Do you often stress because you can’t see the structure between all your social media posts? Right. We still see this all too often. And the solution is obvious: create a social media calendar and use a social media scheduler. It saves you time, increases your productivity and it is the ideal way to stay in touch with your followers on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, you name it.
Time is money: start scheduling!
Every entrepreneur knows that time is money. And if you want to make better use of your so precious money, maybe it’s time to use a social media scheduler.
Because say for yourself; would you rather scroll through all your photos half an hour a day and ask yourself “Have I posted this before?”. Or would you rather spend an hour or two a week to schedule a full week/month with social media posts? Right, we also choose option 2.
1. Post on all platforms simultaneously & save time
The biggest advantage of social media schedulers is that they save you a lot of time. Instead of switching between Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and so on, you can post on all platforms at once and plan your messages for later: it’s that simple.
Of course you can try if even you, who know a thing or two about social media, can’t do it without a scheduler. But soon you will notice that you are being pulled in all directions:
- Creating content: copy, visuals, hashtags, …
- Customer support: responding to posts, liking responses, answering questions, …
- Effectively engage with your core business: your products themselves
- Controlling your team
- Keeping your offline marketing up to date
- …
Instead of posting every day, you can simply schedule all your messages for the next week or month and then continue with your other tasks, while all your messages are posted automatically.
Even if you have a small company that just started up, or you own a large company: the principle remains the same: social media is not just something to do in between. It requires a structured approach. And what is more structured than planning and scheduling all your posts nicely?
2. Strategic posting through analytics
Perfect. All your messages are nicely scheduled? Great! But which posts are doing well, which less? Are there posts that do better on a certain social medium? Maybe LinkedIn requires a slightly different strategy?
That’s why it’s important to analyse your posts well. It is useless to post messages that don’t have the desired effect on your followers. Therefore, choose the right KPI’s beforehand and see how your posts perform compared to these KPI’s. Most social media schedulers therefore also offer analytics that take a closer look at your posts.
3. Edit your visuals
Did you know that several social media schedulers also offer the possibility to edit your visuals in the application itself.
You can edit your images in terms of image size, crop your visuals, add text or add a watermark (e.g. company logo).
Can’t find the right visuals right away? Then be sure to use free stock photos! We already provide some useful websites:
More useful tools can be found in our blog ’11 social media tips’.
4. Post on the right days and at the right time
When’s the best time to schedule your posts? That question very often has a different answer. There is no such thing as the right day or time to schedule your posts. It’s different for each sector.
A handy tip: watch your audience on your social media platforms. Take Facebook & Instagram, for example. Do you have a company account? Then you can easily check your statistics. You can find out what days and hours your followers are online most often, where they live, what age they are, and so on.
A small tip, with great results!
5. A few schedulers
Now that you’re fully aware of why it’s best to use a social media scheduler, all that’s left is the question: which platform should I use?
Which scheduler you should use depends on the objectives of your social media plan. Do you mainly use Instagram and Facebook? Do you also want to post on LinkedIn? And what about Twitter? Are you a marketing company that wants to interact with customers? Or do you just want a good overview on all platforms? We already give you some options:
- Hootsuite: ideal to have a good overview on all your channels and to keep a good eye on your engagement.
- Later: inexpensive alternative if you mainly focus on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. LinkedIn is not one of the possibilities.
- Kontentino: ideal for interaction with customers. Customers can approve posts without having to use a cumbersome Excel sheet.
- Tweetdeck: as the name suggests, Tweetdeck is focused on Twitter. So do you want to fully focus on Twitter? Then this is your ideal solution!
- Other schedulers: Loomly, Buffer, Sendible, Sprout Social, …
Almost all social media schedulers offer a free trial period from a week to a month. Our advice: try as much as you can until you have found the ideal solution for your company.