When Agorapulse introduced bulk scheduling, I did a little dance. It’s such a simple way to ensure that your feeds keep ticking over even when you don’t have time to post.
For a sieve-head like me, bulk-scheduling posts means not forgetting important scheduled posts, and it helps space out sales and relationship building content. If you manage multiple social networks, this will be such a timesaver.
There are lots of ways you can use the bulk publishing feature to streamline your marketing, and I’ll talk about those shortly. First, let’s look at how you do it using Agorapulse, a social media post scheduler.
Related Post: Social Media Management
What to Look for in a Social Media Post Scheduler
Which Social Networks Can You Bulk Schedule To From Agorapulse?
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ all support bulk scheduling. Here’s how it works!
From your Agorapulse dashboard, choose your network then click on ‘Bulk Publishing.’
Select your network and click the ‘Bulk Publishing’ button
You have 3 options.
1. Import from CSV
Bulk Import from CSV
To ensure that you always get the file format right, I recommend clicking ‘Download Sample’. This will give you a .CSV file pre-populated with two lines of content that makes it easy to see how to add your own data.
I recommend downloading a sample file for bulk scheduling
You can add up to four columns of information:
- First column: Your post content (or text)
- Second column: Link if you are including one
- Third column: Date you want to send the post
- Fourth column: Time you want to send the post
Although you can add four columns of data, it isn’t required. And if you don’t want to specify scheduling times now, that’s fine, you can do it later. If your post doesn’t contain a link, you don’t have to add one.
I recommend completing the date and time columns first if you are using them. This means you can work through the times, dates, and frequency of your posts before you get into the creation phase.
Next, it’s time to add the text for your update and the link if you are including one.
If you are using all four columns, you’ll end up with a document that looks like the one below. Don’t worry if you use a different time or date format– you can tell Agorapulse that after you upload.
Example of a completed bulk schedule file
Save the file, return to Agorapulse and click on ‘Upload .CSV file’
Upload your prepared bulk schedule file
Time to map your content. This ensures that your file is being read correctly. If you used the sample as a basis for your upload this should be a painless task.
Tell Agorapulse what field your data represents
For date and time, select the format that matches the data in your file. Here in Ireland, we use dd/mm/yyyy whereas in the US mm/dd/yyyy is the standard.
Map your date and time files depending on how you structure them
Next, review each of your posts and edit them if necessary.
You can even reschedule these posts regularly (or schedule them if you haven’t added dates and times to your file) from here.
Edit and reschedule your posts
Finally, click ‘Schedule’, watch the magic happen, and enjoy that tingly feeling you get when you know you’ve set up a month of Tweets or Facebook posts in advance.
2. Import from website RSS feed
Import in bulk from a blog or new site with RSS uploader
This option makes it easy to upload multiple posts, quickly and easily from your own blog or the blogs you follow and love. It’s great for:
- Republishing evergreen content that you want to re-share regularly
- Promoting your new blog posts
Start by choosing the social profile you want to publish to.
Add the RSS feed for the blog you want to grab posts from.
Add RSS feeds to the bulk uploader and it will pull in posts from that feed.
Click submit
AgoraPulse pulls in a list of posts it has found from the RSS feed. Select those that you want to add to your schedule or queue. From my own blog I’m selecting the posts I know will remain relevant for the next few months so I can reschedule them if I want to.
Select the posts that you want to schedule or queue.
Choose if you want to schedule or queue your posts.
Schedule or Queue your posts
I’ve chosen to schedule. AgoraPulse automatically adds dates and times but you can edit these. Select a specific time and date, set it to republish automatically or set specific times to reschedule these posts. It makes promoting your blog posts easy.
Set the time and date you want the post, republish or reschedule.
Finally, click ‘Schedule’.
3. Bulk upload images
Bulk upload images and schedule to social media.
Instagram direct publishing is here. AgoraPulse has made it easy to upload batches of photos that you can schedule out over time. But of course it’s not just for Instagram, you can schedule images to all your social networks.
Once you are in the bulk image upload interface select the profile you want to post to.
Drag and drop images straight into the uploader or select the files from your computer.
Drag and drop images or upload files from your computer.
Select ‘Schedule’ or ‘Add to queue’. I’ve chosen to schedule.
Click edit to add a caption, you can add links and emojis here too.
Add captions to your uploaded images.
Add your caption with emojis and links. Then click ‘finish’.
Click ‘Finish’ and add the scheduled time and date as before.
What Can You Use Bulk Publishing For?
To save time!
Do you find that sometimes you seem to have just about enough time to post content, build relationships and deal with inquiries? Then at other times, your schedule gets in the way?
Because bulk publishing can keep your feed ticking over with regular content, you’ll have more time to focus on monitoring and relationship building.
Recycling your evergreen content
Remeber that awesome post you wrote last month and that image that never fails to get engagement? They can become the gift that keeps on givin’.
Bulk publishing means you can upload your evergreen posts and set a schedule for re-sharing them. They’ll never be forgotten again. You can choose how often you’d like to re-schedule the posts after you’ve uploaded your file.
Campaign updates
If you run specific sales campaigns scheduling is a must– but it can be a head wreck. All those networks, all that content that needs scheduling– not to mention deadline and countdown posts– are hanging over your head. If you attempt to schedule one post and one network at a time, it’s easy to make mistakes (and run out of time.)
The last thing you want is a post announcing “1 hour left to get this amazing offer” going out too early or too late.
Bulk scheduling to the rescue– because you can input the exact post times into the .CSV file you upload, it’s much easier to get the timing right and enjoy one smooth campaign. (And who doesn’t love those?)
Saving up your social energy
Do you get those mad social energy bursts? Times when it seems so easy to come up with engaging posts for all your social channels?
They’re often followed by a dry patch. Instead of blurting it all out at once, save your clever questions and engaging posts and trickle them out on a schedule. This means people will continue to respond to your content even when you are in a slump.
Getting approval
Instead of getting approval from a teammate, boss, or client tweet-by-tweet or post-by-post, use the CSV file to receive feedback en masse. Add a column for their notes or a dropdown filter with approved/rejected — just be sure to remove the column before you upload your CSV file to Agorapulse.
Testing different tweet versions
I like to write at least three different headlines for each blog post I write. This gives me lots of options when sharing online and helps me hone my message. I test the headlines on Twitter and when I see one headline version gets more engagement than another, I know I’ve done something right.
But it’s a pain scheduling each version of my headline separately. With bulk publishing I can upload my 3 versions and tell Agorapulse I want to reschedule each one 3 times.
Easier UTM tracking
Are you an analytics addict like me? I have it bad! If I can’t add UTM tracking to my posts, I feel like I’m missing important information but adding UTM on a post-by-post basis is a hassle.
Bulk scheduling makes the process so much easier. I can just cut and paste my UTM tracking code to the end of each link before I upload the post. It’s kinda exciting being able to see the results coming from my Agorapulse tweets.
Or, you can use Agorapulse’s new UTM tracking to add UTM parameters to your social media posts.
When you’re scheduling a post just toggle the UTM tracking on and then add the necessary parameters.
The Verdict
Bulk scheduling is just amazing. I’m not kidding– it makes life so much easier for businesses and agencies that need to schedule regular content to multiple social networks.
There are so many ways you can use it, I just know you’ll find it’s a must-have tool.
Do you use bulk scheduling? What do you use it for? I’d love to hear your ideas and thoughts so leave me a comment.
