Like the maze of an IKEA store, social media outlets have been optimized to be time vampires, who suck the life and motivation out of you. I should know since much of my professional and – regrettably - my personal life has been spent on social media.
While I can’t help you with your personal life, I can help you maximize your time using social media for your business. Here are some helpful apps and strategies to help you focus on the real work of your business and stress less about your marketing.
Automated messages on Facebook
Facebook rewards businesses that respond to messages quickly. If you’ve checked your business page it might mention your response time under the “About Us” heading. The “Typically replies within hour/minutes/etc.” note can be very important to some prospective buyers who might avoid your company if you don’t have a great response time. Instead of sitting by your phone all day so you can keep up with your messages, use the automated message functions within Facebook.
There are three auto-responder or messaging features Facebook offers: the “Away Message”, the “Instant Reply” and a “Messenger Greeting”. All three have different features that can direct your customer and allow you to get to the messages without having to rush. My rule of thumb is to try to personally respond to a message within a 24-hour period.
Create and stick to an editorial calendar
With a weekly or monthly calendar, you will know exactly what to post and when. This cuts down on time conceptualizing post ideas and themes. Plus, it will help you with the next time saving tip.
Schedule your posts
Scheduling a week or two ahead of posts is a great way to save time. There’s an endless amount of free software for your phone or computer to schedule posts. Buffer, Hootsuite, Sprout Social, are good platforms, just to name a few. There’s even software built into Facebook so that you can schedule posts and track engagement for both Facebook and Instagram. Try a few and find out what works best for you.
Acquire User Generated Content (UGC) and memes
User Generated Content (UGC) is any kind of content that has not been created by you. This could be a fan photo, video or article. UGC lessens the burden of constantly creating your own content for social media, and ultimately saves you a lot of time. If you plan on using UGC, make it a point to ask permission from the original creator first. It’s not only a “best practice”, but it saves you from a social media blunder should the original poster get upset that you used their stuff without asking. Bigger brands have a much more sophisticated plan for asking for UGC, but a simple “Hey, can we use this?” comment or message usually works just fine.
Memes are another great way to keep active on social media without creating new content. I post relevant, funny memes every Friday for many of my clients and they often see a jump in engagement on those days.
Have a set game plan
When hashing out your social media goals, think about how much time you can realistically spend on it each day. If you’re a small business owner committed to checking messages, posting content, looking at your analytics or looking around and requesting to use UGC, these tasks will quickly fill up your time.
Let’s face it, as a small business owner you probably don’t have the time to manage all that’s involved with running your business, plus your marketing efforts on and offline. Luckily, I’m here to help! Email me at sara@contentandcreativity.com or call 610.937.5187 and learn more about C+C’s social media packages.