Ask Buffer: Will Scheduling My Social Media Posts Affect My Engagement?
Question: I’m trying to grow the social media accounts for my small business, but I’ve heard that using scheduling tools can cause low engagement and reach. Is this true?
The short answer is: no. Consistency is more likely to raise your reach and audience engagement — which is the primary service offered by third-party scheduling tools. However, this myth persists for several reasons.
This article from Social Status posits that this belief is thanks to the idea that platforms like Twitter and Instagram purposely limit the reach of posts scheduled with third-party tools to get people to use their native scheduling capabilities – but there’s no evidence to support this. The article also mentions that influencers in the social media marketing industry might be influencing this idea.
Whatever the reason, we’re here to analyze this myth and, hopefully, debunk it for you!
How do we know scheduling tools are not the culprit of low engagement?
Organic reach is the number of eyes on your content without you paying to reach a specific audience. Unlike ads, organic posts aren’t targeted to specific audiences, so they rely on the social network’s algorithm.
While we don’t know all the details of how algorithms work, we do know that one of the main goals is to keep people scrolling on the platform so that they see more ads. What does this mean for you?
The algorithm rewards high engagement, which is directly linked to consistency for many social media users. This means that the more active you are, the more your engagement and reach increase. While the algorithm considers multiple factors, it doesn’t seem to disfavor scheduled posts.
In fact, we (along with other folks at Sendible and Agorapulse) have done the research, so we know that third-party scheduling tools help (not hurt) your reach. The most recent report (done in 2020) found that posts scheduled on Facebook via third-party tools achieved 10.3% more engagement than those posted natively, proving scheduling tools are a good investment.
This increase in engagement could be because of the many advantages that come with these tools. Buffer, for example, finds the best times to post, analyzes which kind of content is the best, and helps you easily respond to comments – all of which are important for growing your social accounts.
Of course, this doesn’t account for marketers who see lower reach and engagement from third-party scheduling but get better results when switching to native scheduling. So it’s essential to experiment with both approaches to see what works for you.
What does cause low engagement?
High-quality and engaging content will perform well on social media, whether posted via an app or natively through a platform. What impacts engagement is elements like poor quality content or a lack of interaction with your audience.
Once your post is scheduled, there’s still work to do. You can’t just leave a post and expect it to perform on its own. You must check in daily to see …read more
Source:: Buffer Blog
