The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Scheduling: Tools & Best Practices

Managing social media efficiently requires more than just creativity—it demands organisation, strategy, and automation. Without a structured workflow, keeping up with content creation, engagement, and analytics can be overwhelming.

Fortunately, social media scheduling tools simplify this process. They allow businesses and marketers to schedule posts in advance, maintain a consistent posting rhythm, and maximise engagement without being online 24/7.

In this guide, we’ll explore:

Table of Contents

• What is social media scheduling? (And why does it matter?)
• How does social media scheduling save time?
• How does scheduling improve content planning and strategy?
• Best practices for scheduling social media posts in 2025
• How to schedule social media posts: Step-by-step guide

 

What is social media scheduling? (And why does it matter?)

Social media scheduling is the process of planning, creating, and queueing up posts before they're published.

This allows social media managers to keep a consistent posting schedule across platforms without needing to be online at the time of posting. Scheduling tools automate this process, ensuring content goes live at the best times for audience engagement.

These tools often include features like content calendars and libraries, analytics, and performance tracking, making them essential for managing social media accounts. By organising and automating posts, these tools help maintain a consistent and active presence, which is crucial for growing and sustaining an engaged audience.

We have created an in-depth list on the best social media scheduling tools, their differences, and which one might be best for your type of business.

How does social media scheduling save time?

Managing multiple social media accounts can be time-consuming. Scheduling tools streamline your workflow, helping you save valuable time and focus on high-impact activities like strategy and audience engagement.

Here are five time-saving benefits of using a social media scheduler:

1. Batch content creation – Plan, write, and schedule posts for the entire week or month in a single session.
2. Automated posting – Your posts go live at the optimal time without manual effort.
3. Consistent posting schedule – Maintain an active presence, even on weekends and holidays.
4. Time zone optimisation – Schedule posts for global audiences without needing to be online.
5. Efficient workflow – Integrate scheduling with content creation and approval workflows to eliminate bottlenecks.

📌 Case Study: Marketing agency Social Reach saved 50% of their time weekly by switching to Sendible’s social media scheduling tool.

Best practices for social media scheduling

• Find the best time to post for each platform using analytics tools.
• Balance content types to avoid repetition (images, videos, polls, carousels).
• Use testing to refine post-performance.
• Regularly review scheduled posts to align with current trends and events.
• Avoid over-scheduling—stay flexible for real-time engagement opportunities.

How does scheduling improve content planning and strategy?

Scheduling social media posts is not just about time management, as great as that is. It's also a strategic tool that can enhance your content planning. Here are four ways it can help:

1. Developing a content calendar

Most scheduling tools come with built-in content calendars that provide a visual overview of planned posts. This feature helps social media managers organise content themes, campaigns, and promotional activities. 

A content calendar allows you to see the bigger picture so that your social media strategy aligns with your overall marketing goals.

It also helps you identify content gaps and plan for seasonal trends or important dates. When your content plan is centralised, your team's collaboration will shoot through the roof. Everyone will be on the same page, and there won’t be any surprises for your team.

2. Balancing content

Nearly half of social media users prefer to learn about products through video. But far too many companies stick to text-heavy, information-based posts that offer little value to their followers. Using a content calendar will help you balance social media content pillars (e.g., promotional, educational, entertaining) and formats (e.g., images, videos, articles) because you’ll see it visually on a calendar.

This balance keeps your feed from becoming full of overly promotional content and will increase audience engagement.

For example, you can plan a mix of blog post links, behind-the-scenes videos, customer testimonials, and product announcements to create an appealing content lineup. Then, using the data from past performance, you can optimise the types of content that resonate most with your target audience and adjust as necessary. 

3. Planning long-term strategy

Planning out your long-term social media content strategy is difficult when you’re always in reaction mode.

Scheduling tools help you proactively mesh your posts with your company’s broader campaigns, product launches, or important events. The last thing you want is for your social media marketing to work against your company’s overall business strategy.

By mapping out your content months in advance, you’ll create cohesive campaigns that build anticipation and maintain momentum with your audience. For example, you can align your social media posts with your email marketing, blog content, and advertising. Followers will get a unified message across all channels, which will help build trust and loyalty over time.

4. Avoiding last-minute posting

There’s nothing worse than the feeling you get when you forget to post and need to create something in a hurry. You feel rushed, nervous, and probably angry at yourself for not planning!

Last-minute posting usually leads to low-quality content and missed opportunities for engagement. Scheduling your posts reduces the risk of typos, incorrect links, or poorly timed posts that could negatively impact your brand’s image. 

Creativity often strikes when you least expect it–especially after you’ve already done the work! When you schedule your posts early, you’ll have time to review, edit, or even change everything (it happens to the best of us). 

Best practices for scheduling social media posts in 2025

Just like anything else you do as a social media manager, you need to be strategic and intentional to get the most out of scheduling your posts. A major part of this is understanding your audience inside and out. 

Here are some best practices for social media scheduling:

1. Find the best time to post

You should post when your audience is most active on a platform. Yes, your posts will stay on the internet forever. However, they are more likely to be seen and engaged if the posts go live when followers are online. 

Remember that your audience is active on different platforms at different times. For example, LinkedIn users will be more active during the workday since it’s a professional networking site. Apps like Instagram or TikTok are used more often during breaks or after hours. 

Use analytics tools to identify the peak times for your followers on each social media platform. You can do this within the platform or with a third-party social media management tool like Sendible. 

Experiment with different posting times and monitor engagement metrics to pinpoint the best time to post. Here are our guides that can help you:

• The Best Time to Post on Facebook
• The Best Time to Post on Instagram
• The Best Time to Post on TikTok

2. Find the optimal posting frequency

Posting too often can overwhelm your audience. But if you don’t post often enough, it will decrease visibility and engagement. Your followers will forget you exist! Analyse past performance and engagement rates to determine the ideal posting frequency for each platform. 

For example, platforms like X/Twitter may require multiple posts per day. Your X followers probably expect multiple posts per day. However, LinkedIn might be effective with just a few posts per week. Your YouTube followers, on the other hand, likely never expect more than one video post per day and typically probably expect just one per week.

3. Schedule across multiple social channels

The average person has more than 7 social media accounts, so there’s a good chance your customers follow you on multiple platforms. It’s likely you’re managing multiple accounts as a social media manager. To make your life easier, use a scheduling tool to automate your posts across all the channels you’re on.

There are many reasons to post across multiple social channels. The major reason is that it will lead to a more cohesive and comprehensive content strategy, reaching a broader audience and maximising your content's impact. You won’t forget to post on one platform and neglect a significant segment of your audience.

With Sendible’s automation tool, you can schedule and manage all your posts in one place. Leading travel company Isango used Sendible to help with workflow for all 18 of their social media accounts.

4. Avoid scheduling too far into the future

While it's beneficial to plan, scheduling posts too far in advance can be risky. Social media trends and audience preferences can change rapidly. Avoid scheduling content more than a few weeks ahead and never more than a month out.

Why?

You want to avoid posting on short notice, but sometimes, it will be unavoidable when you need to respond to events like these. If a situation arises, take the time to review and update your scheduled posts to make sure they align with current events and trends. 

Have a scheduled post that doesn’t feel right, doesn’t fit the current social media trends, or isn’t a good fit for your brand anymore? Don’t post it! If you can’t recycle it for another time, that’s okay. It’s better than posting the wrong content at the wrong time.

5. Post different content types

Variety is essential for keeping your audience engaged. Mix up your content by including different types of posts, such as images, videos, articles, infographics, and polls. Different content types have unique strengths and will resonate with different audience segments.

Diversifying your content also helps to maintain interest and encourages followers to interact with your posts. Use your content calendar to plan and balance these different formats.

6. Try out A/B testing

A/B testing involves creating two versions of a post with slight variations to see which performs better. You can try different headlines, copy, images, posting times, and CTAs to identify what appeals to your audience. 

If one post performs better than another, ask “Why?” Was one headline more catchy? Was one copy more compelling? Was one CTA clearer than the other? As you think critically about your results, use these insights to refine your future strategy. Scheduling tools often have features to help with A/B testing, making it easier to compare results.

7. Make adjustments based on social media analytics

Only 26% of businesses use social media analytics. You can get a leg up on your competition if you regularly review the performance of your scheduled posts. Track key metrics such as likes, shares, comments, and click-through rates to see what’s working and what’s not. 

As you collect data, adjust your content strategy, posting times, frequency, etc. Continuous improvement will make your social media efforts even more effective and aligned with your marketing goals.

8. Use the right scheduling tool

We’ve mentioned scheduling tools several times in this article. Using the right tool is crucial for streamlining your social media management. Look for tools that offer comprehensive features such as content calendars, analytics, team collaboration, and multi-platform support. Bonus points if it integrates with your other marketing software (CRM, newsletter, file storage, etc.).

We’ll take a look at the seven best social media scheduling tools in a bit.  Let’s talk about scheduling your social media posts for now. 

How to schedule social media posts: Step-by-step guide

Scheduling social media posts helps businesses stay consistent, reach audiences at the right time, and improve engagement without manual posting. There are two main ways to schedule content:

1️⃣ Natively within each social media platform (manual and limited to one platform at a time).
2️⃣ Using a third-party tool like Sendible (schedule posts across multiple platforms in one go, with platform-specific customisation).

While native scheduling works for basic needs, businesses managing multiple accounts or platforms will benefit from a centralised tool like Sendible.

1. Scheduling natively on each platform

Each social media platform offers basic scheduling options, but these require manual effort and platform-specific posting.

• Facebook: Use Meta Business Suite to create and schedule posts in advance.
• Instagram: Available only for Business and Creator accounts via the app’s Advanced Settings.
• X (Twitter): Accessible on desktop or mobile browser, but not in the app.
• YouTube: Schedule videos via YouTube Studio under "Visibility."
• LinkedIn: Use the calendar icon in the post composer to set a scheduled time.
• Threads: Threads has introduced a native post scheduling feature. Users can schedule posts directly within the app by creating a new thread, tapping the three-dot menu in the top-left corner, selecting "Schedule," and choosing the desired date and time. Scheduled posts can be managed through the drafts folder and can be set up to 75 days in advance.

Limitations of native scheduling:

• Requires separate scheduling for each platform.
• No cross-platform content repurposing.
• No bulk scheduling or automation.
• Bluesky and Goole Business don't support native scheduling, but you can use Sendible to do it (Bluesky will be joining our suite shortly).

2. Scheduling posts efficiently with Sendible

With Sendible, you can schedule posts across multiple platforms at once, customising each post for different audiences.

How to schedule posts in Sendible:

1. Create a new post – Open the Sendible dashboard and click "Compose".
2. Select platforms – Choose multiple social networks to post to at once.
3. Customise for each platform – Tailor captions, hashtags, and media for each network’s unique format. You can also add UTM parameters to your links or Custom Tags - pre-saved information that speeds up the process of adding repetitive information and staying consistent.
4. Schedule for the best times – Use Sendible’s Optimal Times to schedule posts when your audience is most active.
5. Preview your posts – Make sure they look good by previewing how they'll look once posted.
6. Review in the content calendar – Get a visual overview of all scheduled posts.

Why use Sendible for scheduling?

• Scheduling across multiple platforms from a centralised Compose Box.
• Customised captions and images per platform (no need for copy-pasting).
• Optimal posting time suggestions based on your audience activity time.
• Tailored AI caption generation where you can choose the audience and tone.
• Bulk upload and evergreen content recycling to save time.
• Approval workflows for teams managing multiple accounts.
• Access to Canva, Pexels, GIPHY, Flickr, Google Drive and Dropbox directly from the Compose Box.
• Content curation from RSS Feeds, Google Chrome Extension, Content Library.

Wrapping it up

Social media scheduling isn’t just about automation—it’s about maximising your impact while saving time. With the right strategy, you can increase engagement, stay consistent, and free up more time for creativity and audience interaction.

Get started today:

✅ Try Sendible’s free trial to experience effortless social media scheduling.
✅ Learn how to create a content calendar to plan your content efficiently.