5 Easy steps that will save your company time on social media

When it comes to your marketing plan, any time you spend on a social platform needs to be considered, managed and needs to get results.

Whatever the aims are for your company whether it’s increased likes, follows, or brand exposure, these points are easy to do and easy to manage.

This is a do this NOW Blog post. Rather than putting this article aside to read over later…..We all know there is never a later.

1. Plan your content

Right! ok, where do you start?
Open up a new doc in Excel/Sheets, In the top row copy and paste this:

Series (Short form) Questions/ Polls. Mini Blog posts (Short form), Blog Posts (Article) (Long form)

This will split your ideas into different lengths – if the idea is strong and you think you could write a lot about it, put it in the Blog Post section. If it’s an idea you don’t think you’ll have enough content for, then put it under the Mini Blog section.

Remember: People use different platforms to access your content, so don’t be worried about using your blog post ‘6 Signs Your Social Media Strategy Is Broken’ Across more than one length category.

2. Time itself

Get yourself an egg timer – yes that’s what I said – not the alarm on your phone that wakes you up every morning, but an egg timer – set this for however long you want to spend on social media and listen to the ticking sound it emanates while you scroll your mouse. When the bell sounds STOP. I don’t care what point you’re up to with your social media searching, and reacting – STOP.

Ensuring you limit your time on live social engagement will make sure you’re not wasting your time for a few likes and clicks.

3. Don’t worry, Get Appy (No, I’m not apologising for that)

It’s really annoying when you see companies who obviously have a HUGE marketing budget. Who always have a bunch of new content – and new posts every day?

Oh yeah, sure, we’re just going to generate NEW content every day with our team of people whose sole job is to like, tweet, re-tweet and write content!

Smaller companies, however, don’t have this luxury. But there are things out there that can make you look like the big guns of the marketing world.

Pay someone else to write your content – if you can afford that GREAT!

But what if you can’t?

Your website is harbouring a lot of content you didn’t know was useful. Each page is a blog post waiting to happen.

• Your about page
• Your products page
• Your services page too
• You can even spruce up old blog posts and send them out again.

4. Stop using Facebook!

Ok maybe not Facebook, but if you know certain channels or platforms don’t appeal to your audience, then why spend time on them?

Some companies do well by getting their business from Instagram or via YouTube. It all depends on your audience, and what platform they use. A good question to ask when deciding is ‘Has this made me business?’

Now we’re not saying ignore the channel altogether, being present is a good thing. However, there are many apps out there that can automatically post on your behalf. The one we use is Socias (Automated Digital Marketing Software), which strips out content from your website and blogs to make posts for you. Oh doesn’t that sound clever?

With one of these apps, you can then spend 30min to an hour each week managing the content you post out. Then leave well alone.

What saving time can do for your business.

So whether it’s getting your content planning right first, limiting the time you spend scrolling through social channels, or getting someONE or someTHING else to take care of your social engagement. Saving a few minutes each day may not seem like a lot.

But that’s an extra email you could send to a potential client, 5 extra minutes checking over the proposal you’re about to send out. Or having one extra cup of tea a day.

I know there are many startups and small business who could benefit from a bit of extra time in their day. If you know anyone who would benefit, give this a share.