Scheduled Posts Are Available For All Page Mangers
In case you missed the news earlier this summer, Facebook has given page managers the option of scheduling posts right from your page. You no longer have to rely on a third party solution like HootSuite or Buffer. If you haven’t been using any tools to schedule posts you may not be sure what the benefits are. Well, if you’re anything like us or our clients, you’re pretty busy. You might not have time to check in and update your page several times throughout the day. So you post occasionally, hoping to get your content in front of your customers. But your customers may not be on Facebook when you are. So between your lack of time and the timing of your posts, you may be missing them. Scheduled posts allow you to create all your posts at once and send them out at different times when your audience is most likely to see them.
If you aren’t already taking advantage of this, here are five things you need to know about Facebook’s scheduled posts.
#1 Scheduling posts for your Facebook Page is easy
First you need to create a new post, just like you would if you were posting it now. Once you have the post ready, click on the little clock symbol in the bottom left corner of the post. Here you can add a year, month, day, hour and minute (though you are only given ten minute increments to choose from). You can schedule up to 6 months into the future, but I’m not really sure if that would be beneficial. Once you have the time set, just click the schedule button and you’re all set.
#2 You can always go back and edit your scheduled posts
If you realize you made a mistake, or something has changed and you need to edit a pos,t Facebook makes that pretty easy. From your Admin Panel you click on Edit Page and then Use Activity Log. Select the post you want to edit or delete and your ready to go.
#3 There are certain types of posts you can schedule
There are certain types of posts that Facebook lets you schedule, such as Status Updates, Links, Photos, Videos, and YouTube links. All of these will appear on your timeline and in your fans’ news feeds just like you manually posted them.
#4 There are certain types of posts you can’t schedule
However, there are certain types of content you can’t schedule. Questions, offers, events, and albums fall into this category. And your scheduled posts won’t automatically post to Twitter if you have that set up. (If you do, please turn it off – Facebook and Twitter are different animals and need you to feed them different types of content. Perhaps that is for another post.)
#5 Don’t forget your scheduled posts
In the busyness of your day, don’t forget that you have scheduled content going out to your fans. Check your page when you have a few minutes during the day and respond to any fan comments. And an impromptu post with something that just happened is always a welcome addition to your scheduled content.
Everyone can benefit from Facebook’s scheduled posts
It doesn’t matter if you’ve never scheduled a post, or you’ve been using a third party app, there are definitely some advantages to using Facebook’s scheduled posts. It’s a great time saver that allows you to get content out multiple times a day without being tied to your screen. And, it allows you to get that content out when your fans are most active online. Experiment with when you post and check your Facebook Insights to see what type of content and what timing is working best for you.
Are you using scheduled posts? If so, have you noticed a difference in fan engagement?
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