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Scheduling Content: Getting Started

Isabel Harris

If you’re new to this, or, simply want a refresh, check out our best practice tips to consider before you start scheduling content with Hopper HQ.


We all want organic and engaging social channels because we know they are crucial to maintain and build our communities. This success derives from tactfully scheduling appealing content in order to connect with your audience and grow your channels!

Creating and scheduling consistently high-performing content is a welcome challenge to many social media users in order for you (and your business) to reach a highly-targeted audience, increase brand awareness and gain more followers and customers.

There are many factors to consider to ensure your content is right for your account and well received. We appreciate it is a bit of a cocktail to success. So cheers 🥂 and here’s what we are going to cover:

Who are your audience?

Knowing your audience is a great place to start with creating and scheduling content. Your audience are the ones who will interact with your socials, therefore your post success is dependent on connecting with your audience.

We understand the importance of knowing your following so have audience data on our Analytics page. On this page you are able to see when your followers are online, age and gender, and well as location. Don’t forget to export this data so you can see how it changes over time!

What do your audience want or expect from your account?

Now you know your audience, you can now consider how to tailor content to them to achieve high engagement across the board.

Your audience follow your account for a reason and it’s important to understand what that reason may be. Is it your for product information, new releases, brand image, loyalty, competitions…

This is easy to do using Hopper HQ Analytics page once again. In the Analytics page, click into the Content Performance tab. This will show you the breakdown of each and every post – not just those posted by Hopper HQ!

You’re able to see and order your posts into:

This is incredibly useful to understand exactly what type of posts get what level of engagement. This can inform future scheduled content as you are aware what content your audience like best.

Once you realise what content is performing best, you can perfect and perpetuate that theme using your Grid Planner. The Grid Planner allows you to visually plan and curate your scheduled content. We all know the importance of account aesthetics in attracting new customers, who will initially judge your account on it’s appearance, deciding whether or not to click the ‘Follow’ button.

Arranging your grid to be as impressive as individual content can be a lot of effort but with the Hopper HQ grid planner you can play around by dragging and dropping the posts to create the best pattern or theme.

What do you want to give to your audience?

All content scheduling should build on and work towards your social media content plan. This plan streamlines your social media in line with your (business) goals.

Once you know your aim and strategy, here are a few questions to consider:

Now that you have some idea of Instagram aesthetics, you can adapt and make your content! You’ll need to make sure your posts have a consistent look for that cohesive Instagram aesthetic you’re aiming for, whilst the content stays relevant.

Best time to post

Your account and your audience are unique, therefore it is key to find out the best time to post for you personally.

We know from the analysis of tens of millions of posts made by accounts across 70+ countries that the best time to post depends on the day:

The Best Time To Post On Instagram

Monday to Friday

Saturday & Sunday

Whilst this general data is great, Hopper HQ’s audience Analytics data lets you know who your followers are, where they are and when they are online! This allows you to understand your social media audience in order to specifically target your material to them and at a time appropriate for them.

On your Analytics page, you’ll be able to see:

Online Followers – a heat map broken into 24 hours for each day of the week, displaying when your followers are online. As well as maps and graphs displaying Follower Age, Follower Gender and Follower Locations.

Platform algorithm and frequent posting

Platform algorithms dictate the order the content will be seen. This is decided by looking at the user’s past behaviour and evaluating how interesting each piece of content is for the user.

A multitude of factors influence the algorithm, the main ones being:

Second to what you’re posting, one of the most important factors of Instagram management is how often you’re posting. There’s no right or wrong answer for how often brands or influencers should post on Instagram, as long as it’s consistent, and not spammy.

The easiest way to prevent against rushed posts on Instagram is to create a content calendar. This way you know exactly what’s going out when, and it’s easy to notice any gaps! Using the Hopper HQ calendar you can clearly see your scheduled posts in either a monthly or weekly view. Find out more about planning your content using Calendar view.

Content

Instagram is a visual platform, so your dashboard for social media management should be too! Hopper HQ’s clean interface puts your content at the focus – like an Instagram mood board!

We’re firm believers that the more you enjoy a task, the better you do it. Social media management doesn’t need to be tedious, it can be a creative process which brings out the designers and photographers in all of us! With drag and drop and one-click editing, Hopper HQ will allow you to schedule your content for the month ahead quickly and enjoyably!

Single media or Gallery/Carousel post?

Single media was the norm and then carousel posts came along! While both have their benefits, you need to ensure it fits your posting purpose.

A single media post is one image or video published onto social media. It’s a classic surefire way to get across a snippet of information in an impactful way. This is because it is one focal point for your audience, requiring less effort and commitment from them to engage with your content.

Gallery or Carousel posts are posts with multiple files that can be viewed by swiping to the next photo or video. They are a great way to deliver more value to your followers in the one post. However, with carousel posting you often need to have some level of loyalty and interest from your followers to ensure they swipe left to see the full post. This puts pressure on the order of your carousel post as you need to quickly peak and then retain your audience’s interest.

Examples of useful carousel posts are batching a series of similar photos together, before and after images, infographics, long video content broken down, etc.

Final words

There you have it! Any social media manager will appreciate the complexity of curating the perfect social media content. It isn’t easy, but with our best practice tips and easy-to-use interface, Hopper HQ will guide you on your scheduling merry way.

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