Social media scheduling tools are one of the best ways to reduce work for businesses!

 

If you want to make the most use of social media but don't have time to sit and check various accounts and post throughout the day then a scheduling tool will be your new best friend.

 

There are a number of social media tools available and, depending on the size of your business, the instruments are usually free or low cost. Some of the platforms you might consider include Hootusite, Tweetdeck, Buffer, SocialOomph and Sprout Social.

 

While their features and benefits vary (and one may be better for your business than the other), these platforms generally make it easier for you to schedule, manage and analyze your social posts.

 

They may also offer usage tools to filter conversations by keywords or location to ensure you listen to what people are saying about your brand, competitors and the industry (eliminating the cackling and raving for you!).

 

Read below 4 ways you can start making the most use of social media scheduling tools!

 

Draw up your plan

 

Start with a simple plan for scheduling your social media

 

You may want to consider:

  • A specific day or time each week when you sit and schedule posts

  • How many posts would you want to schedule for each week, for example

  • The type of content you would like to share and the ratios between sales and engagement

Remember that this 'load' style content should be your usual thing such as blogs, offers, words of advice, videos and other interesting information that keeps your profile active and engages users. Don't include anything and everything on your profile!

 

This plan will give you a specific opportunity and time to sit and think about what you want to say and achieve for the week ahead. Making this a regular feature of your week will ensure you don't forget about your profiles and it's much more likely that it will become an easy habit to handle!

 

Test the best time and the best content to post

 

Use your scheduling tools to try posting on different days, varying times and content types to see how your followers respond. How do the changes affect engagement?

 

The benefits of using a scheduling tool for this activity are that you will have the opportunity to test and improve your activity without having to spend time during your day-to-day activities. The tool does the job for you!

 

Once you've done some testing, you can start to understand which times and content are the best for the business. Then you can focus on what works, rather than wasting time on scheduling not-so-effective posts.

 

Don't turn into a robot!

 

Scheduling instruments won't do all the work for you. It's important that you invest some of the time you save on managing your social media back into building relationships with your customers during real time.

 

However great your scheduled social activity is, it won't matter anything if you forget to engage with customers they've spent their time commenting on or engaging with you.

 

Take the time to respond to their queries and feedback, or even post random updates about what's happening that day or join interesting industry conversations.

 

Review your analytics

 

Make the most of the stage instruments to sharpen your activity.

 

Most scheduling platforms will offer a variety of analytics to help you monitor and understand the performance level of your posts and how users interact with them.

 

Each week, you should look at how followers have engaged with your specific posts and content to help shape the activity you'll be scheduling for the following week. This will ensure that the only posts you share are those that are likely to achieve something; whether that's about encouraging customers to comment, driving visitors to the website or increasing sales.

 

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