5 Reasons Why You Should Schedule Social Media Posts

There are many benefits to scheduling your Social Media posts in advance.

Take the following scenario:

You are a small, medium, or large (even enterprise level!) business owner. You run most, if not all: day to day operations; you handle all customer inquiries and customer service issues; you ensure all orders are fulfilled; you make sure all of your paperwork is filed and organized; and you are handling all leads and potential customers. Now did you remember to market yourself through Social Media with a post?

Social Media oftentimes falls on the back-burner for most businesses, but online marketing is becoming more and more essential, if not a necessity, in today’s day and age.

Apart from having a consistent posting schedule on all of your social channels, scheduling posts benefits different non-social media related aspects of your business. Here are 5 reasons you should start to schedule and plan your Social Media posts.

1. Multi-Channel Posting

It’s important that your social presence spans across different platforms. But how are you going to remember (and plan) to post on each respective platform Here’s a tip: Utilize a Social Media Management Software.

There are myriad options! Some are free, some are paid, but be sure to choose the one that’s right for you. Here are some of our recommendations:

• Hootsuite

• Sprout Social

• SocialPilot

• Buffer

When you first sign up for a social media management software, your first impression might be “Where was this my entire life?” Having the ability to schedule one post and have it distributed to all of your social accounts in one click is a life saver, and more importantly a time saver for you and your business.

2. Spend more time planning captions, not rushing

Our days as business owners are busy, to say the least. How many times have you caught yourself stuck writing the perfect caption?

When you plan out your posts in advance, you’ll be able to dedicate time to writing the perfect caption! It’s usually hard to write a caption unless you’re in “caption mode”. However, why force yourself to write a caption on a whim when you can write it in advance, workshop it, and fine tune your message?

3. Roadmap an Entire Campaign

Are you planning to launch a new service? Maybe a new tasting menu for your restaurant? Or maybe a new product entirely? You’ll hear it from everyone, you have to properly roadmap it!

Having the ability to schedule your posts gives you peace of mind that the major announcement will be posted without delays, at the exact time you want. Some useful applications of roadmapping timed announcements for a campaign are:

• Seasonal sales (start and end dates)

• New product teasers / announcements / marketing material post-reveal

• Newsletters and company updates

• Upcoming collaborations

• More!

4. Post More

We are in an age of content overload (ie there’s too much content to consume for any singular person). As a business, you are constantly fighting for market share against your competitors, and staying front and center to your audience and followers is key to remain relevant. Posting once, twice, three, or four times a month is no longer a viable strategy.

Many companies have adopted a more frequent posting schedule, sometimes even posting multiple times a day! But you’re a solopreneur or just starting out your business, how do you compete?

Set a comfortable posting schedule you can follow, and stay consistent. Start by planning out for 1 post a week, and scheduling it in advance. When that feels easy, add another, and another! Soon you’ll be competing with large businesses in terms of your output and all because you were proactive and planned in advance!

5. Focus on other aspects of your business

There is always something to be doing as a business owner, so how do we add an extra hour to the days?

The answer is simple, plan prior! Scheduling your Social Media posts in advance frees up your time to accomplish more day to day tasks.

Nowadays, Social Media has become part of the job description for business owners. We are all marketers at heart, and relieving the stress of “I have to post on Instagram” is just one way we can become more proactive and set ourselves up for success.