If you're involved in social media, whether for your own business or as a social media marketer, you've likely come across the persistent rumours that scheduling posts could harm your reach. However, as a busy social media manager or content creator, using scheduling tools can be a lifesaver - helping you save time, reduce stress, and work more efficiently. So, does scheduling really impact your reach, or is it just another social media myth? In this article, we’re diving deep into the facts about scheduling, so you’ll know exactly what’s true and what’s not (spoiler: the news is good!).
What is meant by scheduling content?
Scheduling content refers to the process of planning and organizing your posts, tweets, videos to be published automatically at a specific date and time in the future. This is typically done using social media management tools like rapidely or a platform’s native scheduling feature.
By scheduling content, social media managers, marketers, and content creators can plan posts in advance, ensuring a consistent online presence even when they're not actively managing their accounts. It allows for better time management, coordination of campaigns, and strategic posting to reach audiences when they’re most active.
What are the advantages and disadvantages to scheduling content?
Scheduling content comes with many advantages including:
- Time Efficiency: Scheduling allows you to batch-create and plan your posts in advance, freeing up more time for other important tasks and reducing the day-to-day pressure of posting.
- Consistency: It helps maintain a regular posting schedule, ensuring your content reaches your audience consistently, which is crucial for growing and engaging followers.
- Targeting Optimal Times: You can schedule content to go live at times when your audience is most active, improving the chances of higher engagement and reach.
- Improved Work-Life Balance: Scheduling content enables you to manage your social media presence without constantly being online, allowing for a better balance between work and personal time.
While there are some drawbacks, the benefits far outweigh them. These disadvantages include:
- Reduced Real-Time Engagement: Scheduled content can feel less responsive to anyone commenting straight after posting or even current events or trending topics.
- Overlooking Engagement: Relying heavily on scheduling may lead to neglecting organic engagement, such as responding to comments, messages, or engaging with others' posts – all crucial for building deeper relationships and connecting with your audience.
- Risk of Automation Errors: Mistakes happen! For example, platform errors and scheduling posts at the wrong time.
So, does scheduling really hurt your reach?
Rumors have long circulated suggesting that scheduling content could harm your reach and upset social platform algorithms. However, these concerns are unfounded. Research over the years has consistently shown that scheduling posts does not negatively affect your reach or social accounts. In fact, it can be quite beneficial. By maintaining a consistent posting schedule, scheduling content can enhance your engagement rate and reach, helping you stay active on your platforms without feeling overwhelmed.
Still sceptical? Instagram’s CEO, Adam Moserri confirmed that scheduling doesn’t affect reach in a recent Q&A. When asked if scheduling hurts your reach, he said:
“No it doesn’t, there was a bug where it did affect unconnected reach but that was many, many months ago and it has since been fixed. I use scheduled posts all the time for my own videos, it does not affect your reach so if it’s helpful for you, great, use it.”
So there you have it! Straight from the horse’s mouth - scheduling posts does not harm your reach (and if it’s good enough for Instagram’s CEO, it’s good enough for us!).
What about engagement?
Scheduling posts won't harm your engagement directly, but relying solely on automation without being active on your social platforms can weaken your engagement and connection with your audience. While scheduling is great for maintaining a better work-life balance and staying consistent with your posting, it's still important to make time for authentic engagement. Respond to comments, answer DMs, interact with others' posts, and reply to stories—nothing beats genuine connections on social media.
In fact, simply posting regularly on social media with the help of a scheduler can still negatively affect your reach if your content isn’t part of a strong, researched strategy. Read more about how to build one in 8 steps here.
Pro tip: With rapidely, you can not only schedule your content but also track and respond to all your comments and build a tailored strategy – all in one place—a real game changer!
Conclusion
When it comes to scheduling content on social media, we say it’s a no-brainer in helping you stay consistent and organised BUT it doesn’t replace engagement and making authentic connections on your social platforms. The good news it, while there are many elements that go into having high or low reach on social media, scheduling content to auto-post isn’t one of them (yey!). So if you’re ready to start posting regularly on social media, give our scheduling tool a try (for free!). Get started now!
