Social Media Scheduling Convenient or Costly?
Each day social media managers walk the tight rope
between over saturating their networks with posts (running
the risk of losing their audience) and not posting enough
(and not fully capitalizing on social media’s potential). Many
social media professionals navigate this fine line through
the use of scheduled posts.
To evaluate whether scheduled posts are a viable solution,
it is important to know what issues it can solve (and
what problems it may cause too). One of the most obvious
reasons to schedule posts, of course, is to save time.
Social media management is a very demanding aspect of
today’s market and its demand will likely increase.
The Whole Brain Group, a full-service marketing
firm, recently published its Sensible Social Media Checklist
(2.0) and it provides a strong benchmark for an average
level of participation. For Twitter, it recommends at
least three new tweets daily, re-tweeting two interesting
tweets a day and following 10 new people per week. For
Facebook, the company suggests to find and “Like” five
new pages, update the company page status daily, post
about two interesting topics related to the business and
ask people to Comment, Like or Share posts. That’s
dozens of daily tasks on these two networks alone. The
company also offers checklist items for YouTube, Pinterest,
Google+, LinkedIn and a company blog (to view the
checklist go to https://wsm.co/QYzIrF).
What this checklist indicates, is that managing a company’s
social media networks is a full-time job. However,
most resource-strapped companies are making do by appointing
someone in-house to manage these efforts. Thus,
this extra work is on top of this person’s existing workload.
This person needs some help. And help, like it has
since the beginning of time, comes in the form of tools.
Scheduling posts can save time; and industry tools,
like many of those included in Website Magazine’s Big List
of Social Media Software 2012 (https://wsm.co/bigsocial),
can help manage the different networks via one
dashboard. This ensures a company’s social participation
is extended to multiple networks, while providing a social
media manager an opportunity to know what resonates
with their community — thanks to built in analytics.
Another reason why a company may turn to scheduling
social media posts is for help developing a formal,
long-term social media strategy, as well as more engaging,
meaningful posts. Companies that think further out
(rather than racing to meet its self-set social media quota),
can hone in on the environment they want to create and
likely increase engagement organically in return.
For example, let’s say a social media manager posted
a photo about National Brownie Day on Facebook. The
Shares, Likes and Comments went through the roof.
After all, who doesn’t love a good brownie? In the future,
with scheduled posts, that manager can schedule
these novelty days far in advance, so the business-related
post that follows it can be more deliberate and,
hence, more creative.
Scheduling social media posts is not without its limitations
(more on that later). In this data-driven world
we’re living in, however, there’s more than enough data to
warrant scheduling posts - especially since we know exactly
what time of day to schedule them. Don’t we?
Can I Get the Time?
An important part of the social media scheduling balancing
act is time. In fact, it might be the most crucial.
One’s message may be meaningful and engaging, but
there has to be an audience to react to it, or the message
(and the engagement opportunity) is wasted.
The latest Bit.ly metrics provide exact times for when
messages will get higher click-through rates (the full report
can be found here, https://wsm.co/R78noo). Clickthroughs
are really the golden goose of social media, and
companies that can attract fans/followers/connections/circles
(you name it) off the social network and onto their
website, where they can actually convert them, are those
that will excel day in and day out. With that said, note
these specific Bit.ly findings:
Twitter: The best time to tweet (for click-throughs) is early
afternoon on Monday through Thursday (1-3 p.m.). Additionally
it states that unless it’s breaking news, avoid tweeting
important content after 8 p.m. and forget about after 3
p.m. on Friday and the rest of the weekend.
Facebook: As for Facebook, generally links posted midweek
from 1- 4 p.m. receive the highest click-through rates. But
the absolute highest average click-throughs is Wednesday at
3 p.m. Additionally, Facebook traffic rises about 9 a.m. and
fades after 4 p.m.
While this is valuable, well-supported information,
one must consider the post’s content, the role geography
(time zones) play, and the type of update itself (e.g. visual,
textual, hard-sell, soft-sell), which are not discussed
in these findings. Another factor is the unique characteristics
of a company’s social audience.
Atomizing Audience Insight
Like any good assistant, the AutoSchedule tool from
HootSuite, a social media dashboard, helps its professional
users gain valuable insights into their audiences,
with little work from the user.
“Scheduling is really dependant on your audience,”
said Ryan Delmaire, manager of global customer services
for HootSuite. “The HootSuite AutoSchedule algorithm
uses a combination of your past activity and the activity
of your followers, whereas many automatic scheduling
tools on the market focus on follower activity only. This
plays a big part in what makes AutoSchedule unique —
where other tools may start posting ‘optimally,’ they may
not mirror your regular social media use pattern.
“AutoSchedule keeps users productive. Instead of
having to schedule multiple messages multiple times,
the technology uses a logical pattern to post content on
your behalf. If you know that your links are more likely
to be clicked at a particular time, HootSuite lets you
schedule accordingly to maximize the penetration of
your content.”
Set It, Don’t Forget It
Even with all consideration made of one’s audience,
scheduled posts must be monitored to be truly effective.
A Lab42 survey reported that 82 percent of those surveyed
said Facebook is a good place to interact with
brands (see sidebar). Interact being the optimal word.
Scheduling can’t come at the cost of not actively conversing
with those engaging with a post.
Additionally, scheduling, in all its time-saving glory,
has to be flexible. Plenty of posts can be scheduled in advance,
but it can’t be the only method of social media participation
as companies risk losing perceived authenticity
when they miss out on, or outright avoid, the opportunities
that arise last minute.
There are also distinct differences across verticals.
What’s right for one company may not be for another. It’s
a fine line social media workers walk, but with planning,
patience, and above all, testing/analysis, there’s nothing
holding anyone back from using social media networks to
garner engagement, click-throughs and conversions.


Leave Your Comment
Login to CommentBecome a Member
Not already a part of our community?
Sign UpSign up to participate in the discussion. It's free and quick.