Tags – Benefits of Scheduling Content
Everyone knows by now how important social media is for business.
And marketing professionals understand how important it is to stay ahead of the game, especially since 54% of internet users now use social media on a daily basis.
But let’s be real, trying to create quality content, thinking of a catchy caption and figuring out the best time to post is a struggle to say the least.
Luckily, scheduling content takes away this daily struggle and gives you more time to prepare amazing content for your different social media channels.
Not to mention it saves you from panic posting something that is irrelevant, or just for the sake of posting, which doesn’t help your audience or you for that matter.
For many, this is probably not ground-breaking news. Still, I encourage you to continue reading as there may be some benefits you have not considered before.
By all means, this list will not entirely solve all of your plate-spinning issues, but they are certainly good points that will help with productivity overall.
So without further ado, here are 5 benefits of scheduling content.
1. Strategic Planning
Ultimately, social media is about strategy.
From what time you post to the type of content you’re sharing, it’s all about creating a successful social media presence.
What scheduling does is allow you to get a clearer view of everything you publish.
To put it differently, content scheduling allows you to plan ahead for promotions, ads and posts well in advance and ensure they all correspond with each other, and are published within a decent time frame.
As a result, you’ll be able to better reach a specific target audience, by making sure all posts and updates go live at selective times during a particular campaign.
2. Saves Time
Social media is one of the biggest time wasters.
No, not for marketing. But it is incredibly distracting, especially with platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram where you may quickly jump on to post something, but then come off it 30-45 minutes later after endlessly scrolling through others’ content.
As such, by scheduling content you can avoid this from happening as your posts will be published from within the tool – you won’t have to go on the platform directly.
More obviously, when you schedule your posts, you free up more time in your day which can be spent on something more productive – like finding clients – rather than sitting thinking what to post, what to hashtag, the caption etc; it’ll be automatically posted for you (once you’ve actually scheduled it of course!).
Furthermore, scheduling content in advance helps you to stay organised, which in turn results in better time management.
For example, you can note down any important holidays, such as National Carbonara Day, which may not seem relevant – but you could plan a pasta-filled lunch with your team, take a picture and then schedule it to go live on this day to showcase your business’s personality.
Simply, scheduling things like this in advance will avoid you from missing any important dates, and you won’t need to scramble at the last minute, or worse, forget entirely!
3. Maintain Consistency
It’s important to maintain consistency on social media as it helps to build brand awareness and trust with your target audience, as it sets expectations for when they’ll see your posts and the types of content you’ll share.
And so, by using a tool (e.g. Hootsuite) that keeps all of your social media accounts coordinated, it makes consistent posting a lot easier to manage.
Consequently, not posting in a consistent pattern can seriously damage your brand’s reputation, and when life gets too busy, posting on social media often gets pushed down to the bottom of your to-do list.
Luckily, scheduling content allows you to ensure your posting good quality content across multiple platforms and stay on top of the algorithms.
4. Track, Measure and Improve
If you can’t track and measure your social media posts, you can’t improve them.
And as a business, you should always be on the lookout for ways to boost your social media presence.
By using a scheduling tool, this enables you to see what types of content works well with your target audience and what doesn’t.
Essentially, through trial and error, you can test different formats, posting time, types of content and more as you get access to analytical data that you wouldn’t necessarily get if you posted manually.
As such, keeping a track of these metrics will allow you to hone in on what types of posts you should create in the future.
5. Repurpose What You’ve Already Created
A final benefit, and a worthy one, is scheduling enables you to reuse content that you’ve already written and published.
For instance, let’s say you wrote a post that really resonated with your audience and it gained a lot of engagement, it’s safe to say you probably want to repost this at a later stage.
Because, you already know it’s going to gain attention, but if you wait a few months and post it again, you can reach a whole new segment of your audience which you didn’t before.
In other words, this is evergreen content; the type of content that is always interesting.
Of course, not all of your content will be evergreen, but when you do come across a successful post, keep it in your bank for a future date.
The Takeaway
Creating and scheduling content in advance is a lifesaver.
Especially if you want to take a break, if you’re too busy with other important tasks or if you’ve unexpectedly fallen ill – scheduling content provides a safety net, keeping your brand visible on social media even when you’re not physically on the platform.
BUT, while scheduling is a helpful tool, it’s by no means a replacement for good old-fashioned communication – you still need to respond to comments and engage back with your users – unfortunately, there’s no way of scheduling that.
For more information, please get in touch today.
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