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• by videoenvy

Scheduling Social Media Posts

Scheduling social media posts can give you a big boost against your competitors by having consistency in your digital platforms. We live in an instant world, where people are constantly connecting online and social media is a big part of that. But why should you bother to plan ahead and schedule social media posts rather than posting whenever you remember about it? Scheduling social media posts makes consistency, convenience and the quality of your content so easy it’s almost mindless.

Consistency
Scheduling social media posts helps you stay consistent in your digital posts and stay top-of- mind for your clients. Think of when you scroll through your social media feed. Every account is trying to get your attention. And the accounts you actually remember are the ones posting consistently. You don’t want to be that account that people follow because you have cool content but then forget about you because you never pop up in their feed. Scheduling social media posts is the easiest way to stay consistent in your online presence even during weekends, holidays, vacations, sick days, etc. It’s a fool-proof plan!

Convenience
Nobody wants to complicate their life for no reason. Scheduling social media posts provides you the convenience and flexibility you need to focus more on other aspects of your business rather than spending your day tweeting or stressing that you’re not tweeting enough. Convenience is a currency in business and scheduling social media posts can set you up for success in the future without sacrificing living in the present. Future you will thank you.

Quality content
It’s no secret that completing a task without the pressure of a deadline gives you more time and headspace to deliver a higher quality product. The same goes for digital content. Scheduling social media posts gives you the time you need to make sure the post you’re about to send out is the best post it can possibly be. No misspellings, no auto-correct fails, because you’re not rushing to post something before you leave for the weekend. And even if you see something wrong on a scheduled post, you can always go back and edit it before it gets posted online!

Scheduling programs
Here are some programs you can use to do that.

For Facebook, you actually don’t need any special tools. You can do it directly from the Facebook page. Simply start writing a post as if you’re about to publish it, then click on the arrow by the “Publish” button. This will bring up a calendar and you can choose when you want your post published.

For other social media platforms you’re going to have to use a separate scheduling tool. But thankfully there’s a plethora of resources out there to choose from. They range from free and basic tools but pricier more elaborate ones, all depending on what’s best for you and your business.

1. Later – this app has a free option with more limited resources, or you can buy one of their plans that offer more options. You can still schedule social media posts with the free plan, but you can’t schedule stories or a carousel post on Instagram. But if you’re looking for a place to start, this is perfect to get a taste for the process.
2. Hootsuite – this is one of the most well-known in the social media marketing world. Hootsuite has tiered plans ranging from a free plan up to $600/month. Again, the plan best suited for you depends entirely on your business and your goals.
3. TweetDeck – TweetDeck is a free, simple dashboard but it is exclusive to Twitter. If Twitter is where you primarily operate, this is one of the best tools. It allows you to schedule content, choose your own thumbnails for videos and much more.

These are just a few of the social media dashboards out there. Research and find one that works best for you and your business’ needs.