Benefits of Creating a Social Media Schedule
Gone are the days when social media was just a platform for you to connect with friends and family and post pictures of your cat. Social media has evolved into a powerful marketing platform for businesses and institutions of all shapes and sizes. Social media has proven to increase exposure and engagement, drive more traffic to your website and boost sales. And it doesn’t stop there!
Social media can build brand awareness and loyalty, create a level of trust between you and your customers, and it gives you the rare opportunity to engage with your customers and gain valuable insight into your customer’s habits.
Despite the many lucrative benefits of your business having a presence on social media, it can feel extremely overwhelming if you don’t have the knowledge and experience. Not only that, social media is constantly changing and it can be difficult to keep up with the ever-evolving trends. What was cool and trending one day, is gone the next, and when you’re already busy running a business the thought of the extra load can feel next to impossible.
Luckily, it is possible to grow a following and have success on social media even if you’re a beginner or feel like you don’t have the time. Or maybe you already have a small social media presence but you feel like you don’t have the time to take it to the next level.
Regardless of your social media experience, success all comes down to implementing a social media schedule and sticking to it.
Benefits of Implementing a Social Media Schedule
Consistency
Consistency is key when it comes to social media marketing. While social media is certainly always evolving, one fact has remained true year after year, and that is; if you want to have success on social media, you have to be consistent. And that is true across all platforms.
Consistency in tone and aesthetic, but most importantly, posting consistently. Social media apps will reward the users who are posting frequently and consistently by making their accounts easier to see and find. And being seen by a large audience is essentially the whole point of putting your business on social media.
Knowing When to Post at the Best Time, Every Time
When it comes to your posts on social media, timing is everything. When you schedule your content ahead of time you can also schedule what time you’re going to post.
To make sure your posts get the best exposure and engagement, spend some time researching what the best time of day is to post. The time will vary depending on the day and the platform, there’s real science behind it!
Luckily, Sproutsocial has done all the work for you and compiled a list of the best days and times to post on each social media platform. Posting trends are ever-evolving so be sure to stay up to date with current trends.
Don’t forget to take advantage of scheduling tools like Loomly that allows you to schedule your posts ahead of time and publish them automatically. Scheduling tools take away the stress of having to remember when to post or worrying about being connected to the internet.
Ensuring Quality Content
While it’s certainly possible to produce great content on the fly it’s more likely going to cause unnecessary stress and pressure and produce content that is more fluff than substance.
Taking the time to plan out and schedule ahead of time what stories you want to tell, what campaigns you want to run, what announcements you want to make, what pictures need to be taken, or what videos or reels need to be created allows you to create and produce quality content that both serve a purpose and is actually entertaining or informative to look at.
Frees up Your Bandwidth
Setting aside a dedicated day to plan out all your content and schedule your posts eliminates the day-to-day distraction of posting on social media. Try using the time you would normally spend posting to social media, to engage with your audience!
Like and reply to comments, answer questions on posts, connect with other companies within your industry, and be sure to keep up on your DM’s. It’s so important to be a part of the conversation surrounding your brand!
Builds Trust
By creating and sticking to a posting schedule, you’re essentially letting your followers know what they can expect from you. Building a consistent experience for your audience builds trust and loyalty to your brand. Your followers will know they can depend on you for quality content day in and day out.
Maintains Your Brand’s Aesthetic
It can be hard to keep up with the aesthetic of your feed and the unique personality of your brand if you’re posting on the fly. Take the time to layout your content and visualize how your feed will look, this will make it easier when it comes to picking what content to post each day.
Does your feed need more of your brand’s colors? Have you posted too many videos in a row? If Instagram is a big part of your social media presence, apps like Preview make designing your feed super simple.
5 Helpful Tips
Now that you’re convinced that scheduling your social media content is the way to go, here are 5 helpful tips to keep in mind!
1. Post at the right time of day for optimal engagement.
If you want your content to go farther and actually drive results, you need to pay attention to when you’re posting. Timing is everything!
2. Find a good content balance.
Posting the same type of content over and over will result in you quickly running out of ideas and your followers being bored. Find a good balance between curated content, informative content, fun content, and promotional content.
3. Don’t post too far into the future.
Keep your scheduling to a week or month at a time. You don’t want to waste your time committing to something that makes sense at the moment but won’t 6 months from now.
4. Always be on the lookout for new content ideas.
When it comes to social media, you will always need new content. Keep a content idea notebook or start a Pinterest board dedicated to new ideas.
5. Use the right tools.
