Instagram has finally made the move businesses have long wanted. They are allowing business accounts to schedule posts in advance. But there’s a catch. This feature only works if you are using a platform such as Hootsuite to manage your Instagram.
At first glance, that might seem like an annoying restriction. And sure, it would be great if the scheduled post feature could be used more widely, but in reality, businesses benefit so much from services such as Hootsuite that it really isn’t an issue.
Social media marketing is time-consuming. Inbound marketing is labour-intensive, and the wait until the payoff can feel very long. But it is worth doing, and well worth doing right. All marketing requires a plan, and social media marketing is most effective when you follow a well-researched plan and social calendar.
One goal of all those posts is to engage with your target market, and that is time-consuming. When you use a platform that manages all of your scheduled social media posts, you have more time free to engage with your users in other ways.
Humans have a love-hate relationship with automation. We love things that make our lives easier, but we hate anything that feels like we are giving up control. Of course, when you use Hootsuite you are not giving up control.
You are actually taking control of your marketing. You are able to determine what will be posted when and on which social media accounts in advance. And you can do it when you have time to sit down and focus. That gives you far more control than you have when you are trying to shoehorn your social media management into a busy day.
Using automation and scheduled posts don’t mean you forfeit all spontaneity. It’s just good time management. Small business owners are usually running in many different directions during the day dealing with everything from sales to bookkeeping to supply chain logistics to building maintenance to marketing.
Why not move some of that to times when you have minimum distraction and disruption? Set aside time outside of business hours to plan and prepare your social media posts. Then you can also take time regularly during the day to reply to any comments or messages.
Instagram’s approach might irk some, but really it is pushing businesses to take a more strategic approach to market, and that will only benefit the businesses that take advantage of this feature.
Don’t have enough time to manage all your social media channels? Why not contact our expert Digital Marketing team today for some advice?
Talk to us today.
By Irene Hislop
By Jeff Sheridan
By Matrix Internet