As marketing specialists ourselves, we know how busy your job can be when you are balancing all the responsibilities that come with marketing campaigns. Any type of preparation and automation can lift a huge weight from busy schedules. However, we do not recommend jumping into social media scheduling without the right tools and knowledge to do the job effectively. Before jumping to an automated social strategy, make sure you know the dos and don’ts of scheduling your social media content.
Nowadays, there are so many free and paid tools out there, it can be hard to choose one that is right for you. However, when picking a scheduling tool, there a few factors to consider, such as price, function and limitations. You’ll want a platform that is easy to use and can post to all of your social accounts from one convenience space. That’s why we love using HubSpot’s social tool to get our scheduled content ready in no time.
Keeping an eye on your metrics and insights will help you determine when your unique audience is online. However, keep in mind that this optimal posting time will change between platforms. Make sure you schedule for a time that is right for your followers. But if you don’t know when that is or it’s too soon to tell, try using this helpful guide for optimal posting times by platform.
Just because you have posted content before, doesn’t mean it can’t be used again. In fact, with only 10% of your Facebook audience seeing your organic content, you should always be reposting old content. Dig deep to find high performing posts and repurpose them. You can simply repost what you have or frame it as a #throwbackthursday or #flashbackfriday post.
We know that you can get busy during live events with your company, but scheduling your social posts instead of live posting is not an effective way to save time. By scheduling your posts, you won’t be using fresh content with up-to-date information about your event, plus you could miss out on posting about unique and exciting happenings during the event. When it comes to live events, your followers will be able to tell you’re not actively engaged online and therefore you may lose the authenticity of your social presence.
Scheduling should add a few minutes to your day, but it doesn’t mean you should schedule your content and forget about until it’s time to add more. Your social media strategy should also include tracking follower engagement, assessing what is working and what is not working and then making changes to optimize your content. Likewise, if you walk away from social media and leave it to your scheduling program to do the work, you’re missing out on valuable opportunities to engage with your followers.
Scheduled content is great. But you should be ready to jump back into your calendar to postpone or completely remove any social posts in the case of a crisis. When things are not business as usual, it must be addressed on your social channels which means removing content from the schedule that is not relevant to the matter at hand.
With social media serving as just a small portion of your overall marketing efforts, it is great to have a handy tool to remove some of the stress of balancing it all. When your scheduling tools simply aren’t enough, rely on the social media experts at H&C to create a thoughtful and impactful social media strategy for your business. Contact us for a consultation to see what H&C can do for your brand.