Anyone with a Facebook page knows that it is simple to get sucked in the black hole that is social media. Those of us managing social media accounts for businesses know this first hand. With each different client, there is a different world of content, events, platforms, and information being thrown at you. The notifications never end. The engagement is ongoing. So, how do you manage your time effectively while marketing on social media?
First, find a great social media management tool to make your life easier. The tedious and time consuming tasks are the ones that waste the most time. Find a great tool, like Hootsuite or Buffer, to schedule your posts ahead of time across multiple platforms. You can customize them to whatever you like, just find a tool that is a good fit for you.
Next, find a good content curation tool. This is a great option to help you fill in and really beef out your content marketing strategy. Some great sites are: Scoop.it, Storify, Feedl, TrapIt, etc. After that, find a great tool for editing images and creating graphics. I personally really like Canva, but there are a lot of tools out there right now with some great free and paid options.
Once you’ve found all the tools that work for you, it’s time to put a plan into place that keeps you on track and keeps you efficient in the way you are spending your time. Identify your social media marketing or content marketing goals. What do you need to do to reach those goals? What are those tasks?
Create a list of tasks that you need to do on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis to help you achieve the goals you’ve laid out for your business. Now, break down how much time you can dedicate daily and weekly to each of these tasks. Identify how the tools you’ve chosen can help with each of these.
You should have a list now of goals, tasks, and tools to help you accomplish these tasks. You should also have an estimate of the time needed to accomplish these items. Now you need to consider distractions. Time wasters. What is happening on a daily basis that is keeping you from getting through your list and line items?
Here are a few suggestions that you can tweak and edit based on your own business and needs:
Close your email when working on these tasks
Close all browser windows and tabs except for the ones currently being worked on
Silent phone or hold calls for specific intervals
Choose two 15 minute time slots a day for personal activities such as checking personal social media profiles, responding to texts, browsing websites, etc. (A lot of people don’t schedule this in and then suffer because these are things that we inevitably do anyway)
Spend 30 minutes three times a day reviewing emails, responding to emails, and creating tasks around the things that come up in email
The key to staying focused in the rabbit hole of social media is to stick to a schedule and work only on the specific tasks you have scheduled in the specific times allotted. Schedule in time to waste time. This way you’re more aware and you don’t let it run away from you. In order to be conscious of your time, you really have to understand how much time you’re wasting and how much can be accomplished in certain windows if you are staying focused.
What has been your biggest challenge with managing time in social media marketing? Is it responding to comments? Do you waste the most time searching for relevant topics or trying to stay up with the conversation? What have some of your solutions been? Comment below!
