I’ve been on Facebook since July of 2007, which means I have gone through several changes to their layout, and been part of the crowd who cried, “Not again!” each time something changed. Despite my five years of using Facebook, it was only after I started working with Weaving Influence that I discovered some pretty nifty tools that I had been missing!
My favorite feature of Facebook is the ability to schedule posts when I am “unplugged” from the internet. Sadly, it’s not possible to schedule posts on your personal page (at least, not yet), but if you have a business page and you are not using the scheduling feature, here is a short tutorial that will help make your life (on Facebook) so much easier.
{Becky doesn’t know it, but I’m using her page as my example – thanks, Becky!}
1) Like many people, Becky plans to take the week off between Christmas and New Years. However, Becky might not want to go totally dark on her Weaving Influence Facebook page, so she comes up with some links, graphics, and status updates that will go out automatically, while she is offline – enjoying the holidays with her family.
2) Becky creates a status and schedules it using the “Schedule” clock icon in the bottom left corner.
3) She decides that she wants it to be sent out on December 27th at 1:10 PM, and clicks the “Schedule” button to confirm.
4) After she schedules the post, she decides to look at her Activity Log to make sure that she’s happy with the order of the posts she has set up.
5) When she views her Activity Log, Becky can see – at a glance – all of the posts that she has scheduled to go out the week of Christmas.
6) If she decides that she wants to change a time or date or delete a post completely, she can do so by hovering over the top right of the post until an arrow appears. Using the drop down box, she can select “Change Time”, “Publish Now”, or “Delete Post”, to rearrange the posting pattern.
And there you have it, a simple overview of a Facebook tool that can save you a lot of time in the long run. In just a few minutes, Becky can set up a weeks worth of Facebook posts, allowing her to unplug and enjoy her time off. While she’s sipping her mocha by the fire, watching her girls open their gifts, updates are still going out on Facebook, helping to grow her business for 2013.
You tell me! What Facebook (or other social media) tool do you find to be the most helpful?
Carrie Koens joined the Weaving Influence team in May 2012 and has held a number of roles, including three years as the Book Launch Director (a title she stepped away from in June 2016 in order to focus on the needs of her growing family), and she currently serves the team as a Writer and Consultant. An INTJ with a penchant for culture, book stores, Parisian cafés, Indian curry, British mystery shows, and her passport, you can find her on Twitter @CGKoens.
Helpful information. Thanks, Carrie.
since you asked, I do use Buffer (Web & iOS app) However i’m really “sold” on using HootSuite more and more for Auto-Scheduling/Posting… I’ve been very happy with Auto-Scheduling within HootSuite because you can post to many social networks at one time. I’ve posted up to 12 social networks at one time with one click of the button – aMAZing! 🙂 The HootSuite Hootlet is a great extension for Google Chrome… oh! HootSuite also has a bulk loader tool where you use an excel template and enter the date, time, topic, author, post title, and url. Going to start testing the template in the new year!
Carrie,
This is a great tip – can’t believe I never saw that little icon on my company’s business page. Just set something for tomorrow; can’t wait to see how it goes.
One thing that I read about awhile back is that FB penalizes posts that originate from 3rd party apps. There seems to be debate about this, so I’ll try this awhile before I link my FB account to my Hootsuite.
Any opinions on that?
Jennifer,
Thanks for commenting – I hope you find it helpful! I know it has saved my bacon more than once. 🙂
RE: 3rd party apps on FB. I actually had to do some research on this as I don’t use a lot of 3rd party apps to post on FB (or anywhere but Twitter, actually). I found a few articles, the most recent being from April of 2012: https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/32124/Facebook-Content-Published-Via-Third-Party-Tools-Suffers-67-Fewer-Likes-New-Data.aspx and pointing out that the postings from 3rd party applications got fewer likes than those posted directly from Facebook.
All I can share is my personal experience with using Networked Blogs to automatically share my blog posts on my blog’s FB page. I actually get MORE comments when NetworkedBlogs posts my latest update, than when I personally share the posts. I’m not sure if that’s on account of who follows my page (whether they follow NetworkedBlogs as well), or if it is just a fluke.
In my case, I like to play it safe and I use both the 3rd party app for sharing blog posts, as well as personally sharing them. The 3rd party helps when I’m out of town or not able to personally share the post for the day. It doesn’t save time, but if it helps me grow an audience, then I think it’s worth the few extra minutes to do both.
Not sure that’s helpful, but at least it’s another side to it. 🙂 I’d be interested to know what you decide!
Carrie,
Thanks for the reply. I agree that the few extra minutes to ensure engagement is the best mindset to apply.