How to plan your posting schedule so that people notice
Having a content strategy plays an integral role when it comes to effectively marketing your business online.
You may not have given much thought to scheduling posts but what and when you post does matter.
That’s why we’re here to shed some light and give you the tips you may have missed.
These tips allow for effective planning that could help generate more sales in the long run. They will also provide you the opportunity to reach your target audience more efficiently.
Content strategy in brief
In the digital marketing game, we want to win against ever-growing competition by putting our time on social media to good use.
It goes without saying but when we refer to social media, we are talking about all your business social media accounts!
Before we can clarify what a content strategy is, it’s important to know what content is.
Content is the collective pieces you use whether written or visual content in a blog post, videos, or pictures (media). The best example of media used online is social media. This is where entrepreneurs and regular people use these platforms as a means of communication on a personal and business level.
SMEs can highly benefit from using social media platforms to their marketing advantage, but more on that just a little bit later in this post.
You can use content to communicate and engage with your audience of. For example, you need to reach your audience because you have a fantastic promotion that will benefit them and your business.
Content can be viewed and used on most digital devices hence “digital marketing”, but also “traditional marketing” such as TV commercials and catalogues or banners.
How to create an effective content strategy
Posting random content at random times and hoping your ideal customer will see it and respond to it is a delusion. One has to create a strategy.
The truth is that not all of your active audience is able to view your content every time you post – the feed is just too busy. But there are ways to ensure that your content stands a better chance than most of being seen.
Set goals for your content
Ask yourself: “What am I trying to achieve with this post?”.
If you are simply trying to get more “Likes” and “Followers”, you might be falling for vanity metrics.
Accumulating likes does not equal sales, which is why we believe that having a content strategy is key to
Big Domino Marketingmaximizine the effectiveness of your posts.
The idea behind having a strategy is to try elicit a specific response with almost all of your posts.
Here are some examples of actions you could be encouraging people to take:
- Engage with the post in the form of comments which you then respond to
- Make them aware of
a product promotion or discount - Build up anticipation for a launch
- Ask them to spread awareness of an important topic
- Inform them of a competition
- Reveal your latest YouTube video/Blog post etc (Link in Bio)
Set clear goals to make the entire planning process simple and effective.
Content auditing is necessary
Content audits help you to assess the status of your content and reels in a bigger picture to where you’re going once you establish where you are with content.
For a successful content audit, you need to create an inventory list of all your content posted. Take it as something like to a stock take in retail brick and mortar setups. This can help you improve your content in general and even open the opportunity to expand it.
For example, you have a business blog and post regularly but never get to go into in-depth detail because your posts can’t run for several pages long.
In this case, you could write an e-book on the same topic in which you can express everything in greater detail. You can do this as a free eBook or you can choose to sell it online (passive income opportunity!)
You can apply the same principle and create a live video in the event you want to have a brief talk about your brand. People often watch video content and this is a good way to start engaging your viewers.
Identify your audience
Knowing who your audience is will help you to communicate on a better level because you know how to address them.
You can then set the correct tone and you’ll have a better idea of their interests. Another good thing about knowing your audience is that it almost guarantees better reach as opposed to trying to reach everyone.
Keep your content alive and flowing
One way you can continue to fuel your content is by keeping it going. So, jotting down ideas, links, and any information related to your content will be of great help. In this way, you can constantly manage to produce what you need for your audience.
Sit with your team to come up with effective angles to your social media posts.
Alternatively, when you are struggling for content ideas, just ask your audience. Create a post asking them what they would like to see more of, and then deliver this to them.
Remember, social media marketing is NOT about your business, it’s about the feelings and thoughts you evoke in your audience.
So always consider how you can best serve them.
The essence of keyword research
Keyword research is crucial to having your content found online. Keywords are the trending phrases that users are typing into search engines to find what they’re looking for.
It doesn’t have to be trending but also put in a way that the user would when typing up a search. Google Analytics is very helpful at helping you suss out how people found you in the first place. In some cases, long tail keywords rank far better than generic ones.
Sharing is caring
As this popular saying goes “sharing is caring”, because the more people share your content the better it is for your exposure and reach. When you do promotions or any interactive gestures on your website, make sure that you encourage your viewers to take part in sharing.
Keep tabs on results
There are many analytics tools available to help you keep your finger on the pulse of content progress.
You should use these tools to your advantage because this will help you get a clear view of whether your strategy is working or simply wasting your money.
Best times to post content
Recently Sprout Social posted some statistics displaying the best times to post on social media. We’ll dive into a few key stats from the research.
Facebook is the social media King with over 1.4 billion users daily. The peak times are highest during the evenings between 5pm – 11pm, with low peak at around 12am – 6am.
However, users are already quite active from around 10am to 3pm during the week, with Thursday being one of the best days to post on the platform.
A favourite among social media lovers and business owners, Instagram comes in at second place for popularity.
High peak times are from
Twitter is a great place to share information, but when you’re competing with several tweets a day it can make things harder. So, what’s a business owner to do?
Staying abreast with time and content planning is definitely a start. The statistics on Twitter revealed peak use between 7pm -11pm, however traffic is already in the swing of tweeting from 10am. Traffic slacks down during between 12am and 5am but the best day to use Twitter is on a Friday
LinkedIn is probably the crème de la crème spot for professionals of all backgrounds to create a portfolio and display their talents as well as promote their brands.
However, it isn’t the most reliable for promoting your business directly to your clients and doesn’t have the best results for customer engagement.
The stats show that weekdays are the best times to post content on LinkedIn. The mornings are lower with activity while the afternoons are more engaging.
The takeaway
We can’t tell you exactly what day and time of the week your followers will be most likely to see your posts, but test and see what works best for your business.
Remember that posting daily on social media without having some clear objective for your audience to take might fill up your feed, but it won’t fill your bank account.
Always ensure you have a social media plan in place so that you can convert your followers to loyal and happy customers.
