At each of the marketing workshops I’ve presented during the past few years, invariably the question comes up, “How can I reduce the amount of time I spend marketing my business on the Social Networks?”
We all know that social media marketing can take a lot of time.
How to maximize it? Here are three tips for reducing the time you spend on social media marketing:
1. Have a strategy. The most important tip is to have a strategy. Why are you using social media? Know who you’re trying to engage, what you’d like them to do and then figure out how you want to use which media. You may want to combine how you use Facebook and YouTube together to bring your message to life. SlideShare and Linked In could be exactly what you need. You’ll want to leverage the social media sites that is most appropriate for your goal and they each have pros and cons.
2. Create a plan. It can be an editorial type calendar or just a list of subjects with a reminder at the top of the goal (who you’re talking with, what you hope to accomplish and what the measurement of success is.) That way you have a roadmap of what’s to come.
3. Schedule ahead. You can schedule LinkedIn updates by using HootSuite. I’ve been using HootSuite for Twitter and Facebook status updates, but prior to this Linked In wasn’t available. I also use a WordPress Plug-in to post on Twitter to promote “encore” or “archive” posts at regular intervals. Make sure you don’t rely ONLY on automation however or your social media will turn into robot media. And be completely ineffective!
Even following these 3 tips, you can get sucked into reading silly, fun comments. Here’s a bonus tip: Set a timereach time you start your actual execution of strategy. Fifteen minutes should do it. Having that visual reminder on my desk helps me with the sense of urgency and keeps me from sliding down the rabbit hole of reading personal social media versus using it as a marketing tool for business.
What tips/tools do you use to manage your time on social media marketing? Please leave a comment below. Thanks!
