As a social media practitioner, I am slightly alarmed by a growing trend among business owners who are feeling overwhelmed that their social media activity has become unmanageable. With this in mind, I thought I would share a few tips to help anyone affected in this way to plan and to manage their time.
1. If you have not done already, draft a brief social media plan; this can simply form part of your overall marketing plan and include your objectives, target market(s) etc
2. Decide which social networks are the most effective to use to reach out to your existing and target customers/clients (aside from direct experience, you may need to consult your website Analytics to check where the traffic is coming from and perhaps also where there is more potential)
3. Apportion a realistic number of hours per week which will be dedicated to your social media activity, based on your strategy and plan.
4. Now assign a proportion of the time to each network you are using (this might range from 10-15 mins a day to several hours a week, depending on the frequency of use, number of connections etc). You might wish to allocate time to specific tasks such as making/accepting connection requests for followers, friends etc, posting/sharing content, responding to any messages, participating in relevant groups/discussions, audience-building research etc, and these tasks may vary in terms of frequency by week/month
5. Copy the time allocated per network into a spreadsheet or chart which you can tick off as you go each day/week
6. Use the spreadsheet/chart from (5) to plan your core content/posts/Tweets around key themes such as promotions, products, services, seasonal offers, blogs etc. This can be supplemented by ad hoc material that you may stumble across to share with your audience
7. When logging onto a social network, ensure that you execute the key tasks in hand BEFORE becoming distracted with posts from friends, colleagues and other connections. This is similar to leaving your email until mid-morning to check. Stay focused and include any mobile device time in your time management!
8. Make use of a timer (egg timer, phone countdown clock etc) to alert you when your allocated time is up – you may be surprised how quickly it disappears
9. When your allocated time is up, log off each network promptly
10. Unless you are a marketing/social media professional, try not to leave your accounts logged in whilst you are working on other tasks; aside from the risk of account hacking, it’s a big distraction to your working day!
I hope these tips are useful to anyone struggling and welcome your feedback. However, if it all proves too much, you can always ask a professional to manage it all for you…
Note: this blog was first published as a guest blog on the 1230 The Women’s Company business networking website, see: http://1230.co.uk
