The State of Social Media Scheduling

With so much pressure on marketers to be posting on multiple social media networks, multiple times a day, with multiple objectives in mine, it’s easy to see why social media scheduling is such a hot topic right now. In this follow up study from SoftwareAdvice.com, we learn how marketers are using social media optimization tools and what goals are driving their usage.

State of Social Media Scheduling

The vast majority of those surveyed (78%) are active on two to five different social media platforms and post at least once a day (69%) on those platforms. This means marketers are working on crafting anywhere from two to at least fifteen posts per day.

So why are marketers posting so often? The top reasons given for using social media are centered around relationship building. From increasing customer engagement to gaining more followers, marketers obviously want to be social on social media. Those surveyed also understand the visual state of marketing right now with the majority of respondents claim that posting images was the top way they achieved their goals.

With all that posting going on, how are marketers finding the right times to post? Turns out they rely on good old fashioned trial and error, followed by usage of optimization tools. While trial and error can be made a bit easier with guides on when to post on social media platforms, it’s still relying on a very imprecise science. Social media optimization tools (like Tailwind’s Peak Days & Times report) allow marketers to know when their audience is listening – not just when the average overall user is active on a platform.

A major part of the current social media posting landscape is taking advantage of scheduling tools, with 57% of those polled using some kind of software or service. Of those using automation tools, the vast majority plan their posting several days to a week in advance. This gives those marketers the advantage of not having to worry about creating daily posts, but also still maintaining currency – a major plus in the fast moving social market.

Of those polled, a majority using the tools did find their optimizations easier while those not using tools found it more difficult. So what makes a social media scheduling tool more or less useful? If a tool is based solely on scheduling, not helping with optimizing content or time, then it adds extra guess work to a marketers job. Or maybe they’re having a hard time finding the right tool for a given platform, like the lack of pin scheduling and optimization options available for Pinterest. Whatever the case maybe, there’s certainly room for improvement from SaaS companies creating social media optimization tools.

Scheduling is here to stay, but what do you think is missing? Let us know in the comments!

The State of Social Media Scheduling