Two Simple Social Media Schedules That Will Solve Everything

Luckily for you, I have two simple schedules that will solve the headache of maintaining your social media. The first is how you schedule and structure your time, and the second is a suggested schedule of what to post.

Structuring your social media throughout the week: An example schedule

	MORNING	AFTERNOON
MONDAY	Write all broadcast posts for the week and schedule across your social networks.	Check and respond to comments, messages and queries on your social media. Spend 10 minutes engaging in one key community where your customers hang out or engaging with your fans and followers – liking and commenting on their posts.
TUESDAY	Spend 10 minutes engaging in one key community where your customers hang out or engaging with your fans and followers – liking and commenting on their posts.	Check and respond to comments, messages and queries on your social media.
WEDNESDAY	Write your blog post and email newsletter and schedule to send automatically.	Check and respond to comments, messages and queries on your social media. Spend 10 minutes engaging in one key community where your customers hang out or engaging with your fans and followers – liking and commenting on their posts.
THURSDAY	Spend 10 minutes engaging in one key community where your customers hang out or engaging with your fans and followers – liking and commenting on their posts.	Check and respond to comments, messages and queries on your social media.
FRIDAY	Do a live video stream on Facebook / Periscope.	Check and respond to comments, messages and queries on your social media. Spend 10 minutes engaging in one key community where your customers hang out or engaging with your fans and followers – liking and commenting on their posts.

You’ll notice there’s time to batch content and schedule it, so there’s something going out every day, but there’s also time for you to engage with your audience and spend time nurturing them throughout the working week. Both these activities combined will support you in growing and engaging your audience online and increasing your customer base.

What to post: An example two week schedule

This is a simple example schedule for one social network (e.g Facebook) where you post once a day.

WEEK ONE		WEEK TWO
MONDAY	Old blog post	MONDAY	Old blog post
TUESDAY	Question / Conversation starter	TUESDAY	Live video / video
WEDNESDAY	Promotional / Offer	WEDNESDAY	Behind the scenes photo
THURSDAY	Live video / Video	THURSDAY	New blog post
FRIDAY	New blog post	FRIDAY	Promotional / Offer
SATURDAY	Share someone else’s content	SATURDAY	Question / Conversation starter
SUNDAY	Behind the scenes photo	SUNDAY	Behind the scenes photo

Posts include:

Blog posts (new and old, still relevant posts) shared as a link to drive traffic back to your website and blog.
Questions and conversation starters that get your audience sharing their opinion or talking about a relevant topic to your business.
Promotional or offer-based updates, marketing your latest product, service, event etc. This can be reminders, product showcases, sharing a testimonial, discounts or anything promotional in nature.
Live video posts for talking to your audience live about a key topic or showcasing an event or behind the scenes of your business. Could include QA or even be a webinar style video.
Video posts are videos about your business, products and services or other people’s videos that are relevant and useful to your audience and build trust with you.
Sharing someone else’s content could be sharing a customer’s photo, review or post or another business or blog’s content as a link or a shared/retweeted post.
Behind the scenes photos are images of what you’re up to as a business/team, giving your audience insight into your day to day operations, challenges and successes.

Of course, you can always add your own post ideas to the mix, and you may want to schedule more than once a day, but this is a great starting point to work from and combines with the first schedule which makes time for engagement too.

You’re welcome to use these simple social media schedules for your own business, and adapt them to suit, or use them as a springboard to create a simple schedule that works for you. Either way, the idea is that you create the routine and get into a system and habit that means your social media is consistent and engaging every week. Good luck!