Why You Should Create a Social Media Schedule

Being socially active is crucial for businesses to maintain a competitive advantage. However, many Realtors® might feel that maintaining an active social media presence takes too much time. With a social media content schedule, you can plan content weeks in advance and free up time to handle other aspects of your business.

The Benefits of a Social Media Schedule

By posting socially on a consistent schedule, you build an audience that knows they can find certain types of content on any given day, giving them a reason to come back and visit your social channels. Instead of random posts every now and then, a schedule helps build an engaged audience and improves your posts' retention and reach.

A schedule also makes it easier to see where audiences are engaging and losing interest. Knowing what kind of posts work and which ones don't presents you with the opportunity to replace the non-engaging content type with something fresh and new. By introducing a new content type, you can test whether this post will create better engagement compared to others.

Creating a Social Media Schedule

When creating your content schedule, you should think about what kind of content you have access to. Accessible content frees up your time when posting online, because you don't have to go out of your way to find it. If you don't have accessible content, then schedule time every week to acquire it. Researching competitors and industry leaders gives you an idea about what they are doing well and what they aren't.

Creating a social media schedule shouldn't be repetitive or predictable. A great way of creating content is by picking themes relevant to your brand, industry, or company and using different format types: like text, video, images, and GIFs.

Here is an example of content theme for Realtors®:

• Monday – Home buying / selling tips
• Tuesday – New listing
• Wednesday – Open
• Thursday – Share current listing
• Friday – Local events / Open house
• Saturday – Blog post linking back to your blog or share from a related brand
• Sunday – Off

By following this basic content schedule, you will ensure that your followers have a constant stream of social media updates flowing, increasing your presence and engagement. However, remember that social media is constantly changing. Seeing an increase in followers, presence, or engagement is normal, and after a while, you will begin to see it decrease. This will mean that it is time to look over your content schedule and make some changes.

If you want to take this schedule one step further, you can try adding the different kinds of formats you will be using weekly. This will ensure that you don't strictly post images or videos all week. Once you begin to notice the type of followers on each network and what kind of content they are engaging with, you can create a content schedule for each social network you use specifically targeting those followers.

Social media is all about consistency. A social media schedule will help you maintain an active social presence, but it will also make the process easier, freeing up time to do what you do best—sell homes!

To view the original article, visit the Homes.com blog.