As business owners, we all want our company to look it’s best online. Looking good is integral to business because if your business and advertising is slick, your business looks good. Potential clients are more likely to be impressed by a business that looks efficient and well run rather than one which looks sloppy.
When it comes to social media, there are many tools to boost efficiency. Hootsuite and Buffer are two examples of Mass Scheduling tools which people use to make their lives easier.
So what is Mass Scheduling?
Mass Scheduling is a concept wherein the social media account manager schedules all their posts in advance. Usually this means scheduling a week or a month ahead in one go. Mass Scheduling in this manner saves time because you don’t have to keep logging in to your accounts to update them daily. I’ve noticed that Mass scheduling has become very popular in the social media world. I schedule most of my posts in advance for my accounts because it allows me to get an account’s month posted for allowing me to focus on different things every day, rather than dealing with relentless posting.
I do most of my scheduling directly on Facebook. To find out how to schedule on Facebook quickly and easily, click: here!
Hootsuite and Buffer for Mass Scheduling
The two tools I’ve used most in the past for mass scheduling are Hootsuite and Buffer. Both are remarkable tools, especially for small business. I really like Hootsuite for it’s free version. The tool allows for you to post to three different accounts. I choose my Facebook Page, my LinkedIn and my Google Plus account.
This is a little look at the interface for Hootsuite. I havn’t linked it into my Twitter account because I don’t use twitter for my business. I also have very little faith in Twitter for business in general and generally urge clients against focusing on it. There’s a little cheat around for Twitter where you can link it in with Facebook pages, however sometimes the images of websites don’t display, so I generally urge against using it. If you’re interested in testing it out, you can access it easily here: https://www.facebook.com/twitter.
Both Buffer and Hootsuite are useful tools, however they do have their flaws. I mainly run Facebook for businesses nowadays, because I feel it’s the best marketing platform in the world. Once you understand how to use Facebook ads, you’re laughing. Other social media platforms I find to be less efficient and successful but I digress.
The Reason I No Longer Use Hootsuite or Buffer To Schedule
Both Hootsuite and Buffer are effective, efficient and they function well. My problem with both of them is that I have come to see both of them as unreliable. On both Hootsuite and Buffer, I have scheduled posts and on rare occasions the posts don’t go out. This is universal on every single scheduling tool I’ve ever seen. Whilst it’s an extreme rarity for the posts to not go out, missing one post can mean I lose a client. For me, reliability is the most important thing when working with any business. Having lost clients because of Hootsuite and Buffer, I choose to be very careful about relying on either of them. The problems barely ever occur, but I prefer not to take risks with my client’s businesses.
The main issues I have with both platforms and others of their kind are that sometimes accounts get disconnected. This is a huge issue if you’re off for a month. You’ve set up a month’s posts, your account is disconnected and none of your posts go out. It can be really bad. Sometimes as well there can be some changes within the access code of the sites which means that for whatever reason the codes don’t go out. These brief glitches are really small but to a social media marketer like me, they can be catastrophic if I’m lazy about looking after my customers.
Let’s say I book a holiday and go to France for two weeks. I get an email from a client asking why I havn’t been posting for a week and a half. I can say: It’s a software fault, however this is a contracted job. If I’m meant to post 5 posts per week for this person, then I am in breach of our contract. It doesn’t matter weather the fault is mine or the software.
I mainly run people’s accounts on Facebook so I am happy to use the Facebook scheduling tool. The scheduling tool will only let you down if you get blocked from posting. This is usually a result if you spam a lot in groups, and get yourself reported. I have never had a problem with using Facebook’s internal scheduling tool.
Compensating For Potential Service Disruption
The best way to check and see if your posts are going out properly is just to check on them every day when they’re supposed to go out. In the rare occasion the posts don’t go out, you can manually schedule for the accounts in the usual time consuming way, or send the post out to all the accounts at once by setting the posts to go out again to all different sources with the share now feature. Whilst this is not an ideal solution regarding holidays, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.
The share now feature is a reason I still use Hootsuite. Whilst I feel I can’t rely on it for scheduling a load of posts, I am comfortable with the freeware version of Hootsuite sharing to all three of the accounts of mine which matters when I want an instant post to go out! These tools can still make your life easier even if you aren’t using them to mass schedule.
To Finish Off
I think both Buffer and Hootsuite are very useful tools for a business owner. Hootsuite and Buffer can be used effectively and glitch out very rarely. Whilst I am very paranoid about my posts going out, I’ve lost clients because of them in the past. As a business owner it’s easy to use both of these tools to schedule for your accounts, meaning you don’t need to hire a social media manager, you can schedule a week’s worth of posts in 20 minutes to half an hour and then relax for the rest of the week. This is a great way to save money as a small business owner.
If you run your business entirely on Facebook then you should read about Facebook scheduling: here! By running using the Facebook inbuilt scheduling tool, you can schedule quickly and efficiently months in advance and never have to worry.
Hootsuite is still a useful tool as you can get several posts going out to three or more (if you pay) profiles at once. This can make scheduling much quicker. It’s always important to make sure that your business has posts going out so that your audience know you’re active! If you’ve found this post useful! Please share it with people, and if you wish to get in contact with questions or for advice, please use this contact form!
I’m a social media marketing specialist based in Wivenhoe, the CEO of Fantasoft and wannabe space adventurer.