Thursday Tutorials: UPDATED: How to Schedule Posts via Facebook

Today's Thursday Tutorial is a guide showing how to Schedule Posts within Facebook. This has changed since the original tutorial posted in February 2014, found here. It's even easier to schedule posts than previously.

For this guide, I'm using one of my fanpages for UO Home Decor, to demonstrate scheduling a post.

Access the page you wish to schedule a post for.  At the top right corner of the status update box, insure that it's set to post as that page, as seen below.

Once verified, click in the status update area. This will generate the box where you can add text as well as the "Publish" button and the drop down button to the right of it. If you click on the down arrow you get a menu like this: 

Note: if you click on "Schedule" at this point and you put the date in and click Save it will error out because there is no text in the status field. So don't try to schedule the post till you have text in the field.

Once you've posted your status for the future, click on Schedule. This window will pop up where you can schedule a date and time.

Fill out the time and date you want and hit schedule.

If you accidentally forget to change the date and hit schedule, the following error message will pop up.

Once you've successfully scheduled the post, the pop-up boxes will disappear and a message like this will appear beneath the status box.

And that's it.

Remember, scheduling posts ahead of time is a great way to keep your Facebook page current and active.

Thursday Tutorials are a series of tutorials designed to help people who may not be as Facebook savvy as other people.  Some tutorials will be targeted towards newbies to the social media world, others will include tutorials for more advanced users.  Thursday Tutorials are written for the layman and are designed with everyone in mind.  You can find all the Thursday Tutorials by clicking on the Thursday Tutorials tag below.

Thursday Tutorials: How to Schedule Posts via Facebook

Note: There's an updated version of this article here.

Today's Thursday Tutorial is a guide showing how to Schedule Posts.  A follow up guide will show you how to access scheduled posts and change when they are posting or how to delete them.

For this guide, I'm using one of my fanpages for UO Home Decor, to demonstrate scheduling a post.

Access the page you wish to schedule a post for.  At the top it should say: "You are posting, commenting, and liking as YOUR PAGE NAME — Change to YOUR NAME".  If it doesn't say this and it has "You are posting, commenting, and liking as YOUR NAME — Change to YOUR PAGE NAME," click to change it to your page name - that way you are acting as the page admin.   Scroll down to where you post a status and click in it to type your post.

You should see these options below your status window area.

The button to the left, that looks like a clock, is the scheduler.  The button immediately to the right of that that looks like a pin is the location tool which allows you to put a location with a post.

Click on the clock icon and the following should appear:

This allows you to set a date and time for it to publish.

Click on the calendar to set the date.  Use the arrow keys to change the month, then just click on whatever date you want.

The date will auto-fill in and the calendar view will disappear once you've clicked on the date you want.  You can alter this information at any time, including after you hit the schedule button, but that will be covered in another tutorial.

If you click in the "Add a Time?" box, it will let you type in a number, then provide a drop down menu to select AM or PM and a specific time from.  It looks something like this:

Select the time you want. 

Now, if you click in the status box to write your post, the options above will disappear, but you will still see the "Schedule" button instead of the "Post" button.  You don't have to set up the time and date before you type your post, but I find it helps with not accidentally posting a post if you set the time up before you create the post.

Once you create the post, just hit Schedule and it's saved.  You can change between Status, Photo/Video and Offer/Event, but I suggest selecting what you want prior to scheduling it to help with efficiency.

So now that you know how to schedule posts, you may be asking why you want to schedule posts.  The answer is simple.  If you are busy with work or attending an event or on vacation, scheduling posts allow the posts to post for you without you having to worry about it.  You should still have some page admin checking things.  But it also allows you to plan some things out in advance and not have to worry about it each week - especially if you do weekly questions or memes.

Thursday Tutorials are a series of tutorials designed to help people who may not be as Facebook savvy as other people.  Some tutorials will be targeted towards newbies to the social media world, others will include tutorials for more advanced users.  Thursday Tutorials are written for the layman and are designed with everyone in mind.  You can find all the Thursday Tutorials by clicking on the Thursday Tutorials tag below.

Thursday Tutorials: Reviewing what We've Learned

Unfortunately there is no new post this week with the last two weeks of holidays and other things going on, we'll return next week with a fresh new tutorial for you.

Meanwhile, we invite you to peruse the previous two tutorials - especially if you are new to this blog or are new to social media and Facebook pages:

• Finding the Create Page Button
• How to Choose the Right Category for Your Page

I've had several people express that they have questions for me to answer.  As soon as I have a repository of questions to answer, I'll start another weekly feature answering reader's questions.  Be sure to leave your questions here or on Facebook/G+.

Thursday Tutorials are a series of tutorials designed to help people who may not be as Facebook savvy as other people.  Some tutorials will be targeted towards newbies to the social media world, others will include tutorials for more advanced users.  Thursday Tutorials are written for the layman and are designed with everyone in mind.  You can find all the Thursday Tutorials by clicking on the Thursday Tutorials tag below.

Thursday Tutorials: Finding the Create Page Button on Facebook

One of the biggest things I've had to walk several of my freelance clients through (those that didn't want me to create the page for them, they wanted to learn how to do it on their own), was "Where do you find the button to create a Facebook page?"

To be honest, when I created my first page a few years back, the button was tricky to find.  It's still a bit tricky to find if you don't already admin other pages.  This article will simplify locating the button a bit.

The easiest way, if you are reading this blog is to click this link:  http://www.facebook.com/page

This will take you to the page creation site with the plethora of options you see in this screenshot:

Another way to get to this page is to type "Create a Page" in the search bar at the top and you should see a drop down menu like this:

If you select the top most option, you will come to the same screen as you do when you click on my link above.

And, finally, the third way to find it.  If you go to your wall feed, you should have a side that looks similar to this (obviously I have more pages and stuff because I admin several):

If you mouse over the word pages on the left, the word "MORE" appears on the right.  Click on more which will load a page like this:

Simply clock on "Create a Page" and go from there.

Do you know of other ways to easily find the "Create a Page" option?  If so, feel free to share them.  These are the ones I know of and seem to be the simplest ways to accomplish the goal.

Stay tuned for next week's tutorial, which will cover selecting the category for your page.

Thursday Tutorials are a series of tutorials designed to help people who may not be as Facebook savvy as other people.  Some tutorials will be targeted towards newbies to the social media world, others will include tutorials for more advanced users.  Thursday Tutorials are written for the layman and are designed with everyone in mind.  You can find all the Thursday Tutorials by clicking on the Thursday Tutorials tag below.