This week, Christina Barker, Manager of Dolphin Outsourcing will be discussing scheduling for your business.
Who currently schedules their content? Who was scheduling their content and now isn't? Do you plan your content before you schedule it?
Watch the video or read the transcript below to find out more.
If you have any questions or are looking for some business support, please get in touch with us, and we will be happy to help - https://www.dolphin-outsourcing.co.uk/. Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel!
So why do we suggest scheduling your social media posts? What are the benefits of doing all this?
It saves you time
It's more efficient
It makes you more organised
You're not posting things like last minute on a whim
It saves you posting four things in one day and then nothing for the rest of the week. Lots of people kind of have a panic day where they realise there's been absolutely nothing posted. Then they find loads of things to post all at once. You don't want that to happen, and so that's why scheduling is perfect for that. And then last, but not least
Your audience will come to expect these posts on a specific day or time, so they'll be looking on your business page purely to see what you post because of this. For example, on a Monday, you might wish to do a motivation Monday post or have a quote, or something to go along with that which will go out each week, same sort of time. Or you might do a live video, for example, every Wednesday, whichever day you choose, make a plan and then try and stick to that same plan each week.
How would you schedule your posts? So I suggest that you block out your time, maybe once a week or once a month, whichever works best for you. How long you block out your time will depend on how many times you wish to post your content. If you block out the same amount of time each week or month, however, you decide to do it, that will help you with your time blocking schedule. We did speak about time blocking last week, so if you haven't already listened to that, I suggest going back and listening. But use this time to focus purely on your social media planning. How you plan your content is down to you. So you use what best works for you. So this could be in the form of a diary or phone calendar. We as a business use Trello, so we recommend that. I also mentioned before that we offer a content calendar for Trello, so if you're stuck for ideas on what to post, then head over to our website and grab that. It's just £30, and you'll get an entire year's worth of posts. So you can find that under our book and buy tab just on our website and click that, and it'll be ready to download for you easy peasy.
The question I get most about scheduling is when to post. So generically, the answer is between 10 am and 3 pm on a weekday. Tuesdays and Wednesdays seem to be the best days, and then weekends are usually earlier in the day. The correct answer is for you to check your insights on each platform you use for your best days and times. So once you've worked that out, and you know when your audience is online and when you get the most interaction, and then you can stick to those days and times. Do remember to check this regularly because it will change over time. People coming and going all the time, so keep an eye on that. Do you check your insights to know when you schedule and a lot of people don't even bother doing this. They carry on, and they don't ever check their insights. So I suggest you start looking into doing those now.
What to post is another frequent question that I get. This will depend on each business, but I would advise making it as interactive as possible and always encourage questions and calls to action. Don't just post and run. Always think about how that post will work with your audience. Why would they comment on it? Ask yourself why each time you post something or why are you posting that? Is it's a special day of the year? Why are you posting Happy Valentine's Day, for example? What's that going to do for your business? Start asking yourself those questions, and you'll think about more things to put into that description or how to change that to work it around your business and help your business.
Which tools do you use to schedule your content once you've planned it? Before we decide this, the first question I ask would be which platforms you want to schedule too? Once you know this, then you can research which tools that you need. There are tonnes of scheduling tools out there. Each one works for different platforms, but it will be whichever one works for you and your business. I advise you to play around with them and try out free trials of the ones that suit your needs, maybe one at a time. You don't want to go doing trials of like three different platforms and then not using them fully, so I would choose one and go with that. Start scheduling on there and see how it goes. If it doesn't work, you move on to the next one. That's what I would advise you.
In general, I would recommend posting directly on your business suite if your two main platforms are Facebook and Instagram. Most people are, and you can use the business suite for both platforms, and therefore you don't need any third-party apps. If you're doing Instagram on its own, then I recommend later.com. It's a good one, and we use it for some of our clients. We have used Planoly as well with some of our clients that work just as good. So both of those have perfectly good free versions to get you started. If you are new to the business, you're looking for a free app to get you going, then those two are good. Suppose you are posting to more than two platforms at once. In that case, you might want to think about a more in-depth scheduling programme, such as Agorapulse or something along those lines. Why not have a Google. You will see the main ones that pop up and then find one that does work for you.
I hope that's has helped and as always, if you have any questions or are looking for some support, please get in touch with us, and we'll be happy to help. So I will see you at the same time next week where I will be talking about blogging.