Best Practices for Scheduling Social Media
The especially tricky thing about social media is that it is ALWAYS happening. There is never one moment without social media. As any social media manager will tell you, the most important part of a social media strategy is consistency. Which means…there’s no breaks. Like, ever. Whew. Heavy stuff.
The good news, though? Social scheduling. You better believe we rely on social media scheduling to help us through the month. But, that’s not to say we only rely on social media scheduling to get us through the month. If you’re just starting to dabble in scheduling or if you’re looking for some insight into the best ways to use this oh-so-handy tool, read on for “best practices for scheduling social media.”
Best Practices for Scheduling Social Media
Here’s the first thing to understand: there’s plenty of social scheduling resources out there. HootSuite, for one. HubSpot has a nice system, for another. And I’ve heard good things about Sprout Social, too. To top it all off, you can even schedule your posts ahead of time right on Facebook! Here’s how. Now that you know some of the resources available to you, let’s move on. Let’s learn how to use these resources in the best way possible. First up…
Treat each platform differently.
Twitter’s 140 character limit (even if Twitter no longer counts imagery and links in that limit) means that your message there is going to be different from the message on Facebook. Your audience on LinkedIn is also different from your audience on Twitter and Facebook, so perhaps you’d want to change your phrasing. Use the same content, but re-purpose it to fit the audience and the platform.
Don’t forget about your scheduled messages.
It can be easy to schedule out your social media and then to forget all about it. Make sure to keep checking back in – does the post still make sense now? I do quite a few weather-related posts, and there’s been times where I’ve changed it day-of since the weather wasn’t as warm, rainy, cloudy (you name it) as the original forecast stated.
Stay on top of monitoring, too. If your audience is having great dialogue about one of your photos, participate! Don’t post and then go AWOL. The same goes for controversial posts – make sure you’re there to help monitor the discussion.
Leave room for spur of the moment.
Some of the best social media moments have come from companies who were able to take current events and turns them into brilliant social wins. Sure, a good percentage of your posts can be planned and scheduled ahead of time. But if you leave room for posts like these, your social will fly through the roof.
Go on, live your life. Go out to dinner, walk your dog, visit a friend. And leave your phone in your pocket. You already scheduled your social media for the day.
RedMoxy Communications is a Communications Agency located in Waukesha County. RedMoxy schedules social media posts for our clients and follows the advice suggested here in this blog. You can learn more about RedMoxy at www.redmoxy.com.