Are you able to stay productive on social media? It’s something many business owners struggle with and they often have a love hate relationship with social media marketing. It’s an essential part of your marketing strategy, but also one that can cause the biggest stress. Because no matter how you look at it, you need to be online if you have a business and if you want to use social media marketing to your advantage, you also need to be consistent and visible on the different social media platforms.
Social media can help you gain traction with visibility and brand recognition, and also help you gain followers and sales. But if you want to reap those benefits, you have to be organised and productive. Do that and you’ll find social media is a lot less stressful and a friendlier place to be in.
So if you’re looking to stay productive on social media, here are some tips that will help.
Tip #1: Use the right platforms for your business
Stop trying to be everywhere at once, no matter how appealing it may be. Know what are your top performing platforms and stick with them – ideally, 1-2 platforms that you give your sole attention to. Increase your time on those platforms and create content specifically for them. You can then repost existing content from there to other platforms you also want to use.
Social media results don’t happen overnight, they take time and consistency. Give yourself at least 3 months on a platform before you make any changes. Check out your stats and see what is working for you. Increase time on those platforms and repost to any others. Pick 1-2 platforms as your main ones and repost to the others if you have time.
Tip #2: Have a clear plan of action
It’s not enough to know what platforms you’re using – you also need a simple strategy in place. That includes setting goals and objectives, so you’re not wasting time and effort. Know what you’re committing to, what you want to achieve, who you’re engaging with and attracting, and the actions you want them to take.
Plan your actions based on our bigger business goals. How many people will you be interacting with each day? What will you be posting and when? What type of content will you need to share and create? And don’t forget you want a mixture of curated and creation content on your account too.
Tip #3: Always be learning and growing
This is especially relevant to the platforms you choose. They will all have algorithm changes, additions and new tools coming out, so stay abreast of this type of change. Understand your analytics to understand what is and isn’t working well, as well as which posts are getting the most engagement.
But also be prepared to get things wrong. If an ad campaign or certain post doesn’t work, see if you can learn why – then adapt and move on. Don’t be a perfectionist or you’ll never end up posting anything!
Tip #4: Batch create your content
This is a great way to force you to be more productive. Not only are you learning how to plan, you’re also going to save time and minimise stress. So create a content schedule, so you are planning campaigns ahead of time and the content you need for each platform you’re using.
Tip #5: Use a social media scheduler
If you’re batching content in advance, it also pays to schedule it early. This is where a social media scheduler comes in handy. Not only can you organise your batched content, but you can also have a visual plan of what you’re posting and when. This makes it super easy to move things around and plan launches, etc.
Tip #6: Be efficient with your time
It’s easy to get sucked into the rabbit hole that is social media and lose track of time. Be consciously efficient with your time. Set a timer and stay focused on what you need to do. Get in, do what’s needed and then get out.
A project management tool can help here. You can use it to collect ideas, save posts you like for inspiration and set up processes that support you. And if all else fails, use an app like StayFocusd to limit your time for you!
Tip #7: Outsource your social media
Finally, if you can’t stay productive on social media, outsource it to someone else. There are so many aspects of it that a Virtual Assistant can handle on your behalf – from content creation and scheduling, through to researching and engagement.
A Virtual Assistant can also help you improve your productivity by summarising your analytics reports and monitoring your brand across the different platforms, as well as creating brand-wide templates and banners.
If you’d like a little help with our social media, why not get in touch with us? We’re a team of action-taking VAs that offer superior business support to ambitious business owners. We can cover everything to help improve your productivity – from social media through to setting up your business systems and processes – so reach out and let’s chat potential solutions for you!
