.
Is that possible when your audience is online? We don’t know!
This is a great place to start. However, it should be followed by a review of your audience research and analytics. This will enable you to create a custom and effective posting schedule that works for both your brand and your audience.
Free template: Social media posting schedule
Okay, now you know what your social media content strategy will be about. Now you know how to choose the right times to post to social media for your audience. How do you make this happen?
This free social media scheduling template has been created for Google Sheets. It’s easy to modify and share with your team.
Here are some ways to make the most of it:
Copy it
The file will open as a Google Sheet that is read-only. To edit the sheet, click File and then Make a Copy. The file will be saved to your Google account.
On the first tab you’ll find a tutorial on how to use it. You can delete this tab from your copy.
Modify it to suit your needs
This schedule displays one week of content planning on all major social media platforms.
Do not post on every social network. Remove rows. Do you want to post on rows that are not included? Add rows. You don’t need to post every day? You can edit the schedule. This should give you an idea. You can adapt the template to fit your business.
Once it is set up for your social media platforms and posting frequency and times, copy the rows and paste them so you can create a month’s worth content in the tab.
Next, copy that tab 11 times to create your social media content calendar for the year. #mindblown To do this, right-click the tab’s name and click Duplicate.
Dd your content
The best part is waiting. Start writing your social media content.
It doesn’t matter if you plan for weeks or months ahead. If you don’t have a content production plan, try to create content one week in advance. Large campaigns will require more planning.
This template provides suggestions for content types to post. These can range from sharing your blog post to posting a video or something curated. These content categories can be modified to reflect what you post.
Then, get to work.
These are just a few of the basic steps to planning your content. But this spreadsheet can do so much more. For more information on how to use this template, including how to create an evergreen content collection and other tips, see our detailed social media calendar guide.
Hootsuite makes scheduling all of your social media posts easy with one tool.
There are two options for scheduling your posts:
Upload IndividuallyBulk
You can use the Hootsuite Planner to schedule posts for each of your social media accounts. You can choose to post to one or more accounts, and you can edit your content so it looks great on each platform.
Hootsuite allows you to auto-post and schedule the following content formats:
Facebook feed postsInstagram feed postsInstagram StoriesTweetsLinkedIn postsYouTube videosPins (on Pinterest)
Here is a quick tutorial about how to schedule a Hootsuite post:
You don’t have the time? It’s easy. This is how you schedule a post in just three steps.
Step 1: Click Create in Hootsuite and then Pin (or Post) on the left-hand menu.
Step 2: Create your post.
Choose the platform you wish to post to, and then write or paste your content. You can add a link, photo or video, as well as other assets.
One feature that I love is the ability tag brands or people is the ability to tag them. For example, if you type @hootsuite it will prompt you to choose the account you want to tag on each platform. This will save you time and ensure that you are correctly tagging each account.
Step 3: Choose a time or let AutoScheduler handle it!
Hootsuite AutoScheduler determines the best time for you to post based upon your performance history, audience, and other factors. You can save drafts of your posts or post them immediately.
That’s all!
Hootsuite allows you to save time and upload up to 350 posts in one click.
This video explains how Hootsuite’s Bulk Composer works.
Bulk scheduling can be convenient, but there are best practices for each platform that will maximize your reach.
Find out more about bulk-scheduling social posts.
Hootsuite Planner
Hootsuite Planner allows you to view and modify your scheduled posts. It acts as your “mission control centre” for social media content.
In less than two minutes, here’s a video that shows you how to make the Planner tool work for you.
Hootsuite Best Times to Publish
Hootsuite’s Best Time To Publish feature is located under Analytics. It analyzes your past performance and shows you data about the best times to publish on each of your social media platforms.
There is no one “best” time for publishing for every goal, so this tool breaks down three main goals and suggests different times to publish them.
Building awarenessIncreasing engagementDriving Traffic
This will allow you to link each piece of content with business goals, and optimize your scheduling to maximize ROI. To justify Hootsuite, copy and paste that tech broetry sentence to the boss.
Hootsuite Team account holders and above have the option to publish at the best time.
Hootsuite Social Advertising
Hootsuite Social Advertising allows you to manage both organic and paid content. You’ll save time scheduling and get a complete picture of your social media results through unified analytics, including ROI reporting.
Seeing both the organic and paid results together will allow you to make informed decisions and quickly edit active campaigns.
Hootsuite Social Advertising offers more information about how to optimize your social media advertising.
Hootsuite’s content planning and scheduling tools will help you take control of your social media. Register now for a free account.
Get Started
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Hootsuite makes it easy to manage all of your social media from one place, and you can save time.
It’s free to try >> How to create a social media posting schedule (Free template and tools).
