Three scenarios where scheduled social media content isn’t the best idea

Changing your scheduled content can be best for your online PR plans 

Social media has given unprecedented power for companies to communicate directly with consumers. 

One way to fully take advantage of social media is to use scheduling features to have your content scheduled ahead of time. However, scheduling content ahead of time isn’t a panacea for how your company handles social media. Sometimes, you’ll have to cancel your scheduled content due to various situations that come up or risk immediate problems or missed opportunities. These situations can be either good or bad. 

So what situations should you cancel scheduled social media content for? There are three:

1. A crisis has hit your company. 

When a crisis happens to your company, your public relations team needs to be fully dedicated to it across the board. No matter how you respond, you need to make sure handling it is your PR’s core issue until the problem passes. For online content, canceling scheduled social media posts so you can handle the crisis is a must. Once things are back to normal, you can head back to the content you scheduled before the crisis hit. 

2. Something has happened in the world. 

Major events can strike the world at any time. Content that would be considered harmless one day can be viewed as insensitive the next. When something major happens in the world, you should review your scheduled content for social media and cancel any content that could be seen as in poor taste in light of recent events. Failure to do so can have your social media harm your company instead of help it. 

3. More relevant content has come up 

Trends and what’s popular change all the time on social media. If a big trend or something buzzworthy comes up and your company would like to participate in it, you can move back existing content and create new content that ties into the trend. Nobody knows how long a trend will last, so it’s best to strike while the iron is hot instead of letting only your scheduled content go out when you could’ve gotten in on the trend while it was in people’s minds. 

You can also post content that ties into the trend along with your scheduled content if you feel that would work. It all depends on your company and your social media plans. 

Scheduling your social media content is great, but you need to be willing to improvise in case of a major crisis, a world event, or online trend. Improvisation is one of the key skills of great public relations, so be willing to work with and around scheduled content instead of considering it set in stone as soon as everything is scheduled.

Clients love Jacob’s speed. Jacob is an inbound marketing-certified webmaster. He earned an integrated communications degree from Florida State College at Jacksonville. Jacob joined Axia PR as an intern in August 2015 and earned his way into a critical role at our PR agency.