Is it beneficial or harmful to preplan your social media posts in advance? You won’t be as productive as you could be if you’re worried about it or don’t even have one.
There is an abundance of justifications for why social media marketers need a posting schedule.
Here, I’ll discuss the process we use at Contentworks Agency to develop editorial calendars for our customers’ various social media accounts. What to include, and some time-saving tips, are coming up next. To begin, please have a cup of coffee and I will join you.
In Defense of a Regular Posting Schedule on Social Media
Schedules for posting on social media aren’t something we make up for no reason. We’re always on the lookout for more effective ways to handle our high volume of work as a government agency.
What would be gained by adhering to such timetable is listed below.
To avoid frantic last-minute rushing
When it comes to marketing on social media and other content platforms, I think it’s important to prepare ahead of time. The last-minute panic of forgetting to add a blog post may be avoided by planning ahead and scheduling postings at least two weeks in advance.
Pay for vacations
You may cover vacation time for yourself and your team by using a social media scheduling tool. If you do that, you could even be able to take a short holiday. In fact! Managers of social media accounts need to strike a balance between their professional and personal lives.
If you plan beforehand, you can accommodate for any unanticipated absences on your team.
Come up with a balanced selection of information
A social media schedule for each platform helps you arrange a variety of posts to keep your audience interested and engaged. A blog post, video, GIF, poll, contest, pictures, or press release all fit this description.
When you can see how material is going to be released, you can be certain that no two updates will ever overlap.
The need for prior approvals
When it comes to what may be said on social media, certain industries are stricter than others. Working in the financial industry has taught me, for instance, that posts need to be pre-approved by a corporate compliance (and occasionally legal) officer.
With advance planning, you may designate posts for approval at a time that won’t interfere with your social media posting schedule.
Make a Social Media Posting Schedule
1. Stick to your social media marketing plan’s posting schedule
It is recommended that you utilise your content marketing strategy and social media marketing strategy as a reference while planning your posts. If you own an agency, you likely have a template that you use for every client.
The plan is for your social media posting to go according to the patterns you establish for each profile and platform.
When planning your post, keep these things in mind.
Some terms need to be defined:
Any and all client accounts’ unique social media handles
With what regularity you and the customer first agreed to post (for example, 3 x Facebook, 25 x Twitter, 3X on Instagram and 3 x LinkedIn posts per week)
If there is a requirement that the updates be made at certain times. Foreign exchange (FX) marketing, for instance, often occurs on weekdays when the markets are open. However, weekend and night shifts are common in retail. Be aware of the most convenient times and days.
Engagement, brand recognition, and influencer uptake are just few of the key performance metrics (KPIs) desired by the customer.
The accounts’ primary demographics (The region is most significant here.)
In the event of any necessary permits or authorizations prior to publication
Someone in the team internally is accountable for making the updates.
In other words, the first stage is complete.
Remember the aforementioned advice and share it with your crew.
2. It’s important to pick a time and day that will have the most impact
Using demographic information about your target audience, social media scheduling tools let you tailor your postings to the best possible time and day for maximum impact. You can be in Europe while they’re in Australia and it won’t make a difference. Your updates can be timed to appear in their feeds at optimal intervals.
As a social media agency, you likely have a social media plan and a contract outlining the number of posts you will make each week across your primary networks for each customer. Nonetheless, that’s not all.
Depending on the type of company, different times and days of the week will be more or less appropriate for posting.
Examining the importance of timing with regards to food-related postings. After all, we can all agree on one thing: reading blogs about food makes us ravenous. Seeing a cheesy pizza video online might make us want to place an order right now. But only at the correct time in our feeds.
Indicative Dates
Daily deals tend to do well on social media. Day-specific promotions are only effective if sent on the appropriate days.
In what increments of time should social media updates be made?
The question has no right or incorrect solution. If you’re just getting started and have no idea who your target audience is, a simple set may look like this:
Page updates on Facebook: twice weekly
Twitter: Three to Five Times Daily
Frequency of Instagram Posting: Weekly
Two to three times every week on Instagram Stories.
Depending on how active you are on LinkedIn, once a week to three times a week
When you have enough data from a few months of blogging, you can determine what times and places are most effective for attracting readers.
3. Make sure you have a variety of material kinds to share
This is by far the most entertaining aspect of our work. Work with the group to determine what will go into the pot based on the client’s social media strategy, key performance indicators (KPIs), and intended audience.
We plan a monthly summary that features evergreen material for our finance clients. We then make plans for the next week, which will focus more on timely subjects and events.