After our previous blog posts, an introduction to content marketing and the basics of social media marketing, it’s time to talk about the practical ways to schedule your content. It will make your life easier as an entrepreneur, save time, and help you be consistent in content.

First, we will briefly introduce social media platforms, then discuss why we need scheduling, and finally, how you can ‘plan your work and work your plan.’

What are Social Media Platforms?

Two types of social media platforms are helpful and even crucial for entrepreneurs. The first group, the ones we will talk about here, are for introducing your business to potential customers and keeping you in contact with current clients. In contrast, the second group, such as LinkedIn and Meetup, are specially designed for entrepreneurs for social networking.

Probably you are already familiar with some or all of the tools in the list below. But we will concisely introduce each here based on the target audience. Knowing the audience helps you choose the best one from the ever-growing number of social media platforms. We will talk more about getting to know the audience later in this post.

• TikTok: This relatively young platform is, alongside Snapchat, used mainly by the teenage audience, making the largest age group between 10 and 19 years old, says recent demographic research.
• Facebook: According to Statista, the largest age group of this app’s users are between 25 and 32 years old. It is reportedly considered the most prominent social platform for marketers.
• Instagram: Users are mainly millennials (born between 1981 and 96) and Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012), Statista announces.
• Twitter: As Sprout Social reported, with a highly-educated and high-earning base, Twitter is primarily used for discussing breaking news rather than advertising.
• Pinterest: The most considerable age demographic on the most product-focused social network is between 50 and 64 years old, says Statista.

What are the Benefits of Social Media Planning?

If you are running a venture, you need an online presence. Customers want to see products and ask questions before making a purchase. The social media presence also makes it easier for you to build a community and raise brand awareness.

When it comes to social media planning, the first benefit is that you can consider it as a time management and productivity hack. It helps you stay organised and simplify your workflow. Read our 5 tips to improve productivity, from an expert.

You can design and schedule your content in one block during the week. You can then use the extra time on social media to reply to the comments and communicate with your customers.

The second benefit is keeping the content consistent across platforms. Consistency in content, voice, hashtags, graphics, and posting timing is the key to a great relationship with customers.

A consistent voice makes the audience recognise your brand, just as you recognise a friend’s or family member’s voice. 

Planning ahead will give you a great chance to be consistent because when you do everything at the same time or in one sitting, you can get more structure and be more concise. Here are some examples of consistency in different areas of content.

Consistency in content helps you get your message across without confusion. For instance, what you share on Facebook should convey the same message as on Instagram.

Consistent hashtags help customers find you quickly in the long run.

Consistency in graphics is also crucial. Pictures and visuals are the first things that customers’ eyes detect from your brand. And last, but not least, is consistency in the timing of posting and the interval between each post, which we will discuss in the following section.

Scheduling will also help you have a bigger picture of what you post across all the platforms. It lets you manage to fix the potential faults and edit the captions more efficiently. You can also analyse the data and use it to make improvements.

Why does timing matter?

When is the optimal time to post on social media? The straightforward answer suggested by Sprout Social’s content specialists is 10 A.M. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. 

But maybe there is no fixed answer to that, and we have to answer with the famous ‘it depends.’ What if the weekdays are different in your country? What if your audience is from diverse time zones? Different platforms also have different peak times.

Sticking to the time and days stated at the beginning of this section is great if you are a beginner. When some time passes, you will get invaluable information about your customers’ habits that will help you reschedule the timing. Some tools help evaluate this data. This will take us to the next subject, social media managing tools.

Which Social Media Scheduling Tools to Use?

We talked about some online marketing tools for dealing with email, design, evaluation, effectiveness check, and scheduling in our introduction to online marketing for entrepreneurs. 

Here is a list of tools you can use to schedule content across social media platforms. The list includes the feature(s) that makes them different and the pricing when writing this article.

• Meet Edgar. It is a library for updates and, with an autopilot mode, allows you to automatically re-share old updates. 

Platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. 

Price: It has a 7-day free trial, and the pricing has two options of €24.91 to €41.58 per month.

• Social Pilot. In comparison with other tools, it claims to be more affordable. Navigation is made easy thanks to the simple layout. Plus, you can reply to your Facebook comments from inside the app.

Platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Google My Business.

Price: The pricing ranges from 28 to €119 per month, and you can use a 14 days trial.

• Hootsuite. This powerful tool covers almost everything in social media management. Extra features like live chat make communication with your social media team easier.

Platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, TikTok, WhatsApp Business API, and YouTube.

Price: Free 30-day trial. Plans range from 39 to €669.

• Sprout Social gives you a variety of plans categorised by use case, business type, industry, and network.

Price: it ranges from 89 to €249. A free trial is also available.

• Social Bee offers a clean UX design as well as handy features.

Platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Google My Business.

Price: 14 days trial. From 19 to €379 per month.

These tools usually have blogs with helpful information that can get you started.

How to Come Up with a Content Strategy?

Almost all content comprises images, videos, written text, or a mixture. The first question that comes to mind is how often you need to share on social media, and what defines an impactful online presence. The number of posts depends on your audience, product, and business size.

Getting to know your audience can boost your content creation. Understanding the different characteristics of the audience, such as age, gender, and geographical location, will help you set the tone and choose the graphic and video editing elements easier. For instance, the words you use to address baby boomers differ from Generation Z, and your images to influence millennials vary from generation X. 

In an interesting blog post, Hootsuite talks about how often to post on different social media platforms. For instance, it is usual to post between 3-7 times per week on Instagram, between 1 and 2 times a day on Facebook, between 1 and 5 Tweets a day on Twitter, and between 1 and 5 times a day on LinkedIn.

The important thing is not to be overwhelmed by quantity. Focus on having a precise categorisation of content instead. It helps you produce content as fast and easy as you can. Think about more significant themes. For example, engage your audience on Wednesday, tell a story on Tuesday, and introduce your product on Thursday. You can also specify some days in a month to present your team or repost an old favourite.