If you’re the type who likes to schedule posts on your social channels, Threads just announced some good news.
In case you missed it — and I can understand if you did — the social platform Threads now allows users to schedule posts ahead of time. It’a nice feature whenever you have a few things you want to post, but you don’t want to post them all at once.
Threads tested the feature late last year but it appears the platform quietly rolled it out to everyone in late January. So if you didn’t know, you’re not alone.
A case against scheduling posts
I know some people have strong feelings against scheduling posts on social media. I understand the concerns; when you schedule, it means you aren’t right there. You can’t immediately react and interact with people who leave a “like” or a comment.
But not everyone is going to react to a post the second — or even within minutes — of it going up. People can react at any time to something you post. Sometimes, they can click a hashtag that interests them and suddenly see post from weeks or even months ago, if not longer. They may be interacting with posts from people halfway around the world.
If you are really worried about “live” interaction, you’d only put up a post temporarily, and when it was time to walk away from the computer, you’d delete the post then repost it the next time you were going to be in front of the computer again.
See how absurd that would be?
A case for scheduling posts
Let’s suppose you know an important date — a friend’s birthday or anniversary — or some other special occasion is a couple of weeks away. While you’re thinking about it, you can go ahead and schedule something for that date.
You can still be around to respond to any comments or reactions. But at least you’ll guarantee that you won’t forget to post.
Maybe you visited a new place and took lots of photos. I mean lots of photos. You decide you’d be better off posting a few pictures at a time rather than in a giant “photo dump.” You can schedule photos to go up a few at time over the course of a day, a week or a month.
Or, let’s say you work a strange shift compared to most people. When more people might be awake and online, that’s just the time you’re headed to bed. You can schedule a few posts in those hours to potentially reach people who might not be awake at the same time.
You can potentially expand your audience — and certainly your reach — by posting at times when you can’t be in front of the computer but when some potential followers are.
Post scheduling made easy…but I just have a question
When you create a post, all you have to do is look for the little trio of dots in the upper right. Click that and you’ll see a schedule option.
When you tap it, it’ll allow you to select a date and time.
Honestly, it doesn’t seem necessary to post screen shots to explain; it is so simple to do it that anyone should be able to figure it out!
In fact, they’ve made it so simple and integrated it into the Threads platform so easily, it just makes me wonder something. Since Threads and Instagram are sister sites, why on earth don’t we have a schedule option for Instagram by now?
I can schedule an Instagram post, but to do it, I have to pay a third-party service to do it. Even then, I had to convert my Instagram to a “business” account so that the third-party social media management tool could access the account.
If scheduling on Threads came so quickly and is so easy to do, surely Instagram could have figured this simple option out long before now.
