Let’s face it. Facebook is just one part of your marketing strategy. You have so many other things to do, not to mention a life you want to enjoy. And you have only 24 hours in the day.

That means it’s time to look at automating some of your Facebook marketing efforts. One of the first, easiest things you can do right now is start using a Facebook auto poster to automatically publish your posts. You’ll spend less time on the platform and more time doing other tasks.

Bonus: Download a free guide that teaches you how to turn Facebook traffic into sales in four simple steps using Hootsuite.

What is a Facebook auto poster?

In short, a Facebook auto poster is a tool that publishes your Facebook posts at a scheduled time you’ve established previously.

There are many Facebook auto posters out there. You can choose one that satisfies your needs.

But no matter which tool you opt for, make sure it covers 3 essential features:

• Options to publish now or schedule for posting in the future.
• Automatically publish scheduled posts on multiple Facebook pages, groups, and profiles you’ve created at the same time or at staggered intervals.
• Allow to publish all types of content: Text, links, images, videos.

Besides these features, you may also want to consider a clean and intuitive interface, detailed reporting and dashboards, or the ability to manage multiple Facebook accounts from one place.

Why should you use Facebook auto poster software?

Let’s take a look at 3 benefits of using a Facebook auto poster. You may be surprised by how useful it is.

1. Simplify your workflow and save time

If you ever search for time management tips, you may know this quote: “Work smarter, not harder.”

It may be a bit cliché, but imagine this situation: You’re doing Facebook marketing, and have to post a lot on this platform. Are you pleased with continually copying and pasting the same post into different groups?

The answer is a loud No.

By scheduling your posts ahead of time, you’ll save yourself a significant amount of time to do other things. Your work process becomes simpler because a Facebook auto poster takes on the tedious tasks for you.

2. Reach multiple time zones and post at the best time

The best time to post on Facebook is between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. EST on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.

Note that this can be different depending on geographic locations (9 a.m in the United States is 11 p.m in Australia, don’t you know?).

That means you need an auto poster to ensure your posts will be published at the time with the highest engagement rates. You don’t have to log in to your account at 3 a.m; you can set it up once and let it run, only tweaking once in a while as necessary.

3. Maintain consistent scheduling across all platforms

Consistency is the key to building and growing your followers on Facebook.

Why?

Because if you consistently show up in your audience’s feed, you are more likely engage them with your brand. By doing that, your organic reach can increase, and your posts may get shown to potential new followers.

Whether it’s a slow news week or the biggest holiday season of the year, posting consistently benefits your business.

Now that you understand the what and why of a Facebook auto poster, it’s time to choose the right tool to help you do it.

3 best free Facebook auto posters

Here are the best free Facebook auto posters to help you kickstart Facebook post automation with zero investment:

1. Facebook’s native auto poster

Facebook allows you to schedule posts, edit, reschedule, or delete a scheduled post. It’s simple and free.

However, this feature is only available for Business Pages. You can’t schedule posts to your personal account. And the metrics you use to measure the performance of your posts are limited.

Recommended reading:

• How to Schedule Facebook Posts to Save Time
• How to Create a Facebook Business Page in 7 Easy Steps

2. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a popular professional Facebook auto poster. With a Hootsuite free plan, you can create new content in seconds and schedule up to 30 posts for up to 3 different social media profiles. Upgrade your account to post even more to more accounts.

Hootsuite also offers powerful built-in tools to measure metrics like engagement, conversations, mentions, keywords, and hashtags. Hence, you can keep track of what’s happening on your Facebook profiles, pages, and groups—all inside Hootsuite.

3. Hootsuite Boost

Hootsuite Boost is a great way to put advertising budget behind your top-performing Facebook posts to maximize their full potential.

With Hootsuite Boost, you can manage up to $100/month in post-promotion ad spend and determine objectives, timelines, and target audiences. Besides, you’re given two ways to boost organic posts:

• Auto Boosting: Automatically identify and boost published posts based on your pre-defined criteria.
• Single Post: Manually select specific posts to put budget behind.

Check out this video to learn more about this magic tool.

How to use Hootsuite to automate your Facebook posts

Automating your Facebook post with Hootsuite is a breeze. All you need to do is compose a message, add a link (optional), select a publishing date, and click Schedule. Easy-peasy!

But that’s not all you can do with Hootsuite. You can even view and edit your scheduled message or schedule multiple posts or auto-schedule them—all in one place.

Check out this video to learn how to schedule posts in bulk with Hootsuite (Facebook, or any social network).

5 best practices for automating Facebook posts

Alright, now you should have a tool to automate your Facebook posts. The question is: how can you make use of it to get the best results from every scheduled post?

Here’re some suggestions for you:

1. Tweak your post for each location

Imagine you have two different Facebook accounts. People who like/follow each of your accounts may have different interests than those of another.

What do you think if you constantly post the same message to these accounts?

Spammy, right?

Here’s the solution: You don’t need to rewrite everything but ensure you customize your message for each account before scheduling it. You can make a small tweak in headlines, images, introduction, or call to action. It’s even better if you can create new messages optimized for different Facebook pages/groups/accounts.

Remember, sharing the same thing over and over is boring. And when your followers feel bored, they’ll try to find new things that excite them again. It’s just part of nature that our brains love new stuff.

Recommended reading: Stop Posting the Same Message on Social Media (And Do This Instead).

2. Determine the best times to schedule your posts

It’s one thing to know how to automate posts, another thing to know how to do it correctly.

As I said before, the optimal time to post on Facebook is between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. EST on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.

By automatically posting at the best times, you can get higher engagement, shares, and traffic you deserve.

3. Don’t get spammy

You might be excited to automate your post right now, but hold on for a second.

Over-sharing can make you like a robot and potentially risk your content quality. Remember, your followers hate spam posts as much as you hate email spam. Keep a pace that guarantees you can always be posting high-quality content.

4. Share, learn, and iterate

As you automate your Facebook posts, you’ll get insights into how each scheduled post performs.

Start measuring your Facebook analytics to get a complete picture of your Facebook efforts, including clicks, comments, reach, shares, video views, video reach, or follower growth over time.

Sounds good? Check out this video to learn more about tracking Facebook analytics with Hootsuite.

5. Don’t schedule your posts too far in advance

The future is unpredictable because everything around us is changing faster and faster.

Think about this when you start scheduling your Facebook post. If you schedule too far ahead, it’s easy to lose track of what you’ve planned. Or with unexpected events like COVID-19, your content may be outdated and misplaced.

Try setting up a week’s worth of Facebook posts using Hootsuite for free and see how much time you save.

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The post How to Reduce Your Workload with a Facebook Auto Poster appeared first on Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard.