Keeping up with social media's demands can feel like navigating a bustling marketplace. With content creation, engagement, and audience management all vying for your time and attention, the role of a social media manager can sometimes be overwhelming.
Thankfully, you don’t have to create and manage your workflow alone. Social media management tools are amazing assistants, offering help in organising, scheduling, and optimising every aspect of your social media marketing.
One of the greatest features of a social media management tool is scheduling. From saving time to enhancing your content planning and refining your social media strategy, scheduling tools streamline your workflow and maximise your online impact.
In this guide, we’ll introduce you to everything you need to know about social media scheduling. Here’s what we’ll cover:
- What is social media scheduling?
- How can social media scheduling help with time management?
- How can scheduling social media posts help with content planning?
- What are the best practices for social media scheduling?
- How to schedule your social media posts
- The 7 best social media scheduling tools
What is social media scheduling?
Social media scheduling is the process of planning, creating, and queueing up posts before they're published.
This allows social media managers to keep a consistent posting schedule across platforms without needing to be online at the time of posting. Scheduling tools automate this process, ensuring content goes live at the best times for audience engagement.
These tools often include features like content calendars and libraries, analytics, and performance tracking, making them essential for managing social media accounts. By organising and automating posts, these tools help maintain a consistent and active presence, which is crucial for growing and sustaining an engaged audience.
How can social media scheduling help with time management?
As a social media manager, you are juggling a dozen balls at once. You’re reading about social media scheduling because you want to save time. Every minute and hour you get back is valuable.
This is where social media scheduling tools come in. Let’s look at the five benefits of using a scheduler to help with time management.
Batch content creation
With scheduling tools, you can dedicate specific blocks of time to create and schedule content for the entire week or month. This reduces constantly switching between apps, helping you work more efficiently. With batch content creation, your social media campaigns will feel and appear cohesive and your audience will receive a more unified message.
Automated posting
Once your posts are scheduled, your selected tool publishes them at just the right time. This automation frees you up to focus on other critical tasks. You can also rest assured that your posts are published exactly when they need to be, even during weekends or when you’re away from your desk.
Consistent posting schedule
Maintaining a consistent posting schedule is essential for audience engagement. Scheduling tools ensure that posts go live at optimal times for maximum reach, even if you are unavailable. So go ahead and take that holiday! You don’t need to be online 24/7. This consistency helps build trust with your audience as they come to expect and look forward to your regular updates.
Some tools can even help you repurpose evergreen posts so you won't have to worry about content fatigue.
Time zone management
You want to reach your audience when they are most active, no matter where they live. If you’re a brand with a global audience, scheduling tools can post at the best times across different time zones.
Efficient workflow
Integrating scheduling tools with your content creation, planning, and approving processes streamlines your workflow.
This reduces the time spent on administrative tasks and increases overall productivity. An efficient workflow allows you to focus more on strategic tasks like analysing performance, engaging with your audience, and improving your content strategy.
Marketing agency Social Reach started using Sendible for their clients, and they ended up saving 50% of their time each week on social media management.
How can scheduling social media posts help with content planning?
Scheduling social media posts is not just about time management, as great as that is. It's also a strategic tool that can enhance your content planning. Here are four ways it can help:
1. Developing a content calendar
Most scheduling tools come with built-in content calendars that provide a visual overview of planned posts. This feature helps social media managers organise content themes, campaigns, and promotional activities.
A content calendar allows you to see the bigger picture so that your social media strategy aligns with your overall marketing goals.
It also helps you identify content gaps and plan for seasonal trends or important dates. When your content plan is centralised, your team's collaboration will shoot through the roof. Everyone will be on the same page, and there won’t be any surprises for your team.
2. Balancing content
Nearly half of social media users prefer to learn about products through video. But far too many companies stick to text-heavy, information-based posts that offer little value to their followers. Using a content calendar will help you balance social media content pillars (e.g., promotional, educational, entertaining) and formats (e.g., images, videos, articles) because you’ll see it visually on a calendar.
This balance keeps your feed from becoming full of overly promotional content and will increase audience engagement.
For example, you can plan a mix of blog post links, behind-the-scenes videos, customer testimonials, and product announcements to create an appealing content lineup. Then, using the data from past performance, you can optimise the types of content that resonate most with your target audience and adjust as necessary.
3. Planning long-term strategy
Planning out your long-term social media content strategy is difficult when you’re always in reaction mode.
Scheduling tools help you proactively mesh your posts with your company’s broader campaigns, product launches, or important events. The last thing you want is for your social media marketing to work against your company’s overall business strategy.
By mapping out your content months in advance, you’ll create cohesive campaigns that build anticipation and maintain momentum with your audience. For example, you can align your social media posts with your email marketing, blog content, and advertising. Followers will get a unified message across all channels, which will help build trust and loyalty over time.
4. Avoiding last-minute posting
There’s nothing worse than the feeling you get when you forget to post and need to create something in a hurry. You feel rushed, nervous, and probably angry at yourself for not planning!
By planning and scheduling content in advance, you’ll avoid the stress and errors that come with posting on a whim.
Last-minute posting usually leads to low-quality content and missed opportunities for engagement. Scheduling your posts reduces the risk of typos, incorrect links, or poorly timed posts that could negatively impact your brand’s image.
Creativity often strikes when you least expect it–especially after you’ve already done the work! When you schedule your posts early, you’ll have time to review, edit, or even change everything (it happens to the best of us).
What are the best practices for social media scheduling?
Just like anything else you do as a social media manager, you need to be strategic and intentional to get the most out of scheduling your posts. A major part of this is understanding your audience inside and out.
Here are some best practices for social media scheduling:
1. Find the best time to post
You should post when your audience is most active on a platform. Yes, your posts will stay on the internet forever. However, they are more likely to be seen and engaged if the posts go live when followers are online.
Remember that your audience is active on different platforms at different times. For example, LinkedIn users will be more active during the workday since it’s a professional networking site. Apps like Instagram or TikTok are used more often during breaks or after hours.
Use analytics tools to identify the peak times for your followers on each social media platform. You can do this within the platform or with a third-party social media management tool like Sendible.
Experiment with different posting times and monitor engagement metrics to pinpoint the best time to post. Here are our guides that can help you:
- The Best Time to Post on Facebook
- The Best Time to Post on Instagram
- The Best Time to Post on TikTok
2. Find the optimal posting frequency
Posting too often can overwhelm your audience. But if you don’t post often enough, it will decrease visibility and engagement. Your followers will forget you exist! Analyse past performance and engagement rates to determine the ideal posting frequency for each platform.
For example, platforms like X/Twitter may require multiple posts per day. Your X followers probably expect multiple posts per day. However, LinkedIn might be effective with just a few posts per week. Your YouTube followers, on the other hand, likely never expect more than one video post per day and typically probably expect just one per week.
No matter which social media platform you’re on, consistency is key. Establish a posting rhythm that’s easy to maintain and makes sense for your audience.
3. Schedule across multiple social channels
The average person has more than 7 social media accounts, so there’s a good chance your customers follow you on multiple platforms. It’s likely you’re managing multiple accounts as a social media manager. To make your life easier, use a scheduling tool to automate your posts across all the channels you’re on.
There are many reasons to post across multiple social channels. The major reason is that it will lead to a more cohesive and comprehensive content strategy, reaching a broader audience and maximising your content's impact. You won’t forget to post on one platform and neglect a significant segment of your audience.
With Sendible’s automation tool, you can schedule and manage all your posts in one place. Leading travel company Isango used Sendible to help with workflow for all 18 of their social media accounts.
4. Avoid scheduling too far into the future
While it's beneficial to plan, scheduling posts too far in advance can be risky. Social media trends and audience preferences can change rapidly. Avoid scheduling content more than a few weeks ahead and never more than a month out.
Why?
Changes in your industry, national or local stories, or what your competitors are doing mean you need to stay flexible.
You want to avoid posting on short notice, but sometimes, it will be unavoidable when you need to respond to events like these. If a situation arises, take the time to review and update your scheduled posts to make sure they align with current events and trends.
Have a scheduled post that doesn’t feel right, doesn’t fit the current social media trends, or isn’t a good fit for your brand anymore? Don’t post it! If you can’t recycle it for another time, that’s okay. It’s better than posting the wrong content at the wrong time.
5. Post different content types
Variety is essential for keeping your audience engaged. Mix up your content by including different types of posts, such as images, videos, articles, infographics, and polls. Different content types have unique strengths and will resonate with different audience segments.
Diversifying your content also helps to maintain interest and encourages followers to interact with your posts. Use your content calendar to plan and balance these different formats.
6. Try out A/B testing
A/B testing involves creating two versions of a post with slight variations to see which performs better. You can try different headlines, copy, images, posting times, and CTAs to identify what appeals to your audience.
If one post performs better than another, ask “Why?” Was one headline more catchy? Was one copy more compelling? Was one CTA clearer than the other? As you think critically about your results, use these insights to refine your future strategy. Scheduling tools often have features to help with A/B testing, making it easier to compare results.
7. Make adjustments based on social media analytics
Only 26% of businesses use social media analytics. You can get a leg up on your competition if you regularly review the performance of your scheduled posts. Track key metrics such as likes, shares, comments, and click-through rates to see what’s working and what’s not.
As you collect data, adjust your content strategy, posting times, frequency, etc. Continuous improvement will make your social media efforts even more effective and aligned with your marketing goals.
8. Use the right scheduling tool
We’ve mentioned scheduling tools several times in this article. Using the right tool is crucial for streamlining your social media management. Look for tools that offer comprehensive features such as content calendars, analytics, team collaboration, and multi-platform support. Bonus points if it integrates with your other marketing software (CRM, newsletter, file storage, etc.).
We’ll take a look at the seven best social media scheduling tools in a bit. Let’s talk about scheduling your social media posts for now.
How to schedule your social media posts
Setting up a social media posting schedule is straightforward. There are two ways to do it. First, you can do it natively on many social media platforms. Or you can use a third-party tool.
In this part, we’ll delve into the steps for scheduling posts on some of the most popular social media platforms. Following that, we’ll explore the top third-party tools designed to streamline your workflow, allowing you to seamlessly manage multiple platforms, save valuable time, and reduce the potential for errors.
Scheduling posts on Facebook is easy. Just navigate to your Facebook profile or page. Click on the text field to create a new post. Then, underneath the text field, click the link where it says, “Schedule your post from Meta Business Suite.”
Now, in your Meta Business Suite, click the “Create post” button in the top right-hand corner. On the next page, you can create a post and schedule it for a future date.
To schedule a post on Instagram, you must have a Business or Creator account. Tap the “+” icon at the bottom of your screen. After you write your post and select your image(s), scroll down and tap “Advanced Settings” on the final screen. There, you can toggle the slider to turn on “Schedule this post” and select the day and time.
X (Twitter)
Scheduling on X (Twitter) is probably the easiest of all the social media platforms. But you’ll need to be on your computer or the X mobile site on your phone. Currently, the X mobile app doesn’t support a scheduling option.
Once on your profile, just look for the calendar+clock icon. Tap that and select the date and time you want your post to go live.
YouTube
To schedule a video on YouTube, sign in to your account and navigate to the YouTube Studio dashboard. From there, click "Content" in the left menu to see your uploaded videos. Select the video you want to schedule and click the pencil icon to edit its details. Under the "Visibility" section, choose "Scheduled" and select the date and time you want the video to go live. Finally, click "Save" or "Publish" to schedule the video for publication at the specified time.
If you’re uploading a new video, as the video is processing, finalise all your settings. The last page before posting is “Visibility.” Scroll down halfway on that page and click “Schedule” to set your preferred date and time for posting.
Scheduling a post on LinkedIn is simple. Log in to your account and click "Start a post" at the top of your homepage or profile. Create your post with text, images, or links as desired. Then, click the calendar icon on the lower left side of the post box. Choose the date and time you want the post published and click "Schedule."
The 7 best social media scheduling tools
It’s simple to schedule a post natively on these social media platforms. But if you want to level up your social media scheduling, start using a scheduling tool.
Third-party tools offer a single dashboard to handle all your platforms so there’s no more switching between apps or tabs. With tools like Sendible’s social media publishing tool, managing various accounts is effortless.
An automated tool with smart scheduling features takes your social media management a step further. These tools analyse the best times to post, eliminating guesswork and boosting the visibility and impact of your content.
Here, we list seven of the best social media scheduling tools. We won’t go into detail about how scheduling works on every tool. Instead, we’ll just highlight the main features and what users typically love about each tool.
1. Sendible
We’re a bit biased, but we think Sendible is the best social media scheduling tool for agencies, franchises, and other big businesses handling high volumes of content. It offers the most robust platform for managing multiple social media accounts. It includes a comprehensive content calendar, powerful analytics, and customisation options. Its intuitive interface and integration capabilities make it a top choice for social media managers.
Scheduling posts in Sendible is easy. Compose a new post, then click the calendar icon below your text. Select your date and time, and voila! You’re all set.
You can also benefit from our numerous integrations, directly from Smart Compose Box:
You can bulk import your posts, tailor them to multiple social media channels, enjoy in-app image editor to ensure your image is the right size, add hashtags you saved in Content Library, add Custom Tags, UTM links, assign campaigns, and generate captions with AI Assist.
2. Hootsuite
One of the most popular tools on the market, Hootsuite allows for scheduling posts across multiple social media platforms. It offers a user-friendly dashboard, analytics, and team collaboration features, making it ideal for larger teams.
3. Canva
Known for its design capabilities, Canva also offers a social media scheduling feature. Its intuitive interface and rich visual content creation tools make it a go-to choice for scheduling visually appealing posts across platforms. If you use Canva Pro, Sendible offers an integration to help you create engaging, pre-made designs for social media.
4. Sprout Social
Sprout Social combines social media scheduling with powerful analytics and CRM features. It’s an excellent tool for brands looking to integrate their social media efforts with broader marketing and customer service strategies.
5. Buffer
Buffer is known for its simplicity. It supports multiple social media accounts and offers features like post-scheduling, analytics, and a content calendar. Buffer’s clean interface makes it a favourite among individual users and small teams.
6. SocialPilot
SocialPilot has a user-friendly interface and comprehensive features that simplify the process of scheduling and publishing content across various platforms. Like the other tools listed, you can plan your posts, collaborate with your team, and track performance metrics to refine your strategy.
7. Agorapulse
Known for its comprehensive social media management features, Agorapulse offer advanced scheduling capabilities, in-depth analytics, and reporting tools. Its user-friendly interface and collaboration features make it a preferred choice for social media managers looking to streamline their marketing efforts.
Unsure which tool is best for you? We’ve got you covered. Check out how several compare to Sendible:
- Hootsuite vs Sendible
- Buffer vs Sendible
- Sprout Social vs Sendible
- SocialPilot vs Sendible
- Agorapulse vs Sendible
Wrapping it up
Whether you run social media for a small business or multiple companies, it can feel daunting even for the most experienced social media manager. Knowing what to post and when to post, across multiple platforms can quickly become confusing and frustrating. But it becomes much easier with a social media scheduling tool. These tools streamline your workflow, help maintain consistency, and ensure your content reaches your audience at the best possible times.
Ready to automate your social media posts? Try Sendible’s scheduling solution for free for 14 days to get started.
