Are you maximizing the benefits or hindering your social media posts? You’re likely to be less productive if you are stressed about it or don’t have one.
Social media marketers need to have a schedule for posting on social media.
hbspt.forms.create({ region: “na1”, portalId: “8477337”, formId: “7b5bb39f-cd97-4a83-9934-a41acb1ccb5e”> At my marketing agency, we don’t create social media posting schedules because it sounds good. They are created to help us work more efficiently and manage our busy schedules.
This article will share some Contentworks Agency tips on creating a schedule of social media posts for each client.
Let’s take a look at what you should include and what to leave out.
What is a Social Media Posting Schedule and How Does It Work?
Simply put, a social media posting calendar allows you to schedule posts to go live at specific times and on certain days in the future.
Marketers may have their posting schedules in an Excel spreadsheet, or a shared Google Drive document. Some marketers use an Excel spreadsheet or shared Google Drive document to organize their social media postings.
You can create social media posts in batches by creating a schedule. Scheduling social media posts is an efficient way to work. This allows you to quickly complete posts and then move on to more important tasks.
What other benefits are there for marketers who set up a schedule of social media posts?
These are the five most important benefits.
1. Approvals can be obtained in advance
As someone who works in finance, I know that social media content must be approved by legal or compliance before it can be posted. A client can be fined if they post a non-compliant or slippy comment.
You can schedule posts ahead of time so they are approved quickly and don’t disrupt your social media calendar. Agorapulse is a social media management platform that allows me to send posts to be approved or share an offline calendar.
2. Collaboration with your team is key
Social media calendars are decentralized. This means that social media managers can access them from anywhere in the world. This is an important feature for social media management especially since many social media managers work from home or in a hybrid workplace/home environment.
A single calendar that is accessible to all avoids filing conflicts, confusion, and missed posts. You can also collaborate with videographers or designers on future post assets.
3. Avoid micro-managing your agency director
Many agency directors don’t want to micromanage their staff members. (I don’t!) How can you ensure that all the work has been completed and that posts are ready for posting? What if your client calls you directly, and not your social media manager?
Agency directors can see the whole agency from one place by having posts planned in advance on a decentralized calendar. They can view all scheduled posts from one location without having to log in or leave different platforms. This is a big win.
If a member of your team is ill, you might want to look at social media posts. You might also want to supervise a client for a few months.
Quick reports can be pulled up to show you the most popular content. This will allow you to influence the direction of your future posts.
4. Protect holiday periods
You can use a social media scheduling tool to cover holiday leave for your staff and yourself. You might even be able to take a vacation. (Yes, really! Managers of social media need to find a balance between work and personal life.
You can also plan ahead to cover for unexpected absences of team members.
5. You can manage different time zones and events easier
Social media scheduling tools are great because you can plan according to your audience. It doesn’t matter if you live in Europe or the USA. Your posts can be set to appear on their feeds at the correct time. You can also choose the best days and times based on each business’s nature.
These food posts will show you why timing is important. A quick and easy pull-pizza video can make it so we place orders right away. It’s important that it arrives on our social media at the right moment.
Trending events
This Pizza Hut post was intended to reach my social media during World Cup viewing. This is smart planning as we want to just be watching the game on the couch, so a pizza is a great addition. These posts will need graphics, images, landing pages, coupon systems, and possibly even images. It is important to plan ahead.
Offers specific to the day
These are huge hits on social media. You don’t even need to be online to create a schedule for your social media posts. You can prepare all of your content ahead of time for #WineWednesday and #TacoTuesday.
Certain food hashtags are getting a lot of attention, especially on Instagram and Facebook. Timing your offer at the right time can increase your Social Media ROI.
Special days
You can schedule posts on specific days and even launch social media campaigns. Cadbury Dairy Milk was thrilled to participate in #WorldCupcakeDay. The company showed us how to make triple-chocolate surprise cupcakes by displaying their delicious chocolate.
It’s possible to check out the trending days in advance, plan your content, and schedule them. If you plan to host an event, launch a product or host a podcast, this is a great idea.
Tip for social media scheduling:
Your audience demographics will determine the best time to post. To see which times your audience is most interested in your posts, you can consult your content calendar. You can then tailor your posts to those times. To see engagement stats, you can click on older posts!
Food brands will need to tempt customers before meals or on weekends. Luxury brands will be careful to schedule posts before major shopping holidays such as Valentine’s Day, Christmas, and Thanksgiving. When people are in cash crunch after Christmas, finance brands will often advertise credit cards and overdraft services in January. If you have social media posts scheduled in your calendar, be careful. You might need to cancel or reschedule social media posts in the event of bad news or shock announcements.
This is where the fun begins! This is the fun part! To decide what content will be included, review the client’s social marketing strategy, KPIs and target audience.
We can also look at past content performance, their resources and events in their industry.
Here are some more ideas for scheduling:
A monthly overview should include evergreen content. Next, plan a weekly program that will include more current topics and time-sensitive events. Your goal should be to entertain, educate and network with your audience and other influencers. Promotion should not exceed 20%. This means that only 20% of posts should be promoted. Examine the best time and day for publication and plan your schedule accordingly.
Social media should not be all about promotion. This is a fast way to lose your audience, or make them forget you forever! One out of five posts should contain a promotion.
You can trust evergreen posts as your friend
An evergreen blog post is one that can be used throughout the year. It’s not time-sensitive and won’t go obsolete.
These are some good examples of evergreen posts:
Articles that provide how-to information about your products and services. You can also link to your blog or repeat posts using a different image or GIF. You can link to previous blogs that rank well. To find the top 20 blogs, you can simply do a quick Google analytics panel scan. Make sure that the information is current and relevant. You can update and share top blogs. About your brand or sector. A funny GIF or meme about your sector.
Posts that are time sensitive
Some things are not always relevant. There are news, trends and events that your brand can talk about.
These are some posts that you can schedule ahead using your social media calendar for more urgent posts.
Holidays such as Christmas or Halloween. You should keep in mind that each sector has its own holidays or important dates. You can repeat this post, but only within the appropriate timeframe. Updates on charities that you work with or CSR efforts by your company. Industry stats and polls. These have a maximum validity of one year, according to me. The stat may be outdated if you post 2020 stats in 2023.
Your brand can announce new product launches (These can be promoted in advance via coming soon posts or drip feeds with product information. Trends in your industry It is not a good idea to plan short-term trends that are over in a matter of hours. These can be posted immediately. You can also look at recurring hashtags or topics that are relevant to your audience. You can schedule your contests, offers, and new products.
Tip for social media scheduling:
Consider changing the text and images you use if you plan to post repeat content. This will keep your audience interested and fresh in your content. Netflix does the same thing with their movies.
Yes, you do need a social media calendar.
Let’s now see how to make it.
Post scheduling should be guided by your content marketing strategy and social marketing strategy. If you are an agency, you will probably have a guide that you can use for each client.
Your social media schedule should follow the directions you have given for each account on the various social networks. Be consistent! Fans can be alienated if you are inconsistent. This could be too many posts at once, or not enough posts for several weeks.
How to schedule social media posts
You agreed on a posting frequency with the client when you started. For example, 3x Facebook, 25x Twitter, 3X Insta and 3X LinkedIn posts per week. If you have a service level agreement, make sure you read it! When the posts should go out. Forex marketing, for example, is typically Monday through Friday when the markets open. Retail often requires posts on weekends and evenings. The best times and dates. Any approvals or authorizations required before posting.Which images or videos will be used and if they need to be prepared. Do some competitor research and establish listening parameters. You’ll get valuable insights into your social media scheduling by using competitive listening.
Tip for social media scheduling:
You can save client hashtags to hashtag lists so that you can insert them in future posts. They can be edited or deleted, but it will save you the effort of typing them each time. You can make as many hashtag sets you like!
Do some competitor research if you haven’t done so already.
You can use listening to competitive research to gain valuable insights for your social media scheduling.
Here are some things to remember when you social listen
These are some points you should include:
Find out when your competitors post and which ones get the most engagement. You will need to consider your geographic regions. However, if they are similar, it is possible to compare which hashtags, keywords and topics perform best for them. Fun posts may be most popular on Friday afternoons while education might perform best during the week. Follow them to see user-created posts.
Once you have done your research, you can add social listening parameters to your Agorapulse dashboard. You can track if your competitor is getting lots engagement using a set hashtags.
You can save your hashtags to hashtag group and insert them easily into future posts. It is possible to edit and delete them. This will also save you time typing them each time.
You can make as many hashtag sets you like!
There is no right or incorrect answer. You can start small and not know your demographics.
Facebook pages: 2-3 per weekTwitter: 3-5 times per dayInstagram: 1-3 times per weekInstagram Stories: 2-3 times per weekLinkedIn: 2 times per weekTikTok: 1 video per week
After a few months of posting you can look into your analytics to find out where and when your audience is engaged. You can transfer resources if you get more Instagram hits than Facebook.
Your social media content calendar can help you plan for future purchases and content ideas.
Social Media Post Scheduling Tips and Tricks
Once you have a good idea of where and what you are posting to, it is time to schedule your content.
Agorapulse makes it easy to create a social media calendar.
These are my top features and platform hacks.
Share your calendar with clients and colleagues by creating a link.
You can create social media content, and share it with others who don’t have Agorapulse. These users can see the scheduled content that you have assigned to them and accept or reject it. They can also add comments to the content and then assign it back to you.
This works well for agencies with clients who want to have their clients review the content you schedule. The best part about a shared calendar is that recipients can’t delete or create new content. You have full control and can reject them with a comment.
Scheduled posts can be edited or deleted
Just as you were about to announce a new product launch. But the date was pushed back. It’s no problem. You can simply change the date to make it later. This can be useful if there is too much work on one day, or you have a gap in your schedule. To edit a post, locate it in your calendar by clicking the pencil icon.
You can also modify the date or time of your posts by clicking on the calendar.
Multiple channels can be published simultaneously
All your social media accounts can be published simultaneously. Make sure you select the right accounts from the left sidebar. You cannot simultaneously publish to multiple Twitter account. This is because Twitter has its own rules to stop spam accounts. Agorapulse won’t allow you to do this, so you’re fine!
Repost content on Twitter, and set up different time zones for scheduling
I repeat tweets on Twitter, and schedule them for different days or times. Twitter is very fast with more than 350,000 tweets per minute. This means that your message could easily be lost.
Agorapulse allows you to schedule repeats at the exact same time as the original post. You can also click the clock and change the times for each post.
You have the option to schedule once, republish frequently, or schedule again.
Schedule again is a great way to remind yourself about an upcoming contest or event. For solid company information and long-lasting content, the republishregularly option can be a great choice. If you so desired, you could schedule it every 20 days or 100 times. It’s not necessary, but it’s still very cool.
How to Post on Social Media: What We Have Learned
Social media posting is collaborative. Social media managers and writers can plan and schedule content. Designers and videographers have the ability to view the calendar and see which assets are needed. Clients can approve or assign posts to other members of the team. Developers can view your calendar to let you know when features are launching. HR can remind you about company milestones and events that you should post.
Are you ready to learn more about Agorapulse as a social media scheduling tool? Register now to get a free trial!
