Did I ruin my client's engagement with a scheduling mistake?

[gablusky]

This is my first job in social media, and I'm a bit stressed about a mistake I made this week. I would really like to get some advice from those who have been working in this area longer than I have. I have been looking after this client's social media for approximately three months. At the beginning, they said their primary concern was to post regularly. They weren't very worried about engagement or becoming a viral hit, even though it would obviously be a bonus. To my knowledge, they are satisfied with the way I've been doing the job, and I meet with them a couple of times each month.

The account has approximately 2,500 followers, and our posts usually receive 60 to 90 likes and about 3 saves. I post 3 times a week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, consisting of 2 reels and 1 carousel. That's where I made a mistake. I mistakenly set the posts for Monday and Wednesday to go live at the same time on Monday. It wasn't until about 10 minutes later that I noticed it and became very worried. I deleted both posts, quickly reuploaded the correct reel for Monday, and rescheduled the carousel for Wednesday to go live at its scheduled time.

I'm now concerned that I've somehow messed up the account's engagement level, since Monday's reel has only attracted 21 likes and today's carousel has 15 so far; neither has received any saves, which is unusual given what we usually get. Indeed, two posts aren't sufficient data to base any conclusions on, but the fact that I saw those figures after making that mistake has left me concerned. I'm also questioning whether deleting and then reposting the content affected its reach.

If any of you deal professionally with social media accounts, have you come across something like this? Can the effect on engagement be so great when you accidentally publish two posts together and then delete them before reposting them? More importantly, what should I do at this stage to aid the situation, or is it better to leave everything as it is and stick to my usual posting schedule?

I don't want to overreact and make the situation worse, particularly as the client had originally been more concerned with consistency than with achieving high engagement figures. All I hope to do is deal with it properly and draw some lessons from the experience.

 

[meabhish]

I really do think you're a bit too hard on yourself. You made a mistake regarding the scheduling, spotted it quickly, and made the necessary correction. That sort of thing does happen, even to people who have been doing it for years.

The fact that two posts have underperformed doesn't mean that your account has been harmed. Engagement can vary for all sorts of reasons, and a single week isn't sufficient to identify a trend.

I should continue with my normal schedule and not make any further changes to make up for this.

 

[Hedgehog]

What I should be careful about is supposing that the deletion led to the drop. You can't actually tell that just from these figures alone. By the way, how long have those posts been online? A comparison between a post that has been up for a few hours and your typical results obtained after a full day or two might not be fair.

I'll check the reach, the non-follower reach, the shares, and the saves once each post has been given a reasonable amount of time to perform, since likes on their own don't give the full picture.