Super Useful Tools for Scheduling Social Media

One of the things I get asked most is “how do you do it all?” Well for starters the answer is I don’t – like literally I don’t. There are a lot of other things that fall through the cracks like sleep and making meals and folding laundry and showering and, on my worst days, the people around me. One of my goals for this year is to get better at managing all that time. There are some things I in my life that I need to evaluate and see if they are essential and worth investing so much time in. We each get the same 24 hours a day – what we fill them with is ultimately our choice.

As a blogger, Social Media is an important and practical tool for me. It is part of my business model and a huge way that I can connect with my readers. It is also kind of fun because I get to play around on Instagram for 30 minutes and chalk it up as work BUT that is not the always the best use of my time. I know I am not the only one who can fall into the depths of Facebook stalking after trying to share your last post on your Facebook page, or clicking around mindlessly on Twitter on some rabbit hole (that leads you to a never ending Youtube list or Buzzfeed quizzes for days), or who zones out on Pinterest while waiting in line for coffee. To be more intentional about my social media time and prefect it from cutting into some of the important things that I would rather fill my time with (like smiling at or chatting with strangers in line for coffee or working on a photo shoot) , I removed all the apps from my phone so I can’t just mindlessly click into them (I need to plan on checking my social media.) I also started scheduling majority of my posts and pins ahead of time. Before I tell you about five of my favorite tools for scheduling social media, I want to remind you why this is important:

1. You don’t get sucked into Social Media time traps when you are trying to work.

2. You can Schedule when you do (and don’t) want to be on Social Media.

3. You can maintain an active presence and promote your blog without spending hours a day on Social Media!

Does that sound like something you want in your life? I think the answer is yes because we all want more time to clean, eat, sleep, shower, and love on the people in our lives! Alright, now that we have covered that, let’s move on. All five of these tools I have used and confidently recommend. I am currently not using all of them because that would be a little overboard, but you should check them all out too see which ones work best for you.

Coschedule

If you are on WordPress this one is most likely the one that you want! It starts with a free trial so that you can check it out and then if you want to continue with it you have to pay monthly. I honestly think that you would never need more than the cheapest one ($15 a month) unless you have a bigger team that you want to be able to use it. What I love about Coscheudle most is the ability to use the plugin to link with my blog posts. While I write a blog post I can continue scrolling down and schedule all the posts I want related to that post! I can link pictures schedule announcing posts for when it goes live, and even schedule out a couple for months down the road! Chunking in your scheduling with the actual post writing is genius and a huge time saver for me! I use this mostly for my Facebook page and Twitter.

Ahalogy

Ahalogy is a newer company for scheduling Pinterest pins! I’ve been working with them for the last couple months and I love them. The best news is that they are free to use. Right now there is a small waiting list so make sure to request an invite today. What I love about Ahalogy is the ability to sit down and get a bunch of pins in the line up. I can pin from my website, other websites, and a bank of recommended pins for me that then get lined up to be pinned throughout the week. I can catch my audience when they are on without always being on at the same time! This saves me time because I can plan (in my schedule) to spend 45 minutes scheduling pins and that will take me through the week.

PS: If you don’t know how important Pinterest is for your blog/business/brand you need to sign up for Pinfinite Growth right now. You WILL NOT regret it. 

Boardbooster

This one is also a Pinterest Scheduler that I use. The cool feature it has that makes it super worth it to use Ahalogy and Boardbooster is that it does this thing called “looping.” Looping is where you can essentially tell Boardbooster to cycle through your old pins and repin them. They then delete the ones that have the lowest repins on it. This is a great way to keep your boards active and cleaned out!  Also they send you weekly emails of your growth and have pretty awesome stats to work with! This one has a free trial that is totally worth signing up for to check out looping (aka sign up for it now) they also have one of the best payment options out there and if you love it you can pay as little as $5 a month on 500 pins a month! If you are wondering how the heck looping would even be valuable for your Pinterest board it has a lot to do with Pinterest’s algorithm and it is all explained in Pinfinite Growth (this is a killer resource people!)

Hootsuite/ Tailwind

Hootsuite is a way to schedule normal social media posts. This is the one that I used for my office at work so I switched to using it for awhile for my blog. There is a free option and also a $10 a month option that allows you to schedule more posts and further out. Tailwind is a way that you can schedule Pinterest pins from your Hootsuite dashboard. I assume it is similar to Ahalogy and Boardbooster in ways but I have not used it myself. I do know that it doesn’t do looping (at this time) and it doesn’t have a bank of recommended pins for you to pin from (to my knowledge) which make the other two more enticing to me.

Buffer

This is one of the first schedulers I used and is a lot like Hootsuite (in my personal opinion.) It is great because there is a free option but I recommend upgrading to the $10 a month option just to make it really worth your time and be able to get the most scheduling in. Easy to use, this is a great tool for sharing on Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, Google +, and Linkedin (if that is what you are into.)

Do you use any of these to schedule your Social Media ahead of time? What are some of your struggles with staying on top of Social Media for your business? Which one(s) of these are you going to play around with to save yourself time so you can focus on more important things? 

Photo by: Stellar Propeller Studios

xoxo, elizabeth