We all know that we need to build a brand on Facebook these days.
Developing a powerful Facebook presence is no longer an option for real estate agents – it is a must.
Facebook offers the opportunity to begin building trust and authority with your prospects and clients long before you ever meet them in person. But how does an agent find time in their busy day to stay active on social media?
This is where automatic post scheduling comes in and saves the day. Scheduling posts in advance allows you to share updates at specific times even if you aren’t actually available to go online at that moment.
For example, if you know your audience is most likely to be on Facebook at 9pm, you may want to schedule a post to go out around that time while you’re spending time with your family.
Scheduling your posts in advance also allows you to sit down at one time and schedule everything you want to send out for the next week (or longer).
Rather than going to Facebook each day and finding something to post, you can knock out a load of posts in one sitting, thus saving yourself hours of time and energy throughout the week. (For more info on how to create your own Facebook Calendar, just click here).
So what tools should you use to schedule your Facebook posts?
We highlighted several options for you to consider below.
Post Scheduling Services to Consider
If you’re focusing your energy solely on Facebook, then their internal scheduler may be all you need. You can schedule posts anywhere from 10 minutes in advance to 6 months in advance. (Note: this only works for your business page. As of now, you cannot schedule posts to your personal page.)
Facebook offers basic instructions on their website for how to schedule posts and how to view posts you’ve scheduled previously.
Once you’ve scheduled a post, you can also go back and edit the post if needed, and you can see a history of edits made to your scheduled posts.
You should be able to schedule as many posts at one time as you’d like. Plus, you can save drafts of posts, so if you know you want to post something but you don’t have the link or you aren’t ready to finalize the post, you can save a draft (just like an email draft).
If you want to schedule posts that automatically go out to your Facebook page as well as other social media platforms (such as Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn), then Buffer is a great option.
Using the free version, you can connect one account for each social media platform. If you upgrade to their paid version, they’ll give you up to 10 total profiles across all platforms.
Buffer allows you to schedule up to 10 posts at one time using their free version (their paid version allows unlimited scheduling). You can choose to schedule each post for a specific time on a specific day.
Or you can build a “queue” of posts, and Buffer will post the next update in your “queue” at a specific time (or times) each day. You can post multiple times per day, but the exact times would remain the same each day (11:41am and 3:33pm, for example) if you’re using the “queue” feature.
One handy feature Buffer offers is a ‘bookmarklet’ browser extension for Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera. When you find an interesting article that you want to share, you can click the ‘bookmarklet’ and it will allow you to easily create a post that you can publish to all of your social media channels at one time.
However, if you want the ability to utilize an RSS feed from a content service like KCM’s Personalized Posts to automatically publish content, you have to upgrade to their paid platform.
Like Buffer, Hootsuite allows you to post to multiple social media platforms at once (including but not limited to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn).
Unlike Buffer, Hootsuite does allow you to add multiple accounts from the same platform. So if you have a Community page on Facebook and you have a Real Estate business page, you can add both of these to the same Hootsuite account for free.
You can also schedule posts for specific times on specific days, and you can opt to have an email notification sent to you when the post goes out. This is a great way to keep on top of your scheduled posts to make sure you’re prepared to respond to any comments or questions they generate.
Or you can utilize Hootsuite’s Autoschedule feature, which picks times for each of your posts based on your previous history and optimizes the likelihood of your posts being seen. You choose how many posts you’d like to go out each day, your earliest preferred posting time, and your latest preferred posting time, along with what days you want to post. Hootsuite then picks a time for each post while staying within the parameters you set.
Similar to Buffer’s ‘bookmarklet,’ Hootsuite offers a browser extension called Hootlet that allows you to easily share articles you find. However, Hootlet is currently only available for Chrome browsers.
Hootsuite’s analytics features are pretty cool, including the ability to schedule a weekly email report. Many of the reporting features are only available to their PRO members, but there are some basic reports included in the free version. You can create your own custom report or choose a template they provide.
Like Facebook, Hootsuite allows you to save a draft of a post, but here you can also use this feature to essentially create post templates for yourself. First, you need to write a new post, and save it as a draft.
When you finalize the post and schedule it to go out, also check the small box next to “Retain a copy of draft message.” This will keep a copy in your Drafts box even after the post is published, which allows you to edit and re-use the draft in the future, like a template.
This allows you to only update specific pieces of certain posts each time instead of recreating every post from scratch. This is super helpful when it comes to promoting listings and open houses. The main elements of these posts are pretty similar, and you could just update the link, address, price, features, photos, etc. rather than writing a new post every time.
Lastly, Hootsuite allows you to utilize an RSS feed from a content service like KCM’s Personalized Posts to automatically publish content to Facebook (and your other social media platforms).
dlvr.it’s free version provides you with post scheduling for up to 3 social pages and profiles with content sourced from up to 5 different feeds (their specialty seems to be utilizing RSS feeds from a content service like KCM’s Personalized Posts to automatically publish content to your social media platforms).
Like the other options, dlvr.it will allow you to schedule specific posts at specific times.
And like Buffer, you also have the option of creating a “Q” of posts where it’ll run through the “Q” and post each day however many times you choose.
dlvr.it’s analytics are much less robust compared to Hootsuite’s, and their interface is not the most intuitive. However, they do make it fairly easy to utilize an RSS feed from a content service like KCM’s Personalized Posts.
They also offer an interesting widget option where you can display up to 10 items from one of your social media channels. For Twitter accounts, the widget will also display your number of followers, the number of people you are following, and how many tweets you’ve posted.
Things to Keep in Mind
Whether you decide to schedule posts directly on Facebook, or utilize a service like Buffer, Hootsuite, or dlvr.it, there are several important things to keep in mind as you automate your social media posting.
- You should still check your Facebook page daily.
Even if you have your posts scheduled to go out automatically so that you don’t have to think about them, you should still check your page each day.
It’s important to review your scheduled posts regularly to make sure if something changes, you can cancel a post or edit it accordingly. For example, if you’re planning to share a post for a current listing and you include the price in your copy, but then your seller agrees to lower the price, that change needs to be reflected in your post.
Additionally, one key to continued engagement on your Facebook page is to respond to all comments you receive on your posts. Therefore, even if you no longer need to spend time every day actively posting, you want to make sure you have notifications set up for when people respond. You should then go in to Facebook and reply to every comment or question as quickly as possible.
- Scheduling posts once per week is a good place to start.
Scheduling posts once per week helps you start saving time so that you aren’t posting daily but it keeps you consistently scheduling additional posts to fill your queue as your current ones publish.
Perhaps you pick one day and every week on that day, you sit down and schedule your Facebook posts. Monday may be a good option as it’s the start of the week for most people, and it’s a good time to prep for the week ahead.
You can schedule your posts more frequently or less frequently if you so choose, but for those who are just getting started, picking a frequency and sticking with it regularly is recommended.
Until you’ve developed a consistent habit for how you’ll schedule your Facebook posts, your best bet is to set a schedule and stick to it as much as possible.
It’s similar to starting a new exercise plan. You’re most likely to have success if you pick specific days each week that you’re going to go to the gym or go for a run rather than just deciding each day as it comes if you have time to exercise.
- Make sure the content you share is helpful and relevant.
However you decide to schedule your posts and whichever service you decide to use, the biggest key to success on Facebook is having fresh, relevant content to share with your audience.
If you aren’t sure what you should be sharing to Facebook, we can help with that.
We put together a done-for-you, copy-and-paste Facebook game plan, which we call the Ultimate Facebook Calendar Toolkit, and it’ll get you up and running with a planned social media presence.
The toolkit includes a 28-day plan you can follow, tons of sample posts you can use, and 20 custom quote images that are already done for you. Just click here to learn more and get your hands on it.
