How to Schedule Social Media Posts
Keeping an active social media presence can be a challenge, especially if you want your posts to be seen by the right people at the right time. It takes a lot of time to prepare your creative assets and write engaging copy, as well as make sure you’ve shared your news on every platform you’re present on.
The good news is, that there are tools out there that can make your life easier and ensure your social channels are kept topped up with relevant, highly engaging content. They can work alongside your existing social media management services, or you can use them to manage your own social media accounts in-house.
How to schedule social media posts
With Social media scheduling tools! This is software that enables you to prepare your social content ahead of time and then schedule it to publish across multiple channels at a specific date and time of your choice.
Planning out your social content in advance means you can make sure you’re sticking to your campaign strategy and that updates are going out to your audience at the perfect time so you never miss an opportunity.
Scheduling social media posts like this also means you’ll constantly stay connected with your audience and it’s that consistency that will help establish your reputation and relationships.
Plus give you some time and head space for any in-the-moment updates.
Key benefits of scheduling social content
- Manage multiple accounts in one place
- Save time
- Get data to improve your strategy
- Drive engagement
- Improve team collaboration
So, what social scheduling tools are out there?
Hootsuite
Hootsuite allows you to see an overview of published and scheduled content in a calendar view.
Hootsuite is one of the more complex social media scheduling tools out there and is mainly used by enterprise-level agencies. Hootsuite has been around in the social media market for a very long time and has 16 million users worldwide.
It supports scheduling social media posts on all of the popular platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Youtube and can integrate with your ads and makes it easy for employees to share your company’s content.
Price
From £39 per month for:
- 1 User
- 10 Social accounts
- Unlimited posts
- Post scheduling
- Access to messages in one inbox
Loomly
Loomly also allows you to manage all your social media content — organic posts and ads — from one platform. With a little added bonus of being notified when someone in your team updates or comments on a piece of content.
Loomly can also help you with post ideas, based on trending topics, RSS feeds and date-related events.
Price
From £22 per month for:
- 2 users
- 10 Social accounts
- Unlimited content
- Core features
- Hashtag suggestions
Monday
Monday’s social media planner template gives you a helpful visual overview of your campaign schedule.
Monday is a multifunctional project managing tool, with products designed to help all members of your team, from marketers to devs.
They also have a social media planner template which enables you to create, design and schedule all of your social media content.
From digital publications to social media, Monday helps you manage your publishing schedules and coordinate all types of content in one visual calendar.
Price
Free for individual markers:
- 2 users
- Up to 1000 items
- Basic tasks management
Meed Edgar
Meet Edgar is a bit different to other social media scheduling tools as it can schedule content for you. The Meet Edgar social media calendar can automatically curate your feed with evergreen content as often as you need.
Once you schedule your post, it saves the post in the library to be reused later. Meet Edgar supports Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn and can A/B test post variations to see what works best for your audience.
Price
£24.91 per month for:
- 20 users
- 5 social accounts
- Unlimited posts
- 10 weekly automation
- 4 content categories
Sprout Social
Sprout Social is similar to Hootsuite as it’s more of a corporate tool with access to features like smart inbox, in-depth analytics, and customised reporting. It’s also one of the more pricey tools to invest in but does come with a comprehensive list of features and functionality.
You can publish content, engage with followers and listen to what they’re saying, plus run customer satisfaction surveys via Twitter and boost Facebook posts all from the one platform.
Price
£75 per month for:
- 5 social profiles
- All-in-one social inbox
- Publish, schedule, draft and queue posts
- Social content calendar
- Review management
- Profiles, keywords and location monitoring
- Tasking and social CRM tools
- Group, profile and post-level reporting
- Paid promotion tools to boost Facebook posts
- iOS and Android mobile apps
Buffer
Buffer is yet another social media scheduling and publishing app much like Meet Edgar. Buffer is loved by its user community. It works with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram and TikTok.
Its latest update allows you to auto-publish Instagram Reels and is able to schedule your videos to TikTok and Instagram at the same time.
You can integrate Buffer with WordPress and Chrome and if you want to schedule social media posts via your smartphone, Buffer also supports iOs and Android.
Price
Free basic package for:
- 1 user
- 3 channels
- 10 scheduled posts per month
Facebook/Meta for business
Facebook Business Suite offers a variety of tools to help you manage your presence across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp all in one place.
You can plan out your content, schedule your posts and stories at the optimum time and track how they perform with insights.
You can also manage your comments and messages from both Instagram and Facebook posts and connect with your community on WhatsApp.
While you’re only limited to scheduling on Facebook and Instagram, the free features give you everything you need to plan out your social posts easily and effectively and understand what’s working well and what’s not.
Price
All features and functionality are totally free, you just need a Facebook account.
Round up
With so many different social media scheduling tools available, you need to find one that will work across all the platforms you’re on, that works well for your whole team and fits within your budget.
The majority of the tools on the market are very user-friendly, showing you how to schedule social media posts and track their performance. They also offer free trials or demos, so I would recommend that you can try them before you buy.
If you need any help with your ecommerce social media services, to engage with more people and drive action on your social accounts, Factory pattern offers expert social media management based in Cheltenham.