Free Up Time & Schedule Postings in Advance

Last week, we wrote about saving time by recycling content. This post looks at scheduling the posting of refreshed and new material on social media, your website, and your blog to free up more of your time.

Scheduling social media posts saves time and helps you regain control of that time. You can plan for a few days or weeks of posts at once. Go through emails, articles, Google alerts, and the latest news for your niche market, and then schedule future posts. Read each post to ensure the article relates to your practice area.

Scheduling posts encourages consistency. For example, if your area of practice is estate planning, you may decide to offer information on some commonly used trusts. You can include blog posts on the topic, links to informative articles on your website, and postings on social media announcing the new material.

Use analytics to determine the optimal posting time. When do most of your readers engage in your content? Schedule your postings at those times. Marketing experts recommend posting at minutes after the hour to gain more attention rather than on the half hour or hour. For example, post at 12:18 or 1:47 so your post arrives at a unique time rather than in a crowd of other posts.

80% of the U.S. population is in the Eastern or Central time zone, so post with those time zones in mind. Studies indicate that most readers interact with social media on the following days and times:

• Facebook—Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 9:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m., or 3:00 p.m.
• Twitter—Wednesday is most popular; business people connect during business hours, while others read at noon, 3:00 p.m. or 5:00–6:00 p.m.
• LinkedIn—Most visitors read posts on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday mornings; other popular times are noon and 5:00–6:00 p.m.

If you have an international audience, adjust your posting times for those time zones.

Analytics can also reveal which posts resonate with your readers. Use this information to recycle popular posts into another medium such as a webinar, podcast, or rewrite it from a different viewpoint for your next round of postings.

Each social media platform has its own requirements. Word content and image size can vary, and an identical message may not work on all sites, so be sure the message fits the messenger.

While scheduling posts in the future is convenient and saves time, don’t go too far ahead. The law doesn’t change quickly, but it does change. You want readers to have the most current information, so scheduling posts two or three weeks in advance is probably best. You can enjoy a great summer vacation knowing your postings will continue while you explore new lands or visit familiar havens.

After years practicing law, Roberta Gubbins served as editor of the Ingham County Legal News. Since leaving the paper, she provides writing services to lawyers ghostwriting content for websites, blogs, and articles. She is editor of The Mentor, the SBM Master Lawyers Section newsletter.

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