Save time: automate your social media
I have been known to hop on to Facebook to post or check one simple thing in a project-related group and come up for air 45 minutes later, without having done the one thing I logged on for. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one.
While there is a time and place for keeping up with friends and social activity (after all, it is called social media), this should be intentional time.
Fortunately, there are several social media scheduling tools to automate the process.
- Coschedule – Awesome scheduling tool for bloggers. I had a paid CoSchedule account for an old blog, and it worked great. Getting one set up for this blog is on my to-do-someday list.
- Buffer – I love how simple and clean the user interface of Buffer is. I also love that they added Pinterest to the Awesome (paid) plan.
- Hootsuite – I’ve been a user of the free Hootsuite version for a long time. I love how robust it is, but the look and feel is definitely more techy/industrial. My favorite feature: autoschedule.
- SmarterQueue – The price point is a little higher, but I love, love, love that SmarterQueue will re-schedule evergreen content, meaning you’re never left with out content to post. If you do a lot on social media, using SmarterQueue is a great way to save time and money over manually scheduling content yourself or hiring someone to do it for you.
Tip: You don’t have to use just one of these tools. Using multiple social media scheduling tools strategically can increase automation, and potentially even save you money.
If you’re super strapped for cash, you can use a combination of the free plans to automate more social media accounts. Buffer’s free plan allows you to link up to 3 social media accounts. Hootsuite’s free plan also allows up to 3 profiles for free.
You could also use one paid service and one free service to allow more flexibility. I’m still playing around with this myself, so let me know if you have a strategy that’s worked really well for you.
Today’s action items:
- Pick one social media scheduling tool and sign up for a free account. Test scheduling social media for the next week.
- Decide when and how long you want to spend actively on social media for socialization. Block that time into your schedule, and stick to it!
This post is part of 31 Timesaving Tools, Tips & Templates, read the rest of the series here.