How to Schedule a Post on Facebook: A Step-by-Step Guide

While platforms like Twitter, Instagram and even TikTok have grown significantly in user base in recent years, one social channel is still the market leader: Facebook.

Recently, the Pew Research Center found that nearly 70% of all adults in the US use Facebook, while 74% log in daily. Facebook has more than 2.7 billion users worldwide.

And today, posting timely and relevant content on Facebook on a regular basis is key to reaching a large and wide audience.

Why? Trends, content and discussions in any social media channel move much faster than on older platforms like television or radio.

While content is vital to engaging the audience, creating new social posts quickly and consistently can overwhelm even tech-savvy social media managers.

The manual creation of content offers the advantage of current relevance. Also, website owners need to constantly track trends and interactions on Facebook and then make relevant posts to take advantage of the current conditions.

But what happens when website owners are not online? What if halfway across the world users are waking up and searching for content while social managers are still sleeping? Scheduled posts can help.

There is a solution to many of the above problems: Scheduled Facebook Posts.

With Facebook’s post-scheduling tool, you can start pre-created content on your Facebook Business page at a specified date and time. If you schedule a few posts in advance each week, you and your team can stick to normal working hours and even free up brainstorming new social media strategies.

While it’s still important to make manual posts related to specific events or conditions in emerging markets, scheduled posts can help streamline your social endeavors on a larger scale.

Not sure how to plan an engaging Facebook post? Here’s how to do this and how to solve common planning problems.

We’ll start with the steps to schedule a standard mail. If you’d like to learn how to schedule a share on another page’s post, click here to go to that section.

Step 1: Sign in to your Facebook Business Page.

The first step in creating a scheduled Facebook post is to make sure you’re signed in to your company page. Currently, personal pages do not offer the same publishing tools.

Step 2: Click on “Publishing Tools”.

From the left menu on your Facebook business page, click Publishing Tools. This will bring up a list of all of your published posts and options for viewing your planned posts, drafts, and expired posts.

Step 3: create a compelling post.

Select “Create a Post” at the top of your post. Write your contribution in the text field provided and add images or links. You will get a real-time preview of the post as you compose it to help identify potential issues.

While composing your post copy, don’t over-complicate your scheduled posts. Make them the same as on-demand posts – be engaging, personal, and relevant.

Step 4: Set a publish time.

When you’re happy with your new post, select “Schedule” from the drop-down menu under “Newsfeed”. This will open a box where you can choose an exact date and time.

Step 5: Consider putting expenses behind your content.

Worthless? You can also increase the reach of your Facebook post by paying the social media site to promote it for a period of time. Select the “Boost” option next to “Publish” to choose your budget, audience, and post duration you want.

Click here to learn more about how to promote Facebook content and run ads.

Step 6: Track and Adjust Your Schedule.

The Publishing Options menu allows you to keep track of what you’ve already posted and when new posts are published. Check it out regularly to make sure scheduled posts still make sense.

For example, if you suddenly encounter production or delivery problems, you may want to move posts about large sales of items with lower inventory.

Step 7: Consider cross-advertising planning.

It’s also worth noting that scheduled posts don’t automatically trigger other notifications – such as B. Tweets. If you want Facebook posts to be published along with other social media posts, make sure you know your posting dates so that you can increase the impact of cross-platform promotions.

In addition, you can use helpful tools like HubSpot’s social media software to schedule posts on multiple platforms like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Step 8: embrace planning tools.

While you can manually create and manage all of your scheduled posts, it can get very complicated very quickly as the impact of your Facebook Page increases.

As mentioned above, you should consider social media management tools like HubSpot or Oktopost to streamline planning and focus on creating more compelling on-demand content.

Step 9: don’t over-plan.

It’s easy to believe that you can plan all of your posts for weeks and then spend days without social media. But that is far from the truth.

If you make multiple scheduled posts per day, customer interest can quickly fade as your page looks more like a sales vehicle than a social platform. While it’s worth mentioning the debut of new products or changes in large companies, don’t plan too much.

Step 10: Compare your planned content with the competition.

Do you want to schedule posts in advance but are concerned about spurious or robotic copies? Take a look at what your best competition is doing.

Check the frequency and content of their posts and use this knowledge to improve your social endeavors.

The goal of analyzing your competition is not to create carbon copies, but to be guided by their planning in order to make the most of the potential of the social platform.

Want to schedule a post that will show Facebook content that has already been shared by a brand partner or company you work with? Here’s how to schedule shared posts.

1. Go to the post you want to share and click the three dots.

This shows you all the settings related to a post. Please note that some posts, e.g. B. in personal Facebook accounts, may have different setting options and may not be shared.

2. Click on “Copy link”.

3. Go to Post Publishing Tools.

As mentioned above, click the Post CTA to open a post creation page.

4. Go to Settings to access the older version of the tool.

It gets difficult here. When we tried to share a post using Facebook’s new tool, the previews looked a little buggy. For the best preview options and to make sure the post looks normal, click the settings icon in the lower left to access the older version of the tool while it’s still there.

5. Paste the link in the Post text field.

You should immediately see the company’s post appear below the text box. If you want to share a caption on this post, you can also include it like in this HubSpot blogger below:

6. Select the “Schedule” option from the drop-down menu under Newsfeed.

That way, you can schedule a post similar to your own.

Why can’t I schedule a post on Facebook?

Having trouble scheduling your post on Facebook? There are several common culprits.

First, check that you are signed in to the correct account. If you’re signed in to a personal page rather than a business page, or if you’re not a page administrator, you won’t be able to schedule posts.

Next, make sure you are looking in the right place. Until recently, the post-scheduling feature was moved from the Post Create field on Facebook Business Pages to the Posting Options page.

When you try to create a scheduled post from your homepage, the Schedule button doesn’t appear. However, you should see an information box directing you to the Publishing Options page.

What can not be planned on Facebook?

Unfortunately, you can’t plan everything you post on Facebook.

While posts can be scheduled with links, photos, and videos, photo albums, polls, or events cannot be set to start automatically. You also can’t schedule Facebook stories.

Create an effective Facebook schedule

Scheduling Facebook posts is a great way to increase your business impact and encourage user engagement.

Remember to keep the content simple and relevant, not plan too much, promote posts whenever possible, and use world-class tools to streamline planning on a large scale.