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If you work in the social media space creating content for clients, or you manage social media for your own business, you will understand the pain that can come with scheduling posts. Many third party scheduling tools are clunky, expensive and can’t be relied on to work when you need them to. This can often lead to an unhappy client or audience, and the consequential loss of their trust, despite the non-schedule or incorrect scheduling often being completely outside of your control.

You’ll be pleased to know then that Facebook’s Creator Studio brings together a range of tools that can be used to quickly and effectively post, manage and measure content across all of your Facebook pages AND as of recently, Instagram too!

 

SO WHEN DID CREATOR STUDIO COME ALONG & WHAT IS IT?

In 2017, Facebook launched the Facebook Creator App and website as a way to assist creators looking to manage their online presence. This paved the way for the production of Creator Studio, which provides both managing and publishing tools for Facebook account users.

From Creator Studio, administrators can keep up to date with interactions in comments and messages, manage content and sound libraries as well as track the performance of posts. The tracking tool is particularly useful as it breaks down each form of measurement with an explanation for best use. Anyone who owns or manages a Facebook business account is able to tap into this free feature, making it a cost effective choice for every social media guru.

 

BUT WAIT A MINUTE YOU’RE SAYING IT CAN SCHEDULE TO INSTAGRAM??

Recently, Facebook’s Creator Studio also started offering editing, scheduling and measurement tools for Instagram. Social media managers are now able to edit content and create posts that include emojis, hashtags, location tags and multiple images with scheduling options allowing for Instagram posts and IGTV content.

The addition of Instagram scheduling features on Creator Studio is extremely useful to social media managers who have previously struggled with alternative scheduling options. Many of these third party platforms were limited by Instagram API access restrictions and could not provide many of the main Instagram scheduling functions such as sharing multiple images in one post or using location tags. As Creator Studio is a first party platform, these issues do not seem to be apparent. Currently, this is the only native Instagram scheduling option available, meaning that scheduling issues are less likely to occur when compared to other platforms.

As always, Facebook created an extremely user-friendly interface that displays important information and options clearly. For beginners worried about getting acquainted with a new system, this platform is extremely easy to learn and understand. With a single click, managers are able to explore previous posts, post content, and view an engagement snapshot.

In addition, this platform includes access to Instagram analytics as well as a consolidated inbox that manages both direct mentions and messages. Previously, all direct messages were only available to view and answer within the mobile app.

 

SO WHY DID FACEBOOK CREATE THEIR OWN SCHEDULING PLATFORM?

According to Facebook, one of their biggest goals is to assist creators in earning money from the content that they create. With these options, creators are able to better monetise their social platforms through ad revenue, brand collaborations and fan support.

Therefore, Facebook Creator Studio can be seen as an attempt to compete with other platforms such as YouTube which already provides a range of monetisation features.

While these new tools are likely to become the norm for Instagram management, Creator Studio is not flawless.

Currently, Instagram stories are not supported on the platform and there are limits on content scheduling. Once a post is scheduled, you are not able to edit the image, caption or the schedule time so be careful! Changes can only be made once the post is live. In addition, it is not possible to tag products from your online shop within Creator Studio, meaning that the post must be edited after going live in order to include this feature.

The analytics reporting feature is also limited in terms of usability with the platform only providing analytics from the previous week. For social media managers looking to track changes in engagement statistics over months or years, this is not an efficient system. While it is possible to copy weekly data into a spreadsheet or document, this process may become tedious and counterproductive.

It is also important to note that these features can only be used by an Instagram Business or Creator account that is connected to a Facebook page. For businesses without a presence on Facebook (i.e. Instagram only), these features remain out of touch for the foreseeable future. The use of Creator Studio is also limited to desktops as the Creator App we knew and loved has been discontinued. For social media managers that are always on the go and use their phone as an office, Creator Studio may not therefore be a suitable scheduling platform. It is also not going to help if you need to schedule across platforms outside of Facebook & Instagram for your business or your clients.

However, if Facebook & Instagram are the places you want to focus on channel wise, Creator Studio is now a great solution.

 

Our prediction is that Creator Studio will become the go-to platform for social media management, scheduling and engagement in the future, especially if it takes onboard user feedback and adds the functionality high powered social media managers need.

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