5 Reasons To Schedule Your Social Media Posts
Did you know you don’t have to be right at your computer or phone in order for statuses and photos to be posted to your professional social media feeds? You can schedule them to send out at a specific time, on a specific day, far in advance. This is a strategy I lean on a lot, as I have way too many things to get done in a day to be on social media all day, getting distracted.
ENTERTAINING NEW AUDIENCES
The wonderful things about the internet is that you can reach anyone in the world… Including those who live in different time zones or work different schedules. By scheduling social media posts at different hours than you would normally post when/if awake, you have a chance of reaching new audiences that might now have found you otherwise.
REUSING IDEAS
Just because you posted something once doesn’t mean your entire fanbase has seen it (let’s be real, not with our current algorithms). Besides, with the amount of content consumed by an individual on the internet each day, they might not even remember having seen the same article, photo, or quote before.
By scheduling your social media content ahead of time, you can plan how often to recycle the same statuses, so as not to place them too close together while still filling your calendar.
ILLNESS AND INJURY
Early this past fall, I got a concussion. For those of you who have never experienced the thrill (can you detect the sarcasm?) of your ankle deciding to not do its job while stepping off a bus, collapsing, hitting your head on the sidewalk, and waking up confused to the sweet taste of downtown concrete and a circle of concerned Good Samaritans – this is what the healing process looks like: a month without screen time.
A sudden injury like this that keeps me on the sidelines for such a long time would have been devastating in terms of algorithm cred if I wasn’t someone who planned an entire’s month worth of social media content ahead of time. I suggest you do the same.
BROKEN ELECTRONICS
The day after I was recovered from my concussion enough to use my computer again, my laptop broke down… And needed 14 days away in the care of Apple’s Genius Bar. No! No! No!
Social media algorithms favour consistent posting. Technology is great when it works… Please give yourself a safety cushion by scheduling a few social media posts over the coming week just in case.
WORK/LIFE BALANCE
Last but not least, let’s talk about all important work life balance. As a professional, a creative, an entrepreneur, a human being of any sort, you (hopefully) do not have the time to possibly be at your screen at all hours (including peak hours in other timezones). By using an hour of your Sunday evening to schedule at last a post a day for the coming week, you take the stress off your back of having to come up with creative, original content on the spot, letting you focus on the bigger projects that truly matter, along with more time to engage in the comments section with your audience.
You can schedule your Facebook and Instagram posts internally within the platforms, and others such as Twitter and LinkedIn are friendly to third party apps. While scheduling can never fully your real life existence, these five ways listed above show the value of having this tool in your in your hands.
Colourfully Yours,
– Clarence