Should You Plan Social Media Content...

Here’s to the first article of 2020! How are those resolutions going? Was social media part of your 2020 resolutions/goals?

Keeping up with social media can be a real pain sometimes. Trying to post frequently while having relevant content that your audience actually engages with. Posting regularly without becoming repetitive.

Because of this struggle, there are countless platforms for planning and scheduling your social media posts.

You may have seen ads for them and be wondering;

“Should I be planning my social media content?”

If you’re a business owner then that answer is a definite YES!!!

Not a business owner? Then it’s not necessary but could still be useful for you if you want to create structure around your social media or just free up some time.

I’m going to get into why you should be planning your content in just a moment…

First I want to address the elephant in the room. The platforms I mentioned earlier; there are a ton of them, you can usually get a free trial to test them out. Some offer a free plan, but there’s usually some restrictions or limitations to the free plans.

Most of the platforms allow you to plan and schedule your posts. However, some are just for planning and you have to manually post. This is due to algorithms that prevent them from posting on your behalf.

You can also do all of this for free! And you won’t have to worry about getting blocked or shadow banned for using bots. You can learn how to do that here.

Before we move forward, let's discuss the difference between planning and scheduling.

Planning

Deciding what to post and when. As well as how frequently. 

When planning it’s likely that you assign a date/day of the week to your posts.

You may not have content created yet but rather a concept of the content you intend to post on that day.

Scheduling

Content is created at the point of scheduling.

This also includes having a caption and hashtags chosen,.

To schedule your post means that you have officially assigned the date that the post will publish and it will automatically post to your page(s) or send you an alert to copy your content to be published on that specific date.

Basically the major difference is whether or not the content has been created and if the publishing has been scheduled.

Now that we’ve established what the platforms do, and the difference between planning and scheduling, here are some reasons why you should be planning your social media posts;

Creates a road-map

When you plan your content in advance you can see where you’re going. Even if you’re not scheduling in advance the plan will tell you what you want to post in advance and you can look into the future a bit also.

Looking ahead allows you the advantage of knowing where you’re going next and making your earlier post connect to future posts.

For example if you have a promotion coming up or an event, when you plan ahead you can add teasers into your plan.

Frees up time

It’s no secret that social media can be time consuming. Especially when you don’t have any content planned out.

When you plan ahead your content is already planned when it comes time to post. If you’re really detailed about your plan you’ll also already have a caption or at least a general idea of what the caption will be.

Now all you have to do is post or schedule the post. Giving you much more free time to do other things that are important to you.

Makes scheduling easier and faster

Now you might not be scheduling your post. Although I recommend it to save even more time. So this part may or may not be important to you.

When you schedule your posts its 1,000 times easier when you already have your content planned. I’ve done it where I plan as I schedule and to be honest it took me way longer and it was much more stressful.

I find it much easier to look at my content plan before creating or scheduling rather than trying to decide what I’m going to post at the same time as scheduling it.

Plus you can plan much further in advance than you may actually schedule posts to publish.

Eliminates the likeliness of posting errors

This one is HUGE if you are like me and focus on the overall esthetics of you social media page. Particularly I’m talking Instagram here.

See I like to have a theme to my page. A nice flow...

Proper planning allows for me to keep to my theme and not make posting errors that would throw the theme off. I can see into the future to see exactly how my posts will align. I really like the app Plann for visual assistance.

The app is great for once you’ve created a theme. I use the free version but there’s also paid plans that allow for you to plan and schedule your content for Instagram.

Planning will also eliminate the mistake of posting something earlier than you’re ready to. Or too late.

For example if you have a launch coming up and you plan to announce it 3 months in advance you can insure that you add this into your plan. Being much more careful to post at the proper times. You can also be sure to plan a post the day of your launch eliminating the possibility of not alerting your followers at the proper times.

Helps you stay active on various platforms

Social media planning isn’t just for Instagram. Nor is it just for Facebook. You can plan all of your content!

The more that you plan the easier it is to be active on various platforms. Planning makes it easier to cross-post. Because it can sometimes be difficult to stay active on several platforms, cross-posting and planning ahead will not only insure that you have content available on each platform but also free up time for you to interact with similar profiles, and your audience.


When you can see your future plans you can start working on them today. Planning your content can help you hold yourself accountable to being more active on social media. It gives you something to work towards, lining up your good intentions and preparing them to be knocked down like bowling pins.

In short you SHOULD plan and schedule your social media. You should do things that free up your time to do the things that are most important to you.

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