Facebook recently unveiled a feature many page admins have been asking for for years – the ability to schedule future posts. While this function should not be relied upon, there are two situations when it can save page admins time and stress:
- scheduling “evergreen” content to ensure a consistent stream of content.
- scheduling reminders about events or important dates at one time
Before Facebook made this feature available, admins had to either remember on their own to post these types of updates on their own time, or sacrifice SEO juice and use a third-party app.
So, how exactly do you schedule posts on your Facebook page?
Steps for Scheduling a Facebook Post
1. Write your post in the sharing tool as you would with most page posts.
2. Rather than clicking on the “post” button, click on the small clock icon in the bottom left corner of the sharing tool.
3. If you have not yet specified the date your business or organization began, Facebook will prompt you to do so. If you don’t know the exact date, Facebook will accept simply entering the year.
4. After you click on the clock icon, Facebook will prompt you to add a year.
If you would like to post an update that will appear in a year earlier on your timeline, choose an earlier year. If you would like it to appear later this year, choose the current year.
It will then prompt you to enter the month, day, hour, and minute (in ten minute intervals) that you would like the post to appear on your timeline.
5. Finally, click “schedule” to schedule your post.
If you scheduled a post to appear earlier on your timeline, then it will immediately be added to your timeline. If you scheduled it to appear sometime in the future, you can find it in your activity log.
To get to your activity log, scroll to the top of your page and click on the “edit page” tab in the top right corner. Then select “use activity log.” Your activity log shows you all of your past activity as well as your scheduled activity. From here you can delete scheduled posts or change the time.
As I mentioned above, this is a great tool, but it should only be used sparingly. Remember, Facebook happens in real time. If you want your page to succeed, you have to make posts that are relevant to the current situation – and you probably don’t know what will be relevant in the future unless you’re Marty McFly.
