Schedule Social Media Posts Like a Pro, with Categories

Categorizing your posts can make a huge difference in your strategy, as well as in how your posts are created and scheduled. But first - let's be clear about what we mean by "categories."

Take a look at the last ten things you put out on social media. Can you start grouping them together in some way? For instance, are some links to other people's content, some questions to your audience, and some links to your own content? Congratulations - those are all categories!

In this article, we’ll take a closer look at how to use categories to help you schedule social media posts, and we’ll show you how to pick categories that make sense for your niche and audience.

Creating content in batches

One of the biggest advantages to categorizing your content is that it lets you easily create content in batches. This saves you time and makes your monthly social media strategy more efficient.

How? It's simple. Say you’re going to do six updates a day, five days a week. And for the record, that’s a ton — you probably don’t need to update that frequently. But if you did, that would add up to 30 updates a week. With four weeks in a month, that adds up to 120 total updates per month. Do you really want to sit down and write 120 updates all at once?

But if you have six categories, you only need 20 updates per category, per month.

Categories let you divvy up the content and more easily create it in batches.

That doesn’t sound so tough, right? And just think — if you updated three times a day instead, you’d only need 10 updates per category, per month! You can easily sit down for an hour or two once a month and write those out in advance.

Simply put, breaking up your social media posting schedule by category divides the work you have to do.

Categories affect how you schedule social media posts

Not only do categories make creating social media posts into a less daunting task, they can revolutionize your posting schedule.

Let's say you only want to publish three posts each weekday. That means 15 posts each week to worry about. How do you make sure there's enough variety? How do you make sure you're promoting your site enough?

The answer is categories! Instead of worrying about which post to publish at a given time, you first plan what category to post from. If you set up a repeating schedule based off of categories, you take out a huge amount of the guesswork involved in posting.

Here's a simple sample posting schedule broken down by category:

As you can see, we're using just six categories, posting three times per day, and varying the categories to make sure that the same category isn't used twice in a row. You could easily apply this formula to post twice as often without adding any additional content categories.

With all of this batching and scheduling, it's important to remember that the heart of social media is still live interactions! The time you save working with categories can translate into having more time to foster conversation with your audience. And there's no better way to build that "Know, Like, Trust" relationship with your fans!

Choosing the right content categories for you

In the example above, we used the following categories: Link to My Blog, Link to Other Person's Content, Inspirational Quote, Funny Quote, Question to Audience, and General. While this is a pretty even balance for your content, it's by no means the only way to organize things.

No matter how you organize your posts, it's a good idea to keep an eye on how they're performing, and to tweak your schedule as you go. If, for example, you notice that you're getting a lot of retweets when you post a Funny Quote - you should post more Funny Quotes! Even though you're not directly driving traffic to your site with that kind of post, you're building awareness and getting your name out there.

‍While five or six categories are a good starting point, you might also want to experiment with having more or fewer categories. There are no hard and fast rules, so feel free to find what works best for you! Here's an example of how you could create multiple categories based around the types of posts in your tech blog, for example:

No matter how many categories you use or how you choose to schedule them, you're sure to find that they make it a whole lot easier to plan, write, and schedule your social media posts. Categorizing also opens up the door for automation. With a good scheduling tool, you'll be able to save hours of time each week by automating the posting process!

Setting Up Your Categories (step-by-step)

Now that you understand the benefits of categorizing your social media posts, let’s walk through the process of setting up your own content categories, step-by-step:

Step 1: Identify Your Core Content Types

Start by looking at the types of content you’re already sharing. What kinds of posts make up your social media strategy? These could include links to your blog, inspirational quotes, customer testimonials, etc.

Make a list of the different types of content you regularly post. This will be the foundation of your categories.

Step 2: Group Similar Content Together

Next, group your content into broader categories. For example, blog links, product updates, and customer testimonials could all fall under a category like "Promotional Content." Similarly, quotes and questions could be grouped into "Engagement Content."

Here’s an example of how you might organize your content:

• Promotional Content: Blog links, product updates, customer testimonials
• Engagement Content: Inspirational quotes, audience questions, fun polls
• Curated Content: Links to industry news, tips from other experts

Grouping similar types of content together helps you structure your posting schedule around these categories.

Step 3: Assign Goals to Each Category

Each category should serve a specific purpose within your overall social media strategy. For example:

• Promotional Content might be aimed at driving traffic to your website or increasing sales.
• Engagement Content could be focused on sparking conversation and building a relationship with your audience.
• Curated Content helps establish you as a thought leader by sharing valuable information from other sources.

By assigning goals, you can ensure that each category contributes to your larger marketing objectives.

Step 4: Create a Balanced Posting Schedule

Once you have your categories in place, it’s time to create a schedule that balances your content. You don’t want to over-post in one category and under-post in another. For instance, if you're posting three times a day, you might alternate between:

• Monday: Promotional Content, Engagement Content, Curated Content
• Tuesday: Engagement Content, Promotional Content, Engagement Content
• And so on.

The key is to rotate through categories, ensuring that your audience gets a diverse mix of content each day.

Step 5: Review and Adjust

Your categories and schedule shouldn’t be set in stone. After running your categories for a few weeks, review how they’re performing. Use social media analytics to see which types of posts are getting the most engagement, clicks, and conversions. Adjust your schedule or categories as needed to better match what your audience responds to.

Step 6: Scale with Automation

Once your categories are set up, you can save even more time by automating your posts. Tools like MeetEdgar allow you to set up a content library based on categories, automatically pulling posts from each category and scheduling them on a recurring basis. This way, you’re always sharing content without the need to constantly manage your calendar.

Using Categories with Edgar

Edgar makes categorizing and scheduling your social media posts easy and efficient. With Edgar, you can create content libraries, assign posts to specific categories, and automate your entire posting schedule.

It all starts with creating your categories. Once your categories are set, you can add content to each one (which can be easily done using the auto-import functions!). The next step involves automation: set up a recurring schedule based on categories. For instance, you might want to share "Blog Posts" every Monday and Wednesday, "Promotional Content" on Fridays, and "Engagement Posts" during the weekends. Edgar will pull posts from each category and publish them at the designated times, ensuring a balanced and consistent posting schedule.

If you're curious about how it works, here's a quick start guide video for you:

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Categorizing your social media posts isn’t just about making your strategy more organized—it’s about saving time, maintaining consistency, and driving meaningful engagement with your audience. With a well-defined set of categories, you’ll find it a lot easier to create content.

Effortlessly create a content library based on your categories, set up a recurring schedule, and let Edgar handle the rest. Sign up for a free 7-day trial.