You’ve probably heard lots of talk about the benefits of scheduling your social media posts. Many small businesses though don’t use scheduling tools like HootSuite and rely on good old fashioned manual posting. Last year, Facebook introduced an in-site scheduling tool that many still don’t know about. This simple little tool can make your Facebook strategy much more effective.

The idea behind scheduled posts is that you can spend a little extra time early in the day or early in the week when it’s convenient for you. You can predetermine what you want to post throughout the day or week, or even the month. Once scheduled, you just have to stay alert to comments and engagement. This feature also allows you to take advantage of high engagement times. I often get high engagement early in the morning (before 9 am Pacific time) and scheduling posts for the early hours allows my audience to see the posts without my physically having to be online posting that early in the day.

Prior to Facebook including scheduling tools in their business pages, scheduling had to be done through 3rd party applications. Now, however, you can actually write a post just like normal, right on your Facebook wall, and then just tell Facebook when to post it. Here are simple instructions on how you can use this tool yourself:

1. Start typing a post on your Facebook page

2. Add photos or videos or links as needed

3. Click on the little clock icon at the bottom of the post

4. Select the Year, Month, Day, Hour, and Minute for when you want to schedule your post

5. Once complete, click “Schedule”. You will receive a pop-up notification that your post has been scheduled.

6. To view your scheduled posts you will need to use the Activity Log from your admin panel

The activity log will show you all scheduled upcoming posts. If you need to change the date or time or even delete a scheduled post, you can handle those admin functions from the activity log.

You can schedule posts for any period of time in the future (or past) – from minutes away to months away. You can schedule up to a maximum of 6 months into the future. Facebook also requires scheduled posts to be at least 15 minutes apart.

If you are scheduling many posts on your Facebook page, I recommend that you check your activity log at least once a day to remind yourself what is posting that day and at what times. This way you can be prepared for responses and engagement.

I hope this information helps get you scheduling on Facebook and gives you a little more time to focus on other business responsibilities.

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