Creating an Automated Content Scheduling System

Now I want to full on preface this by saying never should you spam your audience, and if at any point these automations gets out of hand. Then you have to deactivate it! Now that this is out of the way, let's get to why you would want to hand the controls over to the bots...

I've been a content creator for a long long lonngggg time, and one of my greatest skills is that I know HOW to market. I just hate doing it. At least for myself, and my own content (ironically).

When I came across tools like Repurpose.io or Zapier I found that they allowed for a much greater freedom from the shackles that are social media sharing.

Part of this post came from the need to be able to syndicate posting to Tiktok, Shorts, and Reels:

My Strategy, and Why I need a Tool for my System

I have a simple yet elegant strategy for maximizing the reach of each post of pillar content that goes out. Each time you send a link out to one of your posts you are right hooking the audience with a "attention here, look over here" type thing.

It is not something you want to do often technically, and that is why you create social content that are "jabs", where you provide value of some kind (we aren't talking about those here today though).

However you are doing a DISSERVICE to your audience if you are not letting them KNOW when a new episode or content is out. Meaning there is a fine line, and I like to tread it as far as I can go.

The strategy goes as follows:

• Content is released, send post DAY 1
• Send the post at the opposite time of day on DAY 2
• Wait a week, and quickly mention, hey I made this post last week in case you missed it!
• Month later, or quarter if you want to make it less frequent, just keep it simple "In case you missed this post!"
• Finally, you do a YEAR later as a sort of anniversary sharing of that post.

However even after trying over a HUNDRED social media management tools, none of them really could do that. Most of them couldn't even do the first two steps! Missingletter and Coschedule got close, but fail at doing multiple content types beyond blogs.

Taking advantage of FREE plans

Look I'm totally willing to pay if I am able to, but most of those social media management tools I had to figure out a way to test them during the free trial, or pay for a month. Something.

However this all comes out of pocket, and it is hard to manage that cost. This strategy takes a lot of moving parts, and puts them front and center. You need tools to help you get it done. These are how I managed to get all of them.

Zapier 5/5 | Automate.io 0/5 | http://dlvr.it 2/2Social 1/?Feeds | IFTTT 4/5

What does that all mean? Well you have three pillar types, video, audio, and written (plus PolyInContent in my case). Each one needs to go to respect platforms. All of them go to twitter, pinterest, and facebook. Then for linkedin I took a more nuanced approach, so that I don't seemingly spam my audience there.

You also have to think about balancing do I put it on my personal page, or on my company page? That right there is five places to put each content piece in, meaning you need 15 automations. Technically.

It depends on the tool, and if you can syndicate at the same time, like in the case of IFTTT I could do more than one platform at once for youtube.

I suggest pay for the tools if you can, otherwise use a combination of free plans. Sadly Automate is no longer with us, so we can use it anymore.

If This Then That - IFTTT

Early on tool, and super easy to figure out. Almost too easy at times, and then you can't find what you are looking for. Although this connects in ways that Zapier doesn't. Check out that right applet on the screenshot below.

Automatically share new videos to facebook, and twitter. I've seen ones too that add pinterest or linkedin. Just when you make it more complicated, then it is more likely to break.

Zap to your Socials - Zapier

One of the first to the market, and one of the most powerful. To give them credit, they know what they are doing, tons of learning materials, and TONS of integrations. Probably the most of them all.

However my zaps only work half of the time, and while support is quite helpful. The meta-work of constantly getting things going was frustrating me. I'd only have a few zaps on at a time too.

Now I have paid for the pro for this one, and I even tried doing that special strategy I mentioned above, but it failed miserably to do the multi-step zap. Was a fascinating experiment though.

Anyways, this tool is recommended I just can't justify the price to usage ratio.

It is what you MAKE of it - Make.com

Notice how I didn't link IFTTT or Zapier, but I did link to Make. That is for a few reasons, they used to be known as Integromat. Now while I didn't always use them,

Tools that I no longer use, and you shouldn't either:

This section is more of a dig at Dlvrit as I felt a bit burned by them over the years. I paid for that service, but it wasn't efficient and I was always in the weeds with it. Plus it hasn't updated in ages, besides a few bonus features here and there.

Dlvr.it

As of today at the time of this writing I DELETED my account with them, after being with them for nearly half a decade off and on.

Support is terrible, half of the features are behind a paywall (that isn't really that good?), UI is bad (and they have no intention of fixing it from what the team says), and more. Just use https://nuelink.com or something instead.

Automate.io

I mean it is discontinued at this point. Enough said. RIP.

Bonus Tool: https://automatisch.io/

While I haven't used this one yet, it does look really promising. Not to mention you can host it yourself as well.

If you are looking for additional tools:

A New Link came across my Screen - https://nuelink.com

While this post isn't sponsored by Nuelink, though I'm not opposed to that, it was inspired by me trying them out. I realized that my automations were shut off, either because I hit my quota (in the case of IFTTT), or Zaps breaking ONCE AGAIN in Zapier.

Alas I was thinking what can I do? I need a social media content manager that I can afford (buffer and all of them are just too dang expensive), AND that has access to the apis to post to Shorts Reels AND Tiktok at once.

I also would like to be able to send out basic posts when my youtube videos, blog posts, and podcasts come out.

Honestly this is what I am looking at to replace all of the above tools, AND my social media scheduler. To be honest I should have gotten the lifetime deal when I had the chance, as I had a gut feeling I should've.

I'll let you know what I think after I use it more.

It is all about Finesse

You can certainly post as much as you want to Twitter or Pinterest, but even those should be based on your analytics more than anything.

However with platforms like FB, Linkedin, or even Reddit; You have to have a bit more fine tuned control. Making sure you don't over post, and annoy the people following you.

A proper tool and strategy is key for that fine tuning. Hopefully this post helped you out on that!

If Nuelink isn't your style, then I'd say check out https://repurpose.io/!!

Resources: