Over the years, I've seen plenty of authors struggling with their marketing because they simply don't have enough time to handle it. Maintaining social media accounts seems like a huge commitment, and it definitely can be, especially if you aren't using the right tools for the job.
I've been using an app called Postoplan for years as an alternative to schedulers like Hootsuite and Buffer, mainly because it's more affordable - but more than that, it has features that alternatives simply don't have! This post will be covering some of Postoplan's features and why I like it (no, I'm not sponsored - but I do sing their praises whenever I can!), as well as how it can help you as an author to reclaim your time, so you can spend more time doing the important part: writing.
How Social Media Scheduling Can Help Authors
If you have to log on to a social media account every day, create a post, write the caption, add hashtags, and then hit publish, it can be a huge time sink. It's why big companies have entire departments dedicated to it, but as authors, we're on our own (mostly... I offer marketing services for authors, if you need someone to help pick up the slack). Unlike most of the big companies though, a ton of authors are still posting manually.
Marketing can be super boring, and if you're not a marketing-inclined person, it can be difficult, to boot. Social media scheduling can help authors in a couple of ways, but the main way is that it can free up time for you to work on more important parts of your author brand, like actually writing.
If you need an idea for how to best utilise scheduling, whether you're using Meta, Postoplan, Buffer, or anything else, then feel free to steal my method! I spend a day every so often bulk creating and uploading posts, mostly using Canva or Photoshop/Premiere Pro, and then I head over to Postoplan to write the captions and schedule. Postoplan also has a handy hashtag feature so you don't even need to worry about those - simply find the hashtags that work and dump them into the hashtag feature.
Doing that every 2 weeks is probably a good idea, but if you really want something you can set and forget, monthly works well, too. You don't need to be exact with it, either - if you have a release in just over a month, you can schedule all your release posts before and after, so you don't even need to worry about it.
Postoplan Features for Authors
As you may have guessed, the big one is the fact that you can schedule to your socials to let readers know about your book and to keep them engaged with your work. One of the features that I like most, that I haven't really seen with other schedulers, is their content suggestions.
Whilst most of them don't work for authors, there's usually something there that can help you out in a pinch - such as the day of living creatively, and eBook day (both of these are in September!). I sometimes struggle with finding stuff for my own social media, so having these ideas here is great! If you click on one of them, it'll take you to a premade page with a post that's ready to go, too, so if you're feeling exceptionally lazy (or struggling for time), you can just go live with what it gives you.
I mentioned the hashtags feature above, too, and I really like this! It's been a while since I used any other scheduler (I bit the bullet on a lifetime plan at Postoplan years ago), but it's nice being able to just press a button and all the hashtags I want appear at the end of a post.
And just a final Postoplan feature that I love, is the ability to tag your posts with what they're for: are they for sales, engagement? It makes it easy to quickly look at your content plan for the month and see if you're going a little too hard on marketing posts, for example.
Is Postoplan Worth it For Authors?
I would say Postoplan is by far one of the cheapest ways to schedule your socials, especially if you post on multiple platforms, not just Facebook and Instagram. Meta's scheduler is free, and allows a little more freedom than Postoplan, so if you only use Meta social media, you might find you prefer their own scheduling app. Personally, I moved over to only Meta socials, but I still use Postoplan because I like having everything in one place.
Back when I got a lifetime license, it was much, much cheaper, and I got considerably more features than they offer now. I got it through AppSumo, and it's the only AppSumo purchase of mine (except for Depositphoto credits) that's lasted this long (I also bought RelayThat, only to move over to Canva Pro a few years later...). If you subscribe monthly to Postoplan, it's really affordable, and unlike plenty of other schedulers, lets you link Instagram without any extra charge.
So, Should You Get a Postoplan Subscription?
I would say that, as both an author and a business owner, Postoplan has been well worth what I paid for it, and even though the price has gone up, I think it's still worth it and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a robust and reliable scheduler.
Throughout the years, I've noticed some problems with Postoplan, though, that may be a dealbreaker for some people. On my account, I can't view any statistics at all, but it isn't a huge issue for me as I can use the apps themselves. My account will randomly fail to post things, and the fix to this is unclear - it sometimes resolves itself after a while, but other times, it doesn't. Postoplan does send an email when a post fails to upload, though, so it's easy enough to rectify.
I have personally never had any issues with running multiple accounts through Postoplan, and the dashboards are easy to flip between. There are some reviews that state this doesn't really work well, but personally, no problems! It's great for authors who want to run accounts for all of their different brands and pennames without needing to sign out a whole bunch.
All that said, reviews online are quite mixed, so I'd encourage you to test out a month or two before committing to a year or a lifetime deal. I think Postoplan is 100% worth it, and I would never go back to a different scheduler!
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