Tech Stuff for Writers - Postcron revisited

A friend read my post about Postcron and pointed out that Facebook allows you to schedule posts, so why would she use PostCron?

Two reasons - Facebook only allows scheduling for Pages. With Postcron, you can schedule posts for Pages and your timeline.

Better interface - If you have more than one Page, Facebook shows future scheduled posts separately on each page. With Postcron the information is all in one place, neatly organised under tabs.

Tech Stuff for Writers - PostCron

This is the first in a series of posts where I'll share the tips, tricks, apps and software that I use to make my writing life on-line as efficient as possible. I want to enjoy my time on-line (and I do) but at the same time I don't want to waste manuscript writing time.

So welcome to PostCron. PostCron is a web application that allows you to schedule Facebook Posts. I find this useful because I often find things I want to post when I am researching or just checking my Google Reader feed but I don't want to interrupt my workflow to post them. I don't want to forget them either. I also want to post them when my friends and colleagues are most likely to be on-line.

So if I find something interesting on the web that I want to share on Facebook I immediately set up a PostCron entry. I keep the URL on my Favourites bar so the whole process takes a few minutes.

The URL for Postcron is postcron.com. I login with facebook which means some details look after themselves. I choose the free version. It has everything I need.

The post screen is set up very similar to a Facebook post. Nothing new to learn here! Text, pictures and links are entered the same way. The only difference is you have a choice of your Facebook Pages or your Profile Wall as the post destination. You can post to more than one destination concurrently. In this screen I have selected my Sandy Fussell Author Page.

After entering the text and attaching an image ot link, the post will be previewed.

 

 

 

Press Schedule to set a date and time to schedule the post. Set and forget.

Sometimes my screen seems to hang but I just press F5 to redisplay and everything is as it should be. You can schedule multiple posts to different pages and to your profile wall. The free version has a limit of ten posts pending. Pending post are stored in tabs based on posting destination. Select the tab to see the scheduling details.



 

 

If for some reason a post fails, you get an email message and can reschedule or post manually.

 

Too easy! If you found this useful leave me a comment and I'll share some more suggestions.