Ask yourself – how many times do you get up in the morning and feel the panic setting in? Why? Because you haven’t thought about the day’s posts, let alone had time for social media scheduling! You then spend too much time casting around for ideas before you post something because you think you should.
You’ve probably heard about social media scheduling. You might even know that you should be doing it. But why is it that people find it so daunting? Why is it that people find it difficult to adopt this particular habit?
5 tips to get you started
How to get started with social media scheduling is something we’re often asked about. As well as how to turn said scheduling into part of your business routine.
So we’ve put together five tips to get you started into this handy infographic! But to take these points a step further:
Scheduling tools
There are a huge range of tools out there, and some particularly well-known names include Buffer, Hootsuite and ContentCal (which we use ourselves). Most are all fairly similar in terms of functionality, but they are all slightly different in terms of look and feel, and of course how they work. So the key is to try them out. See which works best for you. Which feels most comfortable. And then you can get to work on turning the actual social media scheduling, into an embedded habit!
Set time aside each week
This is a good habit to get into. You don’t have to schedule your whole week ahead of time – even having a couple of scheduling sessions each week will help you to concentrate your efforts, and in doing so, save time in the long run! It will also start to create better consistency in how your socials are presented.
Plan ahead
While you don’t need to actually schedule more than a few days or a week ahead, it’s really beneficial to have an outline a little further into the future. We tend to have a plan for each whole month, especially if we’re running a campaign. While this doesn’t always drill down to the full content of each post, it does allow us to know, in advance, what topic(s) we might talk about on each day. Again, this will improve consistency of content and of message, as well as making you feel more in control of what you’re putting out there, why, and of course when.
Awareness Days
‘Sales’-type posts are only a small part of a social media presence – it’s also important to get involved in the ‘bigger picture’, most social aspects of the platforms. And awareness days are a great way of doing this. Whether you want to join in with more serious events, like Time to Talk Day, or whether you just want to share a picture of your favourite cake on National Cake Day, they are a great way of extending your reach to a broader audience. The bonus is, of course, that they also give you a great framework for your social media scheduling! To find out what’s happening and when, there are lots of free content calendars out there, but also sites like AwarenessDays.com can be really useful.
Know your audience
Our final tip to help you get used to planning and scheduling your content relates to the content itself, or more specifically, your audience. Take the time to get to know them. Understand what they want to hear from you and why. And by doing this exercise, you will understand more about what content works and what doesn’t. Knowing your audience is crucial when it comes to knowing what kind of content to plan (and post!), and to growing your social media presence. It also helps to quiet the little voice in your ear that says What if they don’t like it?
We hope you’ve found these tips useful – if you’re already a fan of social media scheduling, feel free to share your own in the comments! And if you would like to learn more about social media and how you can use it to benefit your business, check out our module!