Delay Minutes: Prevent Overposting and Optimize Reach Between Posts

What Are Delay Minutes?

The Delay Minutes setting in True Anthem’s Post Job Settings defines the minimum amount of time that must pass between any two AI-Driven posts to the same social media platform within a campaign. This buffer helps ensure that no post—whether scheduled manually or published automatically—is released too close to another, protecting against overposting and potential reach cannibalization.

This feature is especially useful when multiple team members may be publishing directly to a Page or when content is being posted both manually and through automation.

Default Behavior for AI-Driven Post Jobs

By default, all AI-Driven Post Jobs are configured with a Delay Minutes setting of 15 minutes.

This means that True Anthem will not publish a new post to the same platform if a prior post has been published in the last 15 minutes—regardless of whether that prior post was manual or automated.

When and Why to Modify Delay Minutes

If your Post Schedule includes high-frequency posting (e.g., new posts every 10 minutes), you may want to reduce the Delay Minutes setting to avoid unnecessary delays in your automation.

✅ Recommended Rule of Thumb:

If you plan to post more frequently than every 15 minutes to a specific social media account, we recommend updating the Delay Minutes value to be equal to or less than the shortest time between scheduled post slots in that platform’s Post Schedule.

For example:

If your Facebook Post Schedule has time slots every 10 minutes, set Delay Minutes to 10 or less. If you’re spacing posts every 30 minutes, keeping the default 15-minute delay is appropriate.

How It Works (Real-World Example)

Imagine the following scenario:

You’ve scheduled automated post slots every 30 minutes. A team member manually publishes a breaking news post at 1:20 PM. The next scheduled slot for True Anthem automation is 1:30 PM. If your Delay Minutes setting is 15 minutes, the automation will delay the 1:30 PM post until 1:35 PM, maintaining a 15-minute buffer between posts.

This buffer helps ensure your manually published post has time to reach audiences before a new post appears on top of it in the feed.

How Delayed Posts Appear in the Dashboard

When Delay Minutes causes a post to be held:

An orange banner appears across the top of the affected time slot in the Queue, clearly indicating that the post is delayed. In the delayed time slot, you’ll see a countdown timer showing how much time remains before the post attempt will be retried. The system will automatically retry the post once the delay threshold is met.

If a post slot is delayed more than twice, True Anthem will not attempt to publish it again. 

Instead:

The content will be reassigned to the next available Post Job time slot for which it is eligible, helping maintain overall distribution flow without excessive retries or failures.

How to Update the Delay Minutes Setting

Go to the Post Job you’d like to configure. Scroll to the Post Job Settings section. Find the field labeled Delay Minutes. Enter your preferred number of minutes (e.g., 10). Click Save to apply the change.

This setting is customizable per Post Job, allowing different strategies for different platforms or campaigns.

Important Note About RSS Post Jobs

Delay Minutes are not available for RSS-based Post Jobs.

RSS Post Jobs are designed to bypass the scheduling queue and distribute new content as close to real-time as possible after it’s published to your website. Because immediacy is the primary goal, applying a delay would conflict with the purpose of RSS-based distribution.

Best Practices

Use 15–20 minutes for typical automation workflows where both manual and automated publishing occur. Set a shorter delay (5–10 minutes) for high-frequency content, such as sports updates, breaking news, or X (formerly Twitter). 

Summary

To recap, the Delay Minutes setting gives you precise control over the timing of your automated posts, helping to safeguard post performance and avoid feed saturation. Whether you’re balancing manual and automated publishing or managing a high-frequency content strategy, configuring this setting correctly can help ensure every post gets the attention it deserves.