On a recent drive home from visiting my mother, who lives about 70 miles north of me, the messaging on the big digital freeway signs caught my eye. These are the signs that the government uses to announce traffic problems, remind people not to drink and drive, etc. 

As I was driving, about half of the signs were advertising “Transit Equity Day,” urging everyone to take advantage of free public transit that Sunday. The other half were warnings about a major incoming storm, urging everyone to “avoid traveling Sunday – Tuesday.” 

Notice anything wrong here? 

I’m guessing that the Transit Equity Day messages had been scheduled weeks or months ago, when this event was planned. Then whoever programmed the message about the storm didn’t notice, think about or have the authority to change the fact that the two messages conflicted. 

Being able to schedule things in advance is extremely helpful 

I have always said that content creation is easiest when you can create content in batches. Get a bunch of content created at once, get it all set up and scheduled, and then take “content creation” off your To Do list until it’s time to create the next batch. Tools are available that let you get your blogs, newsletters, social media posts, etc. pre-scheduled way in advance of when they will be sent or published. Why not take advantage of them? 

The potential problem arises when something changes 

If you like to get your content “locked and loaded” in advance of the publication date, be aware that you may need to revisit this content before it posts. For example, any of the following can impact your pre-scheduled content: 

• New products or services
• Discontinuation of existing products or services
• New prices or pricing structure
• Website changes that affect the content or address of pages you have linked to
• Current events
• New legislation, regulations or court rulings
• Industry-wide changes
• Weather events
• Something that renders your content obsolete (such as an article written before the launch of ChatGPT about how great it will be one day when artificial intelligence tools are available for the masses)

How can you avoid the dangers of pre-scheduling posts? 

The answer here probably depends on the nature of your marketing program. However, it couldn’t hurt to spend five minutes every two weeks reviewing the next two weeks’ posts. Double-check all the links and make sure the content is still relevant and accurate.