Two reasons to use Facebook’s scheduling function



Contributing Writer
Photo: Calendar Credit: Maxime Perron Caissy

Photo: Calendar Credit: Maxime Perron Caissy

Facebook recently rolled out a queuing function for posts, analogous to scheduling with Hootsuite and similar third party apps.  When posting on Facebook, they added a clock in the lower left corner which when clicked allows entry of a date.  Also of note is that you can backdate posts, though that’s not a particularly useful tool beyond its novelty (I can post something and no one will see it unless they troll my timeline?  GREAT thinking Facebook).

Although apps like GrabInbox and Buffer provide better ease-of-use for queuing posts to Facebook, there are two compelling reasons  to schedule posts through Facebook proper rather than using a third party app.

1.  Third-party penalties – When Facebook Pages migrated to Timeline, Hubspot identified a 66% decline in interaction on posts from third-party apps.  From Facebook’s perspective it makes some sense, they can’t advertise to you if you’re posting to their platform from Hootsuite – so they squeeze your reach to “encourage” you to visit the site.  With their stock prices still volatile, it seems likely they’ll stay the course with that penalty for the forseeable forever.

2.  Tagging – Facebook is the only platform that will allow you to tag people and businesses in your Facebook posts.  This is a huge point of differentiation.  Posting content without a tag is an utterance, posting content with a tag is a conversation and/or co-promotion.  It is a significant enhancement to Facebook that you can only exploit from the Facebook site.

The bottom line is that marketing on Facebook has become an exercise in scale.  The convenience of posting from a third-party app is far less significant than the reach and targeting that the Facebook offers.  Queuing just makes the Facebook advantage a little more distinct, and makes things a little easier for marketers.

 

 

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Photo Credit

Jim Dougherty

Jim Dougherty

Writer and chief of miscellany at leaderswest.com

I aspire to give people something to think about rather than tell them what to do. My favorite Google Alert is “social media research,” I am increasingly compelled by Gen Z, and I appreciate good writers agnostic of where they write. At one time I was Kred’s 12th most influential social media blogger and Klout’s most influential person on the topic of David Hasselhoff. Transplant from Seattle living in Cincinnati. Haven’t entirely adopted the local sports teams yet.

Jim Dougherty

@jimdougherty

Jim Dougherty

Jim Dougherty

  • Pingback: Here's a video to the new schedule Facebook posts feature

  • http://about.me/jefftincher Jeff Tincher

    I didn’t even think of the tagging feature when I was checking out scheduling last week. BUt you’re right, that is huge! Especially if a business’s status message is tagging another page (co-promotion), etc. I do this quite frequently with my Brand page so this is an added benefit to use FB scheduling.

  • http://leaderswest.com Jim Dougherty

    Thanks so much for reading and for your insight, Jeff! I’m really glad they (finally) added it and I’m hopeful that people understand how much more reach Facebook affords a business that posts from the Facebook platform. Cheers!

  • http://www.facebook.com/herman.trakachenok Herman Trakachenok

    Hey! Just got a penalty from facebook! because I was advertising too much, but still within the internal rules of the groups. Could you advise what is the limit to send posts on groups without being banned or blocked… whatever? :)

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