This post shows you how to automate Facebook posts.
So you’ve created your company’s Facebook Page, and have now been curating and creating content for a few weeks, months, or years. But with every coming day, it means you have to search for or create even more content again, and again, and again…
The problem is that you probably have a million other tasks to take care of instead of scouring Facebook all day. Most social media managers are in charge of multiple platforms, write blogs and online content, are involved in business development, and have to analyze numbers and figures.
If you are a business owner, you have to do all these things — PLUS run your actual business. Automating your Facebook posts can free you up for more important tasks.
Why is having an active Facebook Page important?
The last thing you want is to have a Facebook Page that looks like this:
No recent posts. No signs of activity. No signs of life. Does this business still exist?
An active and thriving Facebook page, or any social network page, can be a huge form of social proof to your potential followers and customers.
Why should I automate Facebook posts?
The answer should be pretty clear: to save you time and still grow your audience, traffic, and business.
Most businesses probably want to achieve some of the following goals:
Drive traffic to your blog or website
Get more Likes on your page
Deliver quality content to followers and friends
Maintain engagement with customers and followers
Facebook Pages can be an awesome source of traffic, but it’s not exactly easy to acquire thousands of followers. That takes dedication to consistently post quality content.
The “quality content” part is doable with a little effort. The “consistently” part is where automation can be a huge help.
So when should I automate my Facebook page?
A lot of tasks on Facebook require that you do them manually, such as:
Replying to comments
Liking comments
Responding to messages
However, a social media management tool can effectively automate many tasks like:
Scheduling posts in advance
Spreading out your posts so you don’t flood your followers with too many updates at once
Sharing your blog posts
Scheduling posts in Facebook Groups
Scheduling recurring posts for content that is “evergreen” (more on this below)
So as a page owner, there’s no reason NOT to use a social media scheduling tool to schedule your posts.
Doing so can free up time and help grow your audience. It will also keep you more focused and consistent than just posting whenever you feel like it — or whenever you happen to think about your Facebook Page.
What should I not automate Facebook posts?
Any social media tools that let you automatically follow, like, comment, or message another person or page on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Google Plus normally come across very sleazy — and puts you at risk of getting banned from that social network.
Don’t be like these people:
When should I automate Facebook posts?
One of the best strategies for managing social media pages is to recycle your evergreen posts every now and then.
What is evergreen content? It’s simply content that will still be relevant and interesting 6, 12, and 18+ months from now. Most blog posts, podcasts, and YouTube videos are considered evergreen content. Many photos, memes, GIFs, questions, and general Facebook posts would be considered evergreen as well. You can find examples of what is and is not evergreen content here.
If you schedule recurring posts, you want to make sure those posts are evergreen, and ensure that they are recycled (re-shared) at appropriate intervals.
Using a social media scheduling tool like OneUp (only $3/month), you can easily choose the frequency of how often you would like a post repeated, and how many times that post is recycled before it expires — or choose no expiration for it to be recycled indefinitely.
The frequency you choose should be appropriate for the type of post.
For example, a post such as “What are you working on this Monday” is something that could probably be shared on a Facebook page once a week with no expiration date, and generate engagement and conversation each time.
Other types of posts might be more appropriate to share once every 3 months, expiring after being posted 4 times.
OneUp makes editing and adjusting your content schedule easy as well:
OneUp works with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google My Business.
Will my Facebook followers become annoyed if I automate Facebook posts?
When you share something on social media, on average only ~5% of your followers will see that post. In addition, any new followers you get are not going to go through all your old posts to see what you have posted in the past.
So use your discretion and think about it from your followers point of view. They probably don’t want to see the exact same posts every single week for the rest of their life, but if you recycle a post once every 6 or 12 months, most of your followers won’t even remember that it was posted before.
Will this automate all of my Facebook Page tasks for me?
Unfortunately, no. Scheduling and recycling posts help with the first half of the equation, but you still need to like and respond to comments, and answer messages from your followers. This is the fun part though!
Scheduling posts can be a drag, but it is something that has to be done, whether you automate it or not.
On the other hand, engaging with your followers should be fun and exciting (unless the haters are commenting, in which case, you might want to rethink what you are sharing). Be kind and courteous!
Bonus Tip #1: Get more Facebook Page Likes
Whenever someone reacts to your Facebook post, you have the ability to invite them to Like your page (if they haven’t already).
Just click the reactions:
Then voilà, it opens up this window:
Now you just need to click on the “Invite” button for everyone who hasn’t already Liked or been invited to Like your page.
Pro tip: Do this as soon as possible after someone likes your post. If instead you wait days or weeks to invite that person to Like your page, they may not even remember who you are or why your inviting them.
Bonus Tip #2: Get more engagement
Whenever someone comments on your post, ALWAYS reply to the comment.
Many people receive comments on their posts and only Like the comment.
Instead of only Liking the comment, make sure you reply to the comment too. The more comments and engagement, the more it signals to Facebook’s algorithm to bring your post to the top.
Pro tip: In your reply, try to say something that encourages another response back. The more comments and active engagement, the higher your post’s reach.
Bonus Tip #3: Use emojis 😊
A study on OpenForum show that using emojis increased Facebook shares by 33%, comments by 33%, and Likes by 57%.
There is no denying the fact that people like emojis 😍
This post goes over a cheap Buffer alternative for scheduling repeating posts.
Buffer has long been one of the easiest ways to schedule and spread out your posts on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Google Plus.
However, Buffer lacks some core features like repeating posts, and gets pretty expensive ($99 per month) as soon as you go over 100 scheduled posts, or need more than 1 team member connected to the same account.
If you are looking for a more affordable way to manage your social media accounts, OneUp is a cheap buffer alternative.. We’ll take a look at the similarities and differences between OneUp and Buffer:
Repeating posts
OneUp — With OneUp, you can easily schedule social media posts to repeat for a specific number of times, at set intervals. More engagement, more traffic, more business.
For example, if I want to share my latest blog post once a month for the next 4 months, I can do that in about 10 seconds.
Buffer — While it is a great tool for spreading out your posts, Buffer does NOT allow you to repeat your social media posts. For example, if you wanted to repeat the same Facebook post every month, you would have to manually re-queue it every 30 days.
Social Networks
OneUp — Works with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google My Business on all tiers. For Instagram posts, OneUp has direct scheduling, so no push notification is necessary.
Buffer — Works with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google Plus. However, Pinterest is only included in the $15/month and higher tiers. For Instagram posts, Buffer allows you to schedule a post, but will send you a push notification at that scheduled time to post it manually.
Price
OneUp — $3 per month for up to 10 social media profiles and 200 scheduled posts, making it a cheap buffer alternative for scheduling repeating posts.
Buffer — Paid tier starts at $15 per month for 8 accounts. Buffer does provide a free tier, but it does not include Pinterest, and limits scheduling to only 10 posts in your queue at a time. This might be a good fit for someone who seldom uses social media. However, only being able to schedule 10 posts in advance defeats the purpose of scheduling for people who are a little more serious.
Scheduling content
OneUp — If you want a simple way to schedule social media posts, OneUp is for you. You can select the how many times you would like your posts to repeat, and at what intervals, all with just a couple clicks. Of course, you can always schedule something to post only once.
Buffer — Buffer makes it very easy to spread out your content. However, they don’t allow for posts to be automatically recycled.
Categories
OneUp — Allows you to create and schedule posts by categories. This allows you to filter posts by different styles or accounts.
Buffer — Does not allow you to create categories.
Drag-and-drop content calendar
OneUp — Allows you to see all your posts, filter by category, edit, and drag-and-drop via the calendar view.
Buffer — Does not have a drag-and-drop calendar.
Summary
For those who never post repeating content, Buffer might be the right tool for you. They offer a useful product and a simple interface for spacing out social media posts.
For smaller businesses, podcasters, bloggers, YouTubers, and social media marketers, OneUp is a cheap Buffer alternative for scheduling repeating posts, and provides an affordable solution for scheduling and automatically repeating your posts at set intervals.
Here is a chart to help you decide what tool is best for you:
No, Zapier does not support Google My Business. However, OneUp supports Google My Business, in addition to Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Google My Business is an easy way for businesses to stand out in local SEO, and posts on GMB have been shown to increase traffic and improve search rankings.
However, the fact that your Google My Business posts expire after 7 days means that you have to constantly go back into GMB and post something week after week, again and again.
The solution: schedule out your Google My Business posts weeks or even months ahead of time.
The issue, however, is that very few social media schedulers work with Google My Business, and the ones that do work charge upwards of $50/month, which is a big hit to take for many businesses.
The process is simple. Just connect your Google My Business account on the Accounts page.
Then schedule your GMB post, optionally adding any link or image to the post.
Then add your Call-To-Action button and a link.
In addition to just scheduling posts, OneUp allows you to set GMB posts to automatically repeat at set intervals — such as once a week or once a month.
This allows you to reap the benefits of being active on Google My Business, without the hassle of constantly going back in every week to manually post something once your post expires.
Then choose to post it now, or schedule it for a date in the future.
Here is what the post looks like inside your Google My Business account:
And here is what the post looks like on the Google search results page:
Because Zapier doesn’t support Google My Business, OneUp is a great option for scheduling GMB posts at only $4/month.
This posts shows you how to schedule repeating posts in Facebook groups.
Many Facebook group admins often have themed posts for each day of the week, where group members are supposed to engage with the post based on the theme. Some of the ones I have seen are:
Share Your Blog Monday
Tell Me A Story Tuesday
What Are You Working On Wednesday
Throwback Thursday
Follow Friday
In most groups like this, the admin’s goal is to get participation and engagement, but keep everything neatly in the comments thread of each particular post.
Most admins who run a Facebook group schedule the same post for the same day of the week, again, and again, and again.
I will show you how you can automate those posts so that you just set your posts to repeat weekly once, and they automatically post on the same day of the week moving forward.
OneUp is a Facebook-approved social media scheduling tool that allows you to repeat posts at set intervals — and it starts at only $4/month.
To use OneUp with a Facebook group, you MUST be one of the group admins. Facebook does not allow scheduling tools to post to groups unless you are an admin.
Using OneUp you can click the Facebook button to connect your Pages and Groups.
Then you are set to schedule a post.
OneUp allows you to schedule your posts to repeat on the same day and time every week. You can have it repeat indefinitely, or you can set it to expire after posting a certain number of times.
You can also add an image to the post if you want.
Once this is set, you just choose when you want it scheduled.
For example: If you have a post scheduled for 9:30 AM on Friday, set to repeat weekly, it means that post will re-post every Friday moving forward at that same time.
The very first time, you will need to add OneUp to your Facebook groups apps. You only have to do this once for each Facebook group. To do so, go to your group’s settings in Facebook.
Then click “Add Apps”.
Do a search for OneUp, and add it.
OneUp makes it easy to schedule repeating posts in Facebook groups, making an admin’s job much easier. Check it out at:
This blog post shows a cheap Hootsuite alternative.
Hootsuite is a powerful social media tool with many different features. However, all those features mean that Hootsuite is one of the most expensive social media schedulers on the market.
Hootsuite also lacks some core features like automatically repeating posts, and gets pretty expensive ($29 per month) as soon as you go over 30 scheduled posts or need more than 3 accounts.
If you are looking for a cheap Hootsuite alternative, OneUp is one of the best social media tools on the market. We’ll take a look at the similarities and differences between OneUp and Hootsuite:
Repeating posts
OneUp — OneUp makes it easy to set posts to automatically repeat at set intervals, such as daily, weekly, monthly, once every 3 months, 6 months, or annually.
For example, if you want to schedule a blog post once a month for the next 4 months, it can be done in about 10 seconds.
Hootsuite — While Hootsuite does let you schedule posts, it does not let you set them to repeat.
Social Networks
OneUp — Works with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google My Business on all tiers. For Instagram posts, OneUp has direct scheduling, so no push notification is necessary.
Hootsuite — Works with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Google Plus. For Instagram posts, Hootsuite allows you to schedule a post, but will send you a push notification at that scheduled time to post it manually.
Price
OneUp — $4 per month for up to 10 social media profiles and 200 scheduled posts, making it a cheap Hootsuite alternative.
Hootsuite — Paid tier starts at $29 per month for 10 social accounts. Hootsuite does provide a free tier, but it is limited to 3 social accounts and only 30 scheduled posts in your queue at a time. This might be a good fit for someone who seldom uses social media. However, only being able to schedule 30 posts in advance defeats the purpose of scheduling for people who are a little more serious.
Scheduling content
OneUp — If you want a simple way to schedule social media posts, OneUp is for you. You can select the how many times you would like your posts to repeat, and at what intervals, all with just a couple clicks. Of course, you can always schedule something to post only once.
Hootsuite — Hootsuite allows you to schedule your posts. However, they don’t allow for posts to be automatically repeated.
Categories
OneUp — Allows you to create and schedule posts by categories. This allows you to filter posts by different styles or accounts.
Hootsuite — Does not allow you to create categories.
Drag-and-drop content calendar
OneUp — Allows you to see all your posts, filter by category, edit, and drag-and-drop via the calendar view.
Hootsuite — Also has a drag and drop calendar.
Summary
For those who never post repeating content, Hootsuite might be the right tool for you. However, Hootsuite is often regarded as a complex tool with many bells and whistles.
For smaller businesses, podcasters, bloggers, YouTubers, and social media marketers who just need an easy way to schedule social media posts, OneUp is a cheap Hootsuite alternative that provides an affordable solution for scheduling and automatically repeating your posts at set intervals.
This post goes over a cheap alternative to Meet Edgar.
For anyone that wants to schedule pieces of repeated content to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, Meet Edgar is a great solution. Additionally, the ability to automatically recycle your evergreen content makes Meet Edgar ever more appealing.
However, with a price tag of $49 per month, Meet Edgar is not a realistic solution for most small business owners, bloggers, podcasters, or YouTubers.
So what options are there for those that would like to add content, create a posting schedule for specific times and dates, import RSS feeds, and schedule evergreen posts to be shared multiple times — all at an affordable price?
OneUp is a cheap alternative to Meet Edgar that works with the following social media platforms: Facebook Pages, Twitter accounts, LinkedIn profiles, LinkedIn Pages, Pinterest, and Google My Business. Similar to Meet Edgar, OneUp helps you get more social media traffic by automatically recycling your evergreen blogs, videos, or podcasts.
Meet Edgar provides only one pricing tier: $49/month. This price works if you bring in a ton of revenue, but that is not the case for most businesses. If you are like most people, $49 per month is a steep price to pay.
OneUp starts at $5/month, making it a cheap alternative to Meet Edgar, and a realistic solution for anyone that is managing multiple social media pages.
Social Networks
OneUp — Works with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google My Business.
Meet Edgar — Works only with Facebook, LinkedInandTwitter, and it does not let you reshare content on Twitter.
Meet Edgar does not work with Pinterest or Google My Business. In addition, Meet Edgar does not allow you to automatically reshare your evergreen content on Twitter. This is Meet Edgar’s core feature, yet you can only reshare your posts on two social networks: Facebook and LinkedIn.
OneUp allows you to schedule both one-time and evergreen posts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google My Business, making it a more robust alternative to Meet Edgar.
Scheduling content
OneUp — If you want a simple way to schedule social media posts, OneUp is for you. You can select how many times you would like your evergreen posts to be recycled, and at what intervals, all with just a couple clicks.
For example, if you want to share your latest blog post once every 3 months and 5 times total, you can do that in about 10 seconds.
Meet Edgar — Like OneUp, Meet Edgar allows you to recycle your evergreen content, but it requires that you upload posts to a queue. The more content you add to your queue, the less frequently your posts will resurface. Depending on what you’re looking for, Meet Edgar could be a great solution.
However, many people just want their evergreen posts to be recycled at a set interval, like “once a month for the next 3 months”, without having to do the mental calendar math:
If I have 56 posts in my queue and I add my blog post, how often will it be republished if I am sharing 3 posts a day, but adding 2–5 more each week?
Content Calendar
OneUp — With OneUp, you can view your individual posts, sort by social account or category, drag and drop posts to change the date, or click on the post to edit the content and time.
Meet Edgar — Meet Edgar provides a weekly recurring calendar, with time slots showing category only, not individual scheduled posts. You cannot drag and drop to adjust your schedule.
GIFs
OneUp — Allows you to schedule GIFs on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+.
Meet Edgar — Only allows you to post GIFs to Twitter.
Free trial
OneUp — Offers a free trial, no credit card necessary.
Meet Edgar — Requires a credit card for their free trial.
Nobody likes when they have to give their credit card information just to try something out. If a customer is getting value after a free trial, ONLY THEN should they be asked for payment information.
Meet Edgar requires a credit card just to test it out. If you forget to cancel in time, there goes $49.
OneUp offers a free trial (without a credit card) so you can see if it’s a good fit with your social media accounts.
Summary
For businesses with a higher budget, managing between 20–25 social media accounts, MeetEdgar might be the right social media management tool. They offer a useful product and great customer support for larger businesses that want to recycle their evergreen content.
For small business owners, podcasters, bloggers, YouTubers, and social media marketers that need a cheaper alternative to Meet Edgar, OneUp provides an affordable solution for scheduling and automatically resharing your evergreen content — as well as world class customer support. OneUp works with Facebook pages and groups, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn Profiles, LinkedIn Pages, Pinterest, and Google My Business.
This post shows you how to manage more than 5 Instagram accounts.
For anyone who manages more than one Instagram account, you know the struggle of constantly switching back and forth between accounts.
However, it becomes even more of a headache once you hit 5 Instagram accounts, because that is the limit for how many you can manage on a mobile device. Some people buy multiple phones just so they can manage more than 5 Instagram accounts.
That is crazy.
If you need an easy way to schedule and post photos to more than 5 Instagram accounts from a computer instead of managing it all from your smartphone, check out OneUp.
OneUp allows you to easily post to multiple Instagram accounts at the same time, and to schedule out posts weeks and months into the future. You can add hashtags and @tag other users in the description, and you can even schedule Instagram Stories with OneUp.
OneUp schedules the post, then directly publishes to Instagram, so there is no push notification needed.
Starting at only $4/month, OneUp is an affordable and convenient way to manage multiple Instagram accounts. OneUp also supports Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google My Business.
Hootsuite is a great social media management tool. However, it is a little too bloated and feature-heavy for some, and can become pretty expensive on Hootsuite’s paid plans.
I decided to review 90 different social media scheduling tools, comparing the best free and paid Hootsuite alternatives.
This is a comprehensive list of all the social media scheduling tools that work with multiple social networks. Software that only works with one social network, such as TweetDeck, have not been included.
Social networks: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Google My Business.
Starting price: $3/month, 10 social profiles
Free-forever plan: No
Features
Direct scheduling to Instagram — Schedule and post directly to Instagram, no notification on your phone necessary.
Posting to multiple pages — For people who are posting to more than one social network at a time, OneUp makes it easy to post to FB Pages and Groups, LinkedIn profiles and pages, and Twitter accounts, Pinterest, Google My Business, and Instagram all at once.
Repeating post — OneUp gives you the option to repeat your posts automatically. This allows you to resurface old posts that otherwise would have never been seen again. Also for anyone that has a Facebook Group with daily themes that repeat every week (such as “Make it happen Monday”), OneUp makes it easy to entirely automate this.
RSS feed automation — If there are any blogs, publications, podcasts, or YouTube channels that put out good content consistently, you can add the RSS feed links in OneUp, then whenever new content is posted from those places, it is automatically shared to the pages you select.
Chrome Extension — Using the OneUp Chrome extension, you can easily schedule many images at once from any website, such as sunsets for example. You can choose which images from the website you want to post to social media, bulk update or individually update the descriptions and links for each post, then schedule them to be posted with a set interval (such as every 60 minutes), or choose custom dates and times for all of them.
Analytics — OneUp lets you see which posts are getting the best engagement.
Customizable UTM parameters — OneUp lets you customize UTM parameters so you can keep track of how your links are performing in Google Analytics.
Link Shortening — Connect your Bitly account and OneUp will automatically shorten any links and allow you to track clicks through Bitly.
Buffer is a great social media management tool. However, it can become pretty expensive on Buffer’s paid plans.
I decided to review 90 different social media scheduling tools, comparing the best free and paid Buffer alternatives.
This is a comprehensive list of all the social media scheduling tools that work with multiple social networks. Software that only works with one social network, such as TweetDeck, have not been included.
Social networks: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Google My Business.
Starting price: $3/month, 10 social profiles
Free-forever plan: No
Features
Direct scheduling to Instagram — Schedule and post directly to Instagram, no notification on your phone necessary.
Posting to multiple pages — For people who are posting to more than one social network at a time, OneUp makes it easy to post to FB Pages and Groups, LinkedIn profiles and pages, and Twitter accounts, Pinterest, Google My Business, and Instagram all at once.
Repeating post — OneUp gives you the option to repeat your posts automatically. This allows you to resurface old posts that otherwise would have never been seen again. Also for anyone that has a Facebook Group with daily themes that repeat every week (such as “Make it happen Monday”), OneUp makes it easy to entirely automate this.
RSS feed automation — If there are any blogs, publications, podcasts, or YouTube channels that put out good content consistently, you can add the RSS feed links in OneUp, then whenever new content is posted from those places, it is automatically shared to the pages you select.
Chrome Extension — Using the OneUp Chrome extension, you can easily schedule many images at once from any website, such as sunsets for example. You can choose which images from the website you want to post to social media, bulk update or individually update the descriptions and links for each post, then schedule them to be posted with a set interval (such as every 60 minutes), or choose custom dates and times for all of them.
Analytics — OneUp lets you see which posts are getting the best engagement.
Customizable UTM parameters — OneUp lets you customize UTM parameters so you can keep track of how your links are performing in Google Analytics.
Link Shortening — Connect your Bitly account and OneUp will automatically shorten any links and allow you to track clicks through Bitly.
This post walks through what Google My Business is, the benefits of using it, how to post, and some of the other features. If you are already familiar with Google My Business, jump down to the How to schedule Google My Business posts section.
One of the newest ways to market your business is through Google My Business, sometimes referred to as GMB.
Google My Business allows you to stand out in Google search results by sharing photos, announcing sales or specials, posting what’s new, managing reviews, and keeping your contact information and open hours current.
You have probably seen Google My Business results in your Google searches, even though you may not have realized it.
Example of what GMB results look like on mobile
Should I be using Google My Business?
In short, yes. Google My Business is a free way to stand out in Google search results.
Because Google My Business is relatively new, most businesses are still not using it yet. For those who start using GMB early, you can get a huge leg up on your competition.
You are most likely already posting on social media, right?
Well unless you are paying to boost your posts, your audience will probably be limited to only people who already follow you.
However, with Google My Business, your posts have the opportunity to reach people outside of your existing audience.
Don’t take my word for it though. Here is what people have to say about Google My Business on Reddit:
I decided to go a step further and personally ask if people saw tangible results from posting on Google My Business:
Does posting on Google My Business impact my search rankings?
According to this study by Search Engine Journal, posting on Google My Business has a positive impact on your Google search results ranking.
In addition to helping with Google search rankings, updating your Google My Business listing can lead to people choosing you over a competitor.
Let’s take a look at a hypothetical example:
Suppose you own a restaurant. It’s Monday and the weather is bad, so you know business is going to be slow this evening. You decide to run an extended happy hour deal from 4pm until close. You announce the deal on your Facebook and Instagram pages. Now you wait for all the customers to flock over. Right?
But what if someone who doesn’t follow you on social media is Googling a few different restaurants, trying to figure out where to eat tonight?
When they Google your restaurant name, they have no idea about your special happy hour deal. They end up eating and drinking at another restaurant 😢
That would be bad… but good thing you actually posted the extended happy hour deal on Google My Business as well. Those people end of seeing the deal when they Google your business’s name, and end up choosing your restaurant because of it 😀
How to post on Google My Business
So we’ve established that posting on Google My Business is important. Now let’s look at how to post on Google My Business.
Verify your business — Google will send you a physical postcard with a unique verification number to ensure that your address is legitimate.
Post
When creating a new post, you will have 4 different posting options:
What’s new posts: Posts that provide general information about your business. You can include a photo/video, link, Call-to-Action (CTA) button, and other information. For example, a restaurant could make a post to promote a new menu item.
Event posts: Posts that promote an event your business is involved with or supports. Event posts require a title, start/end dates and time, and may include a photo/video, CTA button, and other information. For example, a bookstore may advertise a local author’s book signing or a book club meeting.
Offer posts: Posts that provide promotional sales or offers from your business. Offer posts require a title and start/end dates and times. A “View offer” CTA button is automatically added to the post. You can also include a photo/video, coupon code, link, and terms and conditions with the post. For example, a pizza parlor may advertise a 20% off large pizzas for a week.
Product posts: Posts that emphasize a specific product your business sells. Product posts require a title and photo or video. You can also include a CTA button and other information. For example, an electronics store may promote a new phone for sale.
You can also add a button to your post if you wish, which you can link to whatever you’d like.
Your button optionsAdd a link to your button
Here are a couple example posts that used the Order Online button:
Overall, it’s a fairly simple process for posting on Google My Business.
Here is what your Google My Business post will look like on the Google search results page:
Ideas on what to post
So now that you know how to post on Google My Business, the question is what to post. Here are some ideas:
High-quality images of your product, food, location, service, etc.
Offer a special discount for searchers
Sales and promotions
Updated hours for holidays
Promote an upcoming event
Share a link to a new blog post
Share a customer testimonial
Call attention to an ad campaign you’re promoting elsewhere (print, billboard, radio)
Here are some examples of GMB posts provided by Google:
5 keys to writing a post
Choose a suitable post type: Is your post about an event? An offer or time-sensitive deal? Do you have news to share? Consider what you want your post to do — whether to encourage customers to visit your store, sell something, or announce a new feature.
Photos: Take a high-resolution photo reinforcing your message so your post stands out. Photos should be simple, direct, in-focus and well-lit, with bright, vibrant colors. Photos should have a minimum resolution of 400px wide by 300px tall, in JPG or PNG format.
Title (if your post is an event): Describe your event in 4–5 words. You have up to 58 characters for your title.
More details: Be clear about your offer/event. You have up to 1,500 characters for the description of your post, but the ideal length is between 150–300 characters.
Call to action: Include instructions such as “Buy,” “Book online,” “Learn more,” “Call,” or “Visit.”
Writing a Google Post: Do’s and Don’ts
What to do
Be precise: What are the 3 things your customer needs to know? What do you want them to remember, for how much, and when? “Happy Hour! Half-price milkshakes from 5–6 PM every Friday.”
Be personal: Show what your business values: “We love families at Mike’s and to show our appreciation, kids eat free this weekend!”
Tell your customers what they can do. Are you selling a product? Tell them how they can buy. “Tickets range from $60-$160, and are available for purchase at the front desk starting at 12 PM EST today.”
Highlight what makes your business, product, or offer unique. Large selection? Free shipping? Tell people: “Free shipping on orders over $50.”
Be timely — use a key selling point or popular item as the hook for your post: “Spring is here. All flip flops now 30% off.”
Be sure to include any redemption instructions, unique codes, or restrictions on offers or sales: “$10 off purchase of $50 or more. 50% off select women’s clothing.”
Use abbreviations for days and months, and don’t use periods, to allow more space for your post: Jan, Feb, Mar… Mon, Tue, Wed…
Abbreviate hours in this way: 9 AM, 5 PM, 12 PM, 12 AM
What NOT to do
Don’t use commercial slang: “BOGO: 50% off men’s sneakers.”
Don’t use excessive exclamation marks or all caps: “Crazy SALE today!!!”
Don’t include more than one theme or offer in one communication: “Half price coffee and tea from 3–6 PM on Fridays, and buy 6, get one free donut on weekdays.”
Don’t craft a deal with too many exclusions: “10% off new seasonal sandwiches. Not valid on lunch specials.”
Be aware that Google My Business posts expire after 7 days
When you post something on Google My Business, it will show in search results for only 7 days.
The only exception to this is Event posts, which stay until the date of the event passes.
When your post is about to expire, you will get an automated email from Google My Business.
Insights
On each Google My Business post, you can see the views and clicks that the post has received.
Post Insights help you better understand how your posts perform with potential customers. From the Posts tab, you can view insights for:
An individual post
All posts from the last week
All posts from the last month
Queries
In addition, Google My Business shows you the actual search terms people are using to find your business. This is an extremely valuable insight.
Search queries show the terms that your customers used to find your business on Local Search and Maps.
You can filter the search queries by the last week, month, or quarter.
Other Features
Google My Business has so many other features that might be of value to businesses that it is hard to cover everything in just one post.
Here is a quick review of some of GMB’s other features:
Messaging
If enabled, Google My Business allows customers who are viewing your listing to message you directly. This can significantly minimize the number of phone calls or emails received.
Website
Google My Business wants to get everyone online, including businesses that cannot afford a website, or aren’t tech-savvy enough to build a website.
So they created a simple website builder within GMB.
But I already have a website. Do I need a Google My Business website?
You can create ads directly in Google My Business.
Add Users
Do you have multiple people on your team? If so, you can add multiple users and assign different permission levels on GMB.
Add locations
For businesses with multiple locations, Google My Business allows you to add up to 10 locations manually.
If you have more than 10 locations, you can request bulk verification by following these steps.
How to schedule Google My Business posts
The fact that your Google My Business posts expire after 7 days means that you have to constantly go back into GMB and post something week after week, again and again.
The solution: schedule Google My Business posts weeks or even months ahead of time.
The issue, however, is that very few social media schedulers work with Google My Business, and the ones that do work charge upwards of $50/month, which is a big hit to take for many businesses.
The process is simple. Just connect your Google My Business account on the Accounts page.
Then schedule your Google My Business post, optionally adding any link or image to the post.
Then add your Call-To-Action button and a link.
In addition to just scheduling Google My Business posts, OneUp allows you to set GMB posts to automatically repeat at set intervals — such as once a week or once a month.
This allows you to reap the benefits of being active on Google My Business, without the hassle of constantly going back in every week to manually post something once your post expires.
Then choose to post it now, or schedule it for a date in the future.
Here is what the post looks like inside your Google My Business account:
And here is what the post looks like on the Google search results page:
OneUp is only $4/month, and has a 7-day free trial with no credit card required up-front.
Schedule Google My Business posts with OneUpApp.io
