Scheduling your center’s posts a few weeks or a month in advance is a social media best practice. It can be hard to imagine how you’ll fit a few hours of writing posts into your already busy schedule. And how will you think of enough things to share?
While scheduling social media can seem intimidating, the positives definitely outweigh the negatives!
Consistency
Just like parenting, a great social media strategy requires consistency. You need to post on a regular basis to keep your followers engaged with what you have to say. The social media channels you use are part of your center’s reputation. You want to do everything you can to build a positive reputation, both online and off. That includes showing up on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. when your audience expects you to.
It doesn’t matter if you post 5 times a week or 2 times a week – as long as it’s fairly consistent from week to week.
When was the last time you walked into a classroom with the intention of taking a picture for Facebook and left an hour later with no picture? Maybe you were about to hit “Publish” before being interrupted by a phone call.
Scheduling your posts in advance ensures consistency. Scheduling software isn’t going to be sidetracked by the day-to-day chaos of your center. Setting aside a few hours to write and schedule posts ahead of time is the key to consistency on social media.
Strategy
It’s really hard to stick to a strategy without planning and scheduling ahead. When you create a social media post, there should be a reason for posting it. This might be to connect with new parents, engage community members, fill open spots at your center or inform your current families of an upcoming event.
Making sure that your social media channels are doing everything you need them to requires thinking ahead. Creating a month’s worth of posts in advance helps you organize them. This way, you know everything going on at your center is getting the right amount of attention.
Efficiency
It can feel overwhelming to sit down and write a big chunk of social media content. However, creating and scheduling ahead of time really is more efficient than setting aside time every day to create images, write captions and find good articles you want to share. This also eliminates the feeling of knowing you really should post today but not having anything to post.
Reserve a block of time in your calendar for social media at the end of each month. Take a few hours to write 10 to 15 posts for the next month. Schedule them right on Facebook or using a tool like Hootsuite. Then, you don’t have to think about creating social media content again for four weeks! Of course, you should still check in on a regular basis.
Approval
When posts are created in advance, there’s time to go through an approval process. This means a staff member can create posts and have them approved by management if necessary. You can schedule posts for the upcoming month knowing that they’re appropriate, grammatically correct and fit your social media strategies. All without having to write them yourself at the last minute!
