The Pros and Cons of Scheduling Your Social Media Posts

If you own a business or website, chances are you’re pretty busy.  Between all of the different tasks you have to perform throughout the day it can be hard to squeeze in everything, especially social media promotions.  However, using social media isn’t something to be ignored, as this is essential to reaching your customers, gaining new clients and generating business for yourself.  If you’re finding you can’t devote time to social media each day, and instead want to schedule your tweets, statuses and posts ahead of time, there are many things to consider before making this decision.  Read on to find out some of the benefits and downsides of scheduling your social media.

Pros of Scheduling

It provides flexibility- If your lifestyle is very precarious and you can’t guarantee you will be able update your social media accounts at the same time every day, let a pre-scheduler handle it for you.  By scheduling your social media posts ahead of time, your posts will still go live at the same time each day (if that’s what you prefer), but you don’t have to be there to do it. This instills a desired element of flexibility into your schedule.

It helps you reach your audience better- As your days proceed rapidly with a considerable measure of obligations, you may not be able to make posts when you know your audience is checking their social media.  By scheduling your tweets, posts and statuses in advance for times when you know your audience will be tuned in, you make your posts extraordinarily more effective.

It’s a time-saver- For a busy business or website owner, pre-scheduling your social media activity can save lots of coveted time.  By scheduling your blog posts, tweets and statuses ahead of time, you can do it in bulk and be done with it, giving you more time to devote to other aspects of your business.  For example, if you have to meet with an accident lawyer to discuss an injury that happened on the job, you can do this and your tweets will still go live even through the duration of your meeting!

Cons of Scheduling

Mistakes happen- Sometimes when you schedule several days’ worth of social media activity at once for a host of different pages, things get mixed up.  You may end up posting the wrong link or misspelling words in your posts, and you won’t realize it until it goes live.  This might cause audience members to unsubscribe as they find your site to be poorly-run or confusing.

You may seem insensitive- If you schedule your social media activity to go live at times when you’re not there, you won’t notice the activity from your audience regarding the post, and therefore won’t be able to respond in real-time.  This may make your page seem less personal, and readers will pick up on that.

Your page won’t seem in touch- By giving yourself the flexibility that comes with pre-scheduling your social media, you are reducing the relevance of your posts to current events.  This means if a piece of breaking news hits, you won’t be able to incorporate it into your posts, even if it is relevant to your site.  Also, if you do decide to create a separate post about a current event, and your scheduled post goes live at a similar time, your audience may feel like they’re being “spammed” by your content.

The work of managing an effective social media presence can be daunting and time-consuming for owners of companies and websites.  For those thinking about scheduling social media updates in advance, it’s important to weigh the options first.  Whichever you choose, just be sure your social media content is always relevant and interesting to your audience.

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