If you post things on a regular basis, like any kind of blogger or sales posts or publish to multiple platforms, you NEED to check out PostCron! They have really changed how efficiently I am able to run my business, and I would highly recommend them! Their program allows you to publish to multiple social media platforms at the same time, with one click. You can also automatically add watermarks to your posts, schedule posts ahead of time (WOW this is a big one!), and you can even get multiple logins if you have a team of publishers. They even have a free version that allows you to check out most of their features and decide if it is a good fit. Here’s some of my favorites features from PostCron, and how to get started.
PostCron has several levels of posting services available, depending on what amount of business you are trying to run through them. The first one is probably all that you need, unless you have a huge amount of accounts and posts. However, you can double the amount of publishers and social accounts for just $4 a month, so it really is not that big of a step up to look at the next level. When you first start with PostCron, you link your different social media accounts, including Facebook (fan pages, profile, event, and even group pages), LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest boards, and Instagram. You will be able to choose which pages you are publishing to for each individual post, so they can go to multiple locations at once, or different locations depending on the content of your post.
You can easily add as many accounts as you need at the top of the dashboard by clicking Add Accounts at the top right. You will sign into the account to allow PostCron to publish to the account in your name, and it will become an option on the top to select or deselect as needed.
As you can see at the top, I have four social media profiles connected, and for this post, I am picking two locations for it to go to when I publish it. There is also the ability to pick which picture you would like, post a link (which is what I like to do to highlight my blog posts), add any other text, etc. You can choose to publish now or any time in the future. I find this to be incredibly useful as I can sit down and get all of my posting done at once (like when the baby is down for a nap), and my readers get content all day long, even if I am not in front of my computer! This also means that if you have a post that you are going to share multiple times (I have a post that goes up on the first of each month for example), you can schedule all of those ahead of time. If there is an issue with a post going through for whatever reason, PostCron will email you to let you know. In addition, you can check the status of all of your past posts to make sure that they have been published by clicking on “Past Posts”, and seeing the green bar for “Published”.
You can also check out which posts you have pending, as well as make changes to already scheduled posts, my looking at the “Future Posts” button as well. This is very handy when I need to space my posts out more so that I am not overloading my readers with a ton of posts at once.
In addition, you can add watermarks to any of your images, automatically, when you are posting. This is very useful to help make sure that your content is protected, ESPECIALLY if you are posting your photography posts, pay-per-use images, or other images that are sensitive.
Another great “pro-feature” that I love is the Bulk Uploader program. You can schedule up to 1,000 posts all at once, using an Excel or Google Docs file. This means that all of your daily/weekly/monthly posts can all be posted at the same time, or scheduled to be posted all at the same time, which is going to save you a ton of time. The Bulk Uploader, Instagram and Watermarks features are premium features, exclusive to paid users, but they are well worth the price! Another reason that I like this (as well as the PostCron service in general), is that life happens, and sometimes I get yanked away from my desk unexpectedly. That means that if I had posts that needed to be released that day, they will get dropped onto tomorrow’s schedule (if they are even still relevant by then), and I will be behind again. By uploading everything in bulk and getting it all ready to go at once, it also ensures that it doesn’t fall through the cracks and get missed.
As I mentioned above, PostCron has several different pricing scenarios available to suit your needs. They allow multiple social media accounts, depending on the plan that you choose, so you can run your entire social media presence through their service. You will save 15% just for paying annually, which is well worth it in my opinion. They will even give you a free month for every person who you refer as well. For the service that they provide, and the amount of time that this adds to my daily schedule, I would highly recommend signing up; the return on my investment has been well worth it!
Click HERE to pick the plan that best suites your business!
