7 TIME SAVING TIPS FOR MANAGING YOUR SOCIAL
The struggle is real when it comes to finding time for your social media channels. We get it and that’s why we’ve put together these seven time saving tips to help you manage your social.
CONTENT CALENDAR
A content calendar will make your life a whole lot easier when it comes to social media. It’s really no different than planning out any other marketing campaign. You can ensure that deadlines are met and that you’ve got content ready for important dates.
The great thing about content calendars is that they’re super easy to create and customize to your own preferences and needs. For example, I’m more of a visual organizer so I prefer a monthly view so I can easily spot out any gaps in my calendar at a glance. Some prefer weekly views or yearly views.
There are a ton of social media content calendars templates online that you can use and customize. We suggest trying this one.
Remember, a goal without a plan is just an idea. The same applies to your social content. Plan plan plan!
SCHEDULER
A lot of social media folks swear by social media management tools that you may have heard of such as Hootsuite, Buffer or SproutSocial. All great tools, no doubt about it but if you’re a smaller company or just starting out, you may not have money in the budget set aside for these types of expenses. Luckily, most social media platforms have their own built in scheduler or some type of free alternative. Let’s look at the three most common platforms Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Facebook has a great in-house scheduling tool. If you have a Facebook page, take advantage of the schedule tool – it’s free!
At this time, Instagram has no option for scheduling content; in-house or on any third-party application. I guess you could say it speaks to the integrity of its name… insta… for instant. This is usually a struggle for most – I know it is for me. I like to have everything organized and ready to go and Instagram makes that a bit difficult. There are a few work around third party applications such as Later.com. They’ve created an app where you can plan your content for Instagram and then it sends you a reminder to post. Probably the closest you’ll get to scheduling Instagram posts at this time.
Scheduling and Twitter go hand in hand. Because of Twitter’s fast paced and need for attention culture, a scheduling tool is almost a necessity. The most common scheduler for Twitter is definitely Buffer. But ever since Twitter Ads were created, more and more users are using the in-house option instead. If you don’t have a Twitter Ad account for your business yet, go to ads.twitter.com to get one. When you have an advertiser account, you are presented with the option to compose a scheduled tweet. Buffer does have a free plan which can be used for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+ and they’ve put together a newer scheduling tool similar to Later for Instagram. If you like to keep your planning all in one place, Buffer may be the way to go.
CREATE TEMPLATES
Creating templates has tons of benefits – especially if you’re not the only person creating content for your brand.
Regardless of what type of graphic design software you use, a template can be created. You should have a template ready for each type of post. For example, have a template for Facebook posts with the correct dimensions and one for Instagram and one for Twitter… you catch the drift. This will save you a ton of time when creating content for your content calendar.
REUSE CONTENT
Don’t be afraid to reuse content… just make sure you wait long enough. I’m not saying post the same picture on Instagram every week. I’m saying, it’s okay to repost an interesting article that your fans interacted well with two months ago. A great idea for filling gaps in your content calendar!
USER-GENERATED CONTENT
User-generated content is your best friend… If you can get it. There’s a few tricks to getting your fans to post content with your product or a picture on Instagram at your location. Contests and hashtags go hand in hand with user-generated content. Create a contest that requires your fans to post a picture or check-in on Facebook using a specific hashtag.
If you repost the content coming from your fans you’ll a) make them super happy and b) reduce your need for content creation.
EMPLOYEE TAKEOVER
Another fun way to lighten your social media load is to have an employee takeover day. What does this mean? You can have a designated day of the week (or month) where an employee takes over all social media channels for the day. It can be a day in the life of… type of thing. Large brands like Aritzia and other clothing companies do this. It gives fans a perspective they’re not used to seeing which makes them feel comfortable and related to your brand. Not to mention, you can market any product or service you’d like when the employee takes over. Instagram Stories, Snapchat and Twitter are the best platforms for employee takeover.
ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT STRATEGY
An online reputation management strategy not only saves you time but also can save your brand’s online reputation. A reputation management strategy is created when the Social Media Manager and the CEO or any other team members sit down together and decide on how different situations and comments will be responded to and handled online.
For example, someone retweets your tweet. Do you like it? Do you comment? Set a general rule so you know how to handle this type of engagement.
Another example, someone comments negatively offending another person your Facebook post. What’s the protocol? Do you delete it, comment back or just leave it?
Having these things set in place BEFORE they happen will save you a lot of time, headache and avoid costing your brand it’s online reputation.
Have any other time saving tips?Let us know!
D1ZI as a full online marketing kitchener establish social identities and build communities around your brand to bring your business above as compare to your competitors.
