How to Use Hootsuite to Schedule Social Media Posts Best Practices

How to use Hootsuite to Schedule Social Media Posts

Best practices including adding hashtags, tagging people, adding pictures, engaging, and viewing the metrics

by Red Barn Consulting

Managing your social media can be a very tedious process for some people, especially if you aren’t very comfortable with it and you are posting on multiple platforms on multiple days, at multiple times.

This is why we LOVE Hootsuite. It’s a social media management platform that covers almost every aspect of a social media manager’s role. You are able to create content right inside the tool, schedule posts, and even measure ROI.

There are several different plans to choose from, so you need to choose the one that best meets your needs. They do offer a free plan, but it has a few limitations – only 3 social profiles, and only 30 posts scheduled at a time:

We use the Professional plan because we have 5 platforms connected and we post daily or more on most of our platforms. If you are just getting started, the free plan should be fine.

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1. CREATE YOUR ACCOUNT

• Go to https://hootsuite.com o If you are going to start with the free account, you’ll need to click on plans, and then scroll down to the Try our Free Plan as highlighted in the image above. o If you are going to start with a paid plan, then simply click the green Sign Up button on the right side of the homepage. • Enter your email and sign up information as promoted

2. ADD YOUR SOCIAL PROFILES

Now it’s time to connect your social profiles so you are able to publish and schedule content, and monitor engagement, all from your Hootsuite dashboard. You can manage up to three social networks with Hootsuite Free.

You can connect the following social networks to your dashboard to manage them in Hootsuite:

Twitter profiles

Facebook Pages

Facebook groups

Instagram business profiles

Instagram personal profiles

YouTube channels

LinkedIn profiles

LinkedIn Pages

Pinterest profiles (publishing only) Want more Sales and Marketing Courses from Red Barn Consulting? Click Here.

Click your profile picture ( by default) in the top-right corner of the dashboard, and then select Manage Social Networks.

Click + Private Network in the bottom-left corner of the dashboard.

Select the social network from the list, and then click Connect with (social network).

Enter your social network credentials and then click to sign in. NOTE: Facebook typically links to whatever account you are already signed into on your computer automatically

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Facebook and LinkedIn: Select the accounts (Pages, groups, and profiles) to add to your dashboard, and then click Add Selected Accounts.

Optional: If a selected Facebook or LinkedIn Page has access to an ad account, check the box beside the ad accounts you want to add to the dashboard, and then click Done.

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3. SET UP STREAMS

Now that you’ve added social networks to your dashboard, set up streams for each one to monitor conversations and engage with customers. Each social network offers unique stream types.

Search streams are especially valuable for finding social activity around specific Pages, hashtags, or keywords. Use tabs to organize your streams into groups.

Select Streams from the launch menu.

Click Add Stream.

Select a social network from the list on the left, and then select a profile from the drop- down list.

Click the streams you want to add for that profile.

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Now you can see a variety of information about each of your social media accounts right from your Hootsuite Dashboard instead of logging into each account!

4. CREATING POSTS

To create a new post, all you need to do is click New Post in the top-right corner of the dashboard. Once the composer is open, click Minimize at any time to visit other areas of the dashboard and resume your post later.

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Click Select a social network, and then select the social profiles to publish your post to (only one Twitter profile can be selected per post).

Within the social network picker, social networks are organized by network type, team, and personal social networks. If you have a long list of social networks, you can search by social network, profile name, or team to surface the right profile(s).

If you often publish to the same social network(s), click the star next to a social network or team name to add it to your favorites. Favorites surface at the top of the list for quick access whenever you open the Composer.

Add text, mentions, and emojis

In the Text field, enter the text content of your post, including any links. The character count for each social network selected will display above the Text field.

Instagram: Captions can contain a maximum of 30 hashtags. To retain paragraph spacing when the post is published, ensure that there are no spaces at the end of each line. These can often appear when copy/pasting into the Text field.

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To mention/tag a user or Page Enter @ followed by the user/Page name, and then select the username from the list that populates. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook Page and LinkedIn Page mentions are supported. Instagram mentions will remain in plain text but will go live when the post is published.

To insert an emoji Click the smiley face in the bottom-left corner.

Include a link If a link is pasted in the Text field, a link preview for each social network will appear in the post preview on the right. Note that if your post contains a link preview, it must also contain text in the post body (the URL is sufficient) to be published successfully.

Link previews for Facebook event links are not supported when posted to Facebook, only the link can be included in the post.

To shorten a link, click Shorten with Ow.ly below the Text field. All included links will be shortened with one click. The full links will remain visible in the Text field, while the post preview on the right will display the shortened link(s).

Attach an image Drag and drop files into the Media box or click select a file to upload to attach one or more images to your post.

Or click Open Media Library to search free stock images or GIFs to include in your post. Click an image to attach it to your post. Click the Free Images drop-down, and then select GIPHY to insert an animated GIF in tweets or Facebook Page posts.

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Media library apps from the app directory and content library images can also be accessed here to easily attach approved media assets to your social posts. Click the Free Images drop-down to access your installed media library apps and content library images.

Click Close Media Library in the top-right corner.

When multiple images are attached, drag-and-drop them within the list to reorder them in your posts.

Click Edit Image below each image to crop it for a specific social network, add filters and text, or make other adjustments to it in the image editor.

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Click Save and the edited image will appear in your post preview.

If a Twitter profile is selected, click Edit image details below an image to include alternative text with the image. Alt text describes an image's content to make it accessible for users who are visually impaired. Alt text is not supported for animated GIFs or videos.

Facebook: Images attached to a Page post are uploaded to the Timeline Photos album by default. Uploading multiple images to the Timeline results in one post containing all the images. Click Timeline Photos to select a different photo album to post them to.

Instagram: Stories and multi-image carousel posts are not supported by Instagram's API. If multiple images are attached, only the first one will post to Instagram.

Publish a video Drag and drop files into the Media box or click select a file to upload to attach a video to your post. Video publishing is supported for Twitter, Facebook Pages and groups, LinkedIn Pages, and Instagram profiles.

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Add your location (geotag) Add a physical location tag to Twitter, Instagram business, and Facebook Page posts. Click Add to the right of Location, search for a location, select it from the results, and then click Apply.

5. PUBLISHING AND SCHEDULING POSTS

After you’ve finished crafting your post, review how it will look on each social network with the per-network preview on the right. If the composer detects any issues with a post, you'll be alerted with a contextual error.

To publish the post right away, click Post Now in the bottom-right corner. To schedule the post, click Schedule for later. Select either a specific date and time to publish the post, or toggle AutoSchedule to On. Click Done, and then click Schedule.

To save the post as a draft, or if you want to remain in the Composer and continue sending or scheduling posts, click the drop-down arrow next to Post Now (or Schedule) and select one of the following options:

• Save Draft. If you’re not ready to send or schedule the post, save it as a draft. • Post and Reuse Networks (or Schedule and Reuse Networks). Your current post is published or scheduled, and the Composer then resets all fields except the selected social networks for you to begin composing your next post.

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• Post and Duplicate (or Schedule and Duplicate). Your current post is published or scheduled, and the Composer then retains all elements of the previous post (except promoted ad spend) for you to easily modify and create a new, similar post, with a unique post ID.

Congrats! You’ve learned how to schedule your posts in Hootsuite.

If you want to view your posts, click on the publisher icon in the Dashboard menu:

You can choose to view All Posts or by Profile:

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You can also see past posts, they will have a green check mark once posted, and future posts that are scheduled.

Editing Posts If you need to edit a scheduled post, you can simply click on the post you want to edit, it will show on the right hand side, and you can click the pencil icon to make edits.

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It will now open up the Post Composer and you can make any edits needed and resave.

6. ANALYTICS Want more Sales and Marketing Courses from Red Barn Consulting? Click Here.

If you have the free version, you won’t be able to access any analytics directly from Hootsuite. You’ll have to view them individually by social media account OR you’ll have to upgrade to a paid plan.

If you have a paid plan, you can select the Analytics tab from the Dashboard Menu. You have several options on how you can review your data. You can choose to do a mixed overview and select which Networks you would like to view.

To choose which Networks, click the drop-down menu and select which accounts you want to review.

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You’ll be able to adjust the timeline for the data and also pick which dates you’d like to compare – for example you can look at week over week or month over month, etc.

The Mixed Overview gives you a nice snapshot of each platform that you have selected. You can also download the data and save it so that you have a history of your analytics. You can pull historical data, but it’s nice to have a PDF for quick access. Just click the green PDF button next to the dates you chose to review.

You can review the following type of information:

• Followers • Number of Posts • Engagement • Engagement Type • Traffic • Clicks • Messages • Posts – the content posted and the engagement on them

Enjoy!

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