Think you don't have time to run social media for your small business? It's time to divide and conquer.
You’re already working your tail off with your small business, so stop manually posting your social media content before you’re run ragged. This post is your ultimate guide on how to make your social media platforms work for you when you’re short on time.
1. Have a goal
What are you trying to accomplish with your social media? Most small businesses try to engage customers, build trust and increase visibility. Research what your competitors are doing and how they interact with their followers. If you have an objective across all your socials, it will make creating content so much easier!
2. Find out where your audience is
Be honest: Do you really need to be active on all social media platforms? There’s a difference between having an online presence and driving yourself into an early grave. Use social media analytics, such as Facebook Insights, to find out where your audience is. Do most of your customers use Instagram, but avoid Facebook? Then you can ramp up content on Instagram and let Facebook idle for a while. Conserve that social media energy!
3. Get inspired
How do you know what to post? Use RSS feeds! RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a newsfeed you can subscribe to. An RSS reader shows you a list of all the recent updates from the websites you have nominated to appear. Feedly is a great one to start with. But you can find inspiration everywhere! Start collecting ideas for blogs/posts/tweets/campaigns beforehand so when the writer’s block hits, you’ll have a stash ready to use. Trust me, this really comes in handy when you need to hit publish on something immediately.
4. Create a calendar
Now that you’ve collected some content ideas, it’s time to organize! Consistency is key when creating an online presence. Play around with how often you’d like to post. At Infomedia, we organize our blog monthly based on topics. If users can depend on you for good orderly content, they’re more likely to associate your brand with quality and consistency. So whip out a calendar and start planning!
5. Schedule it out
Unless you’re a social media influencer reading this, I’m assuming you don’t want to devote your life to the ‘gram (or whatever the youths are calling it these days …). The best way to save time is by creating a plan ahead of time and sticking to it.
And once you know what you want to post to your platforms, did you know that you can schedule your content? Hootsuite, Buffer and TweetDeck are a few scheduling apps that will save your time and sanity. You can even pull a double-whammy and cross link your scheduled posts across a variety of platforms.
And one more thing before you go: A good rule of thumb for your content is an 80/20 split. Eighty percent of the time, you’ll want to educate and entertain your audience. In the other 20%, promote your brand and sell your products. Social media is the more playful part of your business and an opportunity for customers to get to know your business on a personal level. Now get out there and become the social media expert that you were born to be!
