Here’s what I’m doing now that I can no longer automate posting in my Facebook groups
On April 22, 2024, Facebook disabled our ability to automate posting in groups, using a scheduler like Zapier, CoSchedule, etc.
It has really made getting my content out there more difficult because I have to now manually post, and that takes a lot of extra time, not just making the posts themselves, but planning what will be posted and when.
One of the suspected reasons for this was that Facebook was making a move to decreased spam and spammers.
I’ve seen no such decrease in the last 3 months.
I want to share my workarounds that I’m using for scheduling posts. This is definitely not perfect.
1. For posts that are nearly identical, which you make on a regular basis, schedule a recurring post in your group.
The advantage to this is that, as with many social media schedulers, you can “set it and forget it.”
Current offerings for this feature are:
- once a day
- once a week
- once every two weeks
- once a month.
I host a “Meme Monday” weekly in my group. Previously, I had used CoSchedule for these, but going forward, I will schedule the same recurring invitation to submit memes, for every Monday. I used to mix up a series of 6 prompts, which I liked for variation.
Because of the deprecation, I can now only post the same identical prompt, unless I change it up manually on occasion.
In case you didn’t realize this, I don’t love it
2. Schedule independent posts manually in your group as your personal profile, or as a Facebook page.
This is not ideal. I’d rather not spend hours of extra time scheduling posts that I used to be able to automate.
But, at least with this option, you don’t have to spend time every single day scheduling your posts.
Anyway, to schedule a post, click on the small calendar icon in the lower left corner:
You can schedule up to 60 days in advance:
You can always see all of your scheduled posts or change their date. To do this, click on “scheduled posts” in your admin panel. Here, you can see all of your scheduled posts, and edit them if necessary.
The biggest negative with this, is when I post links to my website’s blog posts, Facebook can’t pick up the image if the link itself is not yet live. In that case, I will usually schedule the blog’s image, along with a link to the scheduled blog post within the text.
Here is an example where I added a few photos and the link to the to-be-scheduled blog post. Note that if you don’t add enough spacing and if the link is not on its own line, the link does not always appear in blue or clickable:
It sortof looks like 1998, but what can you do?
3. Schedule posts as a Facebook page in Meta
If you have a Facebook business page that is connected to and can post to your group, you can schedule posts in a more organized fashion (and to multiple locations) in the Meta business panel.
In order to access this for the first time (this also works for the 348th time), you must first switch to your Facebook page. The option to “save time by sharing your post to multiple Facebook groups with Meta Business Suit” will come up:
When you click “Try it,” the meta scheduler is opened up. If you don’t see your group right away, click “see more groups.” Note that you can also select multiple groups.
Create your post – it will look something like the screenshot below. Note that you can schedule a date and time, use hashtags, etc.
Note that you can also see all of your scheduled posts in your calendar:
What changes have you made in your group, since Facebook removed API access?
Post in the comments!
