The biggest question in social is: "When should I post?" Sprout actually solves this in three different ways, depending on how hands-on you want to be. Let me show you.

When publishing a new post, scroll down to the When to post section, where you'll see a drop-down with two to three options. Don't worry if you're not seeing Sprout Queue already. I'll cover how to activate that next. For now, let's select Specific Days & Times. Keep in mind, if you're posting to more than one platform, make sure to turn on the Schedule by network switch.

Once you've entered the dates you want your post to go live, click Use Optimal Times. The data you see is based on your audience. Sprout analyzes the last 16 weeks of engagement data to find the exact minutes your followers are most active. This may vary greatly from platform to platform, so make sure you're selecting the optimal times specific to the platform shown. That's the manual approach: you see the stars, you pick your time.

But Sprout can also make that decision for you using the exact same data. Let me flip over to settings and show you how to set that up. Once you're in your settings, click Sprout Queue and, if you haven't already, enable Sprout Queue. Your connected platforms will appear. Click Edit to see your options for scheduling method: ViralPost or Manual times.

ViralPost takes the same algorithm you just saw under Optimal Times and applies it automatically to the posts in your queue. To set this up, go to Set By and decide whether you want to drill down by individual day or by weekdays and weekends. Then tell the system how many times you want something to post, and give the time parameters you want those posts to go out in.

In contrast, Manual times is very similar as far as the setup goes in Set By. However, it gives you more control, because you can select the specific times over the course of the day you want posts to go up on each platform.

Now let's go back to that original post. Once your queue is set up, you can switch this to Auto-schedule with Sprout Queue. You'll see Queue Next or Queue Last options. You can also manage your queue under Publishing > Sprout Queue.

No matter which route you take, whether it's Optimal Times, ViralPost, or Sprout Queue, you're saving time and working smarter.