How many times has this happened to you in the last year? Wait…how about in the last 30 days? It’s Tuesday afternoon, and you haven’t posted today. You’re scrolling the reels feed, looking for ideas of what you could post and what reels you could create, but you’re drawing a blank. Nothing feels easy or “right.” And the idea of changing outfits just to fit the aesthetic B-roll of all the reels you’re seeing sounds horrifying. You have to post today, and let’s face it, you don’t want to.
Wouldn’t you thank Past You if they’d thought ahead and pre-scheduled your social media posts to go up today? Then you wouldn’t be sitting here stressing, trying to figure out your next move. In fact, wouldn’t you jump up and down and maybe even smooch Past You if they’d thought this far ahead and made Current You’s day that much easier??? I know I for sure would!
This stumbling block is why I advocate for all my clients to schedule their content ahead of time. Not only does scheduling out evergreen content keep your feed consistently new and engaged, but it also makes your day-to-day content process a lot easier when you don’t want to post something, or you don’t know what to post that day.
The Benefits of Pre-Scheduling Your Social Media Posts
Let’s take a look at the actual benefits of pre-scheduling your social content ahead of time. Keep in mind that I’m not saying you need to schedule 100% of your content ahead of time. You could maybe schedule ahead 50% or 75% of your content if you want to. But even 25% is a quarter less stress on your shoulders when you didn’t want it in the first place.
#1 – Spend Less Time Thinking
When I batch create my content in advance, then I can spend less time day-to-day thinking and stressing. I spend less time worrying about what trends are happening, what I want to talk about, and what my ideal client is going through today. Also, a majority of my scheduled content is evergreen content. Which means it relies heavily on my social media strategy and things like my content pillars and content goals. This type of content tends to require less brain power to create because it’s a little more cookie-cutter and more easily planned and developed. Think of how easily repurposed content fits in here as well.
#2 – Keep an Ever-Updated Feed of Valuable Content for New Followers
In most cases, your new followers are the ones who spend the most time reviewing and bingeing your feed content. To them, everything is new because, well, they just found you! They want to get to know you better and what you’re bringing to the table. They want to know whether they’re going to hit that “follow” button or go find someone else more worthwhile. So, yeah, let’s keep them around as long as we can. And we do that by giving them a lot of valuable, easy-to-digest, and binge-consume content.
If the goal is that we are creating valuable, evergreen content consistently and sharing it to our feeds regularly, then why not schedule this content well in advance? This is low-fruit content that can be quickly scheduled for time periods when your audience is most often online, engaging, and wanting to see what you’re doing.
I highly recommend scheduling out this content so that on days you don’t want to post, something is still going up on your feed.
The Best Way to Pre-Schedule Your Social Media Content
When it comes to what tool I recommend for scheduling your content, I am biased. I can’t help but be, though! I spent years trying every tool on the marketplace. Years of pure frustration, overspending, and running into walls of what programs wouldn’t “let” me do. Now, I’m happily and proudly a Metricool affiliate because I stand by the product wholeheartedly.
It took time, but I eventually found Metricool right when they switched over to the US marketplace (they were mainly in Europe at that point), and even a tool where their FAQ page was in Portuguese was more adept and capable than any other I had tried thus far.
My Favorite Features of Metricool
If you are a social media manager or virtual assistant, Metricool is hands down the best tool for you because you can import several brands for less than the price of a tool that allows you to manage only one brand at a time. If you only need to manage one brand, there are still several functions of Metricool that make it worth it and cost-effective.
Metricool integrates with every social media platform and even paid ad platforms, like the Meta and TikTok Ads Managers. It also integrates with Google Business and Google Ads. If you want your website analytics included in your performance reports, Metricool can run them.
Another great feature is the ability to save hashtags per brand or across your workspace. You can schedule content according to ideal posting times on various platforms. The ability to copy and paste content across different platforms is simple and seamless.
I could honestly go on and on about Metricool’s features and capabilities, to the point that this blog post would become a sales page. But I won’t drag you through all of that. My main point here is that Metricool is the best scheduling platform in terms of ease, cost-effectiveness, and features.
Check it out today! Don’t hesitate to reach out to customer support if you want to do a free trial, too.
Set and Forget Your Content
Here’s the main question I get asked when I talk about scheduling out your content ahead of time. “Can I set it and forget it?” And to that question, my answer is, “To an extent, but don’t just post and ghost either.”
Every piece of content you post, if someone comments on it, DMs you about it, or even shares it, helps you drastically to engage back with their engagement. That means if someone comments on your post, go respond to that comment. If someone DMs you, respond to their DM. If someone shares your post and you’re alerted to it, maybe hit the “heart” button or even respond to it and thank them for sharing. Each of these actions boosts the reach of your post within the algorithm–so do it.
Where this gets tricky for some is if you’re not on your phone all day, you might miss the original post and, therefore, the comments on it. If a scheduled post picks up traffic, you might not know until hours later. So, in these cases, I suggest setting a notification for yourself, signaling to your brain that a post went up at 2 pm (or whenever), and checking back on it maybe 15 or 30 minutes later so you don’t miss anything important!
This is how I get around the issue of missing comments or post engagement on scheduled posts. I’ll also be sure to make an upcoming blog about how I’ve created a hack to make this even easier for scheduled posting! Keep an eye out for that soon.
Ready to make your content feel less ugh?
Did this post help you shift your mindset about what creating content can feel like? Want to continue this momentum and improve your social presence on Instagram? Then check out my Insta-Preneur Guide. It will take you through all the big things you need to know as you navigate the rocky waters of social media. Grab the Insta-Preneur: A Guide to Crushing Social Media for Small Brands + Entrepreneurs.
Are you more of a “need direct feedback on what you’re implementing” kind of person and benefit from more hands-on, one-to-one mentorship and support? We should definitely chat because I would love to work with you on maximizing your social media impact with my Social Media Mentorship. Get The Facts on My Social Strategy Mentorship and Grow Your Social Media Presence.
FYI–Yes, there are affiliate links in this blog post. I don’t want to keep that from you, but believe me when I say that I have vetted each and everything that I recommend and trust in the quality and benefits of each and every one.