You’ve probably wondered if there’s a method to plan Facebook posts ahead of time if you’ve ever struggled to have regular content published to your brand’s Facebook Page. When it comes to social media platforms and the sharing of posts, timing is everything. That statement applies to Facebook, too; that is why scheduling your Facebook posts is a great idea. Managing a social media content calendar will become significantly more effective when you schedule your Facebook posts. Scheduling postings might assist your brand in maintaining consistency and adhering to the posting schedules you set. You’ll therefore be able to avoid big time gaps between your postings without much of an effort.
Scheduling your Facebook posts can benefit your company in the following ways:
- save a lot of extra time by not having to create individual posts.
- It ensures that you post on a regular basis.
- get more individuals to connect and engage with.
- boost your social media interaction.
- keeps your social media accounts all on the brand by looking at the big picture of your posting strategy.
Benefits of Scheduling Your Facebook Posts
While manually publishing your Facebook posts may not be a problem, below are the benefits of scheduling them instead.
1. Ensures that consistency and quality of posts are maintained
The key advantage of scheduling your Facebook posts is that it ensures that you post on a regular basis without affecting the quality of the posts. Quantity and quality are equally important in growing your business brand. Scheduling your Facebook posts is essentially planning ahead of time.
2. Expands the audience you reach
Directly publishing a post on Facebook is generally acceptable… Unless you want to post outside of business hours to reach your audience at various times of the day. However, your posts will be published routinely at the times you specify when you schedule them. No matter the time, it’ll appear as though you published them. This way, you’ll be able to reach most followers and people across the world using Facebook at different times throughout the day.
3. It makes your marketing more efficient
Scheduling your Facebook post makes you a better and more efficient marketer. Multitasking can reduce your productivity. While switching between composing a Facebook post and your other daily chores may not seem like much, a study has shown that minute mental blocks induced by switching between tasks can cost someone so much of their productive time. Thus, when you schedule your Facebook posts, you don’t run a risk of burnout trying to run the business and your Facebook account.
Social media scheduling tools are a lifesaver for many social media managers. These technologies assist them in improving their social media performance while also saving time. You can schedule posts on Facebook in two ways:
- Natively. You can use the built-in publishing scheduler on Facebook, namely Facebook Business Suite.
- Third-party schedulers. Hootsuite, Buffer, and other publishing systems can be used to manage social media postings across several social media platforms. There are advanced options available, such as mass scheduling.
Both ways require that you have a Facebook Business Page since personal accounts cannot be used to schedule posts). This article will look at how you can schedule Facebook posts natively using Facebook Business Suite.
Scheduling Facebook Posts Using Facebook Business Suite
You’ll need a Facebook Business Page where you can schedule Facebook posts. Once your Business Page is up and running, you can follow the steps below to schedule your Facebook posts.
1. Write your post
Once you go to your Facebook timeline, click on Pages on the left-hand menu to help you navigate your business’s Facebook page. Then go to Business Suite on the menu and click on Create Post. Ensure that your post is captivating and the content is engaging. You can also mix content by sharing written and visual content, such as images with killer captions.
2. Preview your post
The Business Suite has a placements section where you can check where you want your post to appear when you publish it. You’ll be able to post it to both your Facebook Page and the Instagram account linked with it.
You will see how your post will appear on both a desktop and a mobile device as you write it. If anything appears out of place, you can make the necessary adjustments to optimize your post. When previewing your post, you should double-check whether link previews are being pulled correctly.
3. Select the date and time to publish your post
Once you have reviewed your post and are satisfied, go to the bottom of the page and click the arrow you will see next to the Publish button. Next, decide on the day and hour you want the post to be published, and then, click on the Save button so as to save the data you just entered.
4. Schedule your post
To schedule your post, simply click the blue Schedule Post button, and voila. Your post has been queued for publication. This implies that it is ready to be published on the day and time you specified.
Scheduling your post is not the end of it. Before publishing, check the content if you want to reschedule, edit or delete it. It is possible to find the queue and edit it by following these steps.
- Go to Business Suite and navigate to scheduled posts. At the scheduled posts, you will find all the posts waiting to be published.
- Select the post you want to correct. Click on the post you want to make corrections on and view all the details in it.
- Click on the ellipsis found at the end of the post to see the editing options. Several options come up when you click on the ellipsis. The options are:
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- Edit Post
- Duplicate Post
- Reschedule Post
- Delete Post
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- Make your edits and save the changes. Once you have made your changes, make sure to click save to save them. You can click the arrow next to the Save button to publish the post immediately or reschedule its publishing time.
To fully benefit from scheduling posts on Facebook, you may need to follow some tips. Below are a few best practices you can adopt when scheduling Facebook posts.
Tips for Scheduling Facebook Posts
1. Stay on brand
When you schedule posts, you’re not in any rush to publish them right away. Therefore, take your time and create content that is relevant to your target audience. When writing weeks or months’ worth of content to schedule, it is important to remember the guideline you have for your brand. Make sure all campaigns on your Facebook Pages and even other social media networks are consistent with your ideas and those of your audience.
2. Choose the publication dates and times carefully
You can only optimize the scheduling of posts if you post when your audience is online. There are tools such as Hootsuite that have the Best Time to Publish feature, which will assist you in scheduling Facebook updates for the days and times your target audience is online. The more people who view your Facebook posts, the more chances you have of increasing engagement, driving traffic, and gaining new followers.
While numerous studies advise on the optimal times to post, there isn’t a set of universal ideal times to post on Facebook. This is because each company has its distinct target market. Your business type, where your target audience is based, and when your followers log in have an impact on the optimum times to post. Instead of looking for the ideal times to post, seek the best time that works for you.
3. Know when to stop or pause your Facebook posts
Keep in mind the posts you’ve scheduled. Always think about how events or crises as they occur might alter the meaning or tone of posts you made before they happened. The posts might have become irrelevant or inappropriate in ways you couldn’t have foreseen. Check-in on your planned posts on a regular basis to stay on top of what’s emerging. That way, you may be able to postpone, pause, delay or delete scheduled posts before they get published, avoiding any possible backlash from the online community.
4. Remember that not everything can be scheduled
You should be aware of what can be scheduled on Facebook (and what cannot be). Knowing your restrictions can help you plan ahead of time for your social media posting. You can schedule the following:
- Text updates
- Images
- Videos
- Links
There are topics and issues that you may have to post about in real-time. On the other hand, certain kinds of posts cannot be scheduled whatsoever. When scheduling natively using Facebook Suite, these posts include:
- Facebook events
- Photo albums
- Facebook check-ins
Visual content such as GIFs can also not be scheduled.
You must keep in mind that most social media scheduling solutions lack advanced features like tagging, selecting the desired audience, and adding a product tag. If you want to gain the full benefit of these features, you can do so by creating and publishing your posts directly on Facebook.
5. Consider how frequent you post
Overscheduling posts will most likely overwhelm your Facebook followers. However, do not under-schedule your posts either since it may not benefit your business brand. It’s crucial to strike the correct balance when it comes to how often you post. Your brand and target audience will determine the number of Facebook posts you should make every week or month. For certain businesses, such as a news site, 10 Facebook updates per day may be adequate. For some firms, such as a small non-profit organization with only a few employees, once a day or every other day.
6. Don’t schedule posts and forget about your audience
Your audience is an integral part of ensuring the success of your online marketing. Do not just schedule your posts and forget about engaging them. It is through engagement that you can widen your reach and rope in potential clients. One cannot be constantly available 24/7 to engage with their followers. That is why it is ideal to schedule posts. You can ensure you don’t miss to respond to your audience’s comments on your posts and messages by using Socialays which keeps track of your posts and inform you of any form of engagement from your followers such as comments and mentions.
7. Keep track of analytics and engagement
Do not leave scheduling your post to chance. Therefore, you can use social media analytics tools to track your success and figure out what works best for your Facebook audience. Data from previous posts made will show you which posts work well and where you can improve.
Conclusion
Failing to plan is a clear plan to fail. When you are a busy person with so much work to do, you may easily forget to prioritize your social media presence. At a time when social media presence is important for every business, such a mistake may cost your business a great deal. That is why scheduling posts come in handy. You can plan and schedule your Facebook posts and continue to run your business without running the possibility of losing your social media presence.
Facebook has made it easy for business people to schedule their Facebook posts by providing a feature that allows them to schedule posts in their business accounts. Using Facebook Business Suite, you can schedule your posts comfortably. It also allows you to edit, delete or reschedule posts depending on your needs. Do not put your social media presence at risk by failing to schedule your posts. Schedule your posts so that you can carry on with your business without much worry.
