The question with social media at the moment seems to be - is it relevant? With the decline of organic reach comes a bigger pressure on brands and businesses to be heard, in an already overcrowded marketplace. This has led many to question whether social media marketing is even worth it for their business and some to removing themselves from the channels completely. As someone who manages the social strategy for various brands and products, one thing I've learnt is that the question is not should we be doing social media but instead, how should we be doing social media.
To reduce the amount of time and manpower needed to constantly filter feeds, post updates and react to conversations, there are a few simple tips and tools you can employ which can make the process easier and more cost-effective. With a fairly simple setup and a few hours per week to nail down the basics, this guide will allow you to create a strong social media presence where the return is worth the investment.
1. Schedule posts
Most companies will be doing this already, but if you aren't - start scheduling your posts. This will allow you to plan content in advance and is one of the quickest ways to ensure that you're updating your social accounts regularly. The best thing about scheduling posts, is that it leaves you with more free time available to do 'real-time' marketing and updates throughout the day. For example, if you have two or three posts scheduled throughout the day to share interesting, relevant content with your followers, the rest of your time can be spent creating more personal updates to tell followers what you're up to, or to react to news or events that have only just occurred that day.
I tend to schedule all of our posts at the beginning of the week, keeping an eye out for any special events or announcements that are happening that week that will need to be reacted to.
Two great tools that allow you to schedule social media updates in advance are Buffer and Hootsuite. Buffer comes out tops for me, as it allows you to predefine which times to send out your updates on a daily basis (which is a great way to improve engagement if you know what time your audience is most active) and the chrome extension also allows you to schedule tweets with a click, whenever you come across interesting content.
2. Re-share key content
The shelf-life of tweets and Facebook posts are only getting shorter - this means that when you send out an update, it's highly likely that many of your followers won't see it. This makes a great case for recycling and re-sharing your most valuable content. Bear this in mind when you are writing blog posts or any other form of content and check to see whether your content would still be relevant in a week, a month or even a year. The more 'evergreen' your content, the more you will be able to recycle it, to reach a larger audience. Be careful that you don't use this tip too often though, as many users will not be happy if all they see the same content day-in, day-out. However, when used wisely, this can be a great way to save time and remain active, without the constant pressure to create new content.
Buffer, again, is a great tool to help you do this, as it offers a 'Re-buffer' tool which allows you to send previous updates back into your Buffer schedule to be sent out again. This is a tool that many are unaware of, but is available to all accounts by selecting the 'Analytics' tab and hovering over an update to show the 'Re-buffer this post' option.
3. Set up alerts on Twitter mentions
One of the most time-consuming aspects of social media management is reacting and responding to mentions and finding the time to join in with conversations. This is particularly relevant on Twitter, where the endless stream of tweets moves at a rapid pace. To save time on this, employ the use of tools which allow you to condense your Twitter feed down into a manageable stream of just the tweets that matter. Twitter's list function allows you to do this easily , with the added bonus you can set private and public lists, depending on if you want to notify the user that they have been added or not.
Twilert is also a good tool which allows you to select the tweets that matter, by keyword, location or by user and then have them emailed to you in a hourly, daily or weekly digest. This allows you to find only the mentions that are relevant to your brand and respond directly to them through the email, rather than having to search for the results on Twitter. Twilert also has a realtime tool which allows you to receive results as they happen, for when you want to be notified immediately.
4. Turn off notifications
One of the most distracting social media management faux pas, is to allow your phone or email to notify you every time you receive a like, share or mention. Sometimes, it will be important for you know when you have been mentioned or responded to, particularly if it is a customer question or support request, but for the times when you need to concentrate on other tasks, push notifications can be a real productivity killer. Instead, set a plan for when you want to be notified, how often you want to be notified and by which channel.
If you are someone who works within their email more often than not, then setup some of the email alert tools we discussed above or edit your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn settings so that you are notified exclusively by email. If you prefer to check your social media accounts at a certain point throughout the day, then turn off notifications completely and instead set reminders or allocate a time in which to log in and check on the mentions you have received.
5. Collect and curate useful content
As well as sharing your own content, it's likely you will look for relevant articles, tweets and quotes to share with your audience from external sources. To make the selection process easier, it's best to predefine the type of content you are looking for and setup tools to help capture it. News aggregators such as Feedly are a great way to do this, as they create one central hub, where you can view and skim through all of the content most relevant to you and your business, saving time that could be better spent elsewhere. If you use Buffer to schedule your social updates you can also take advantage of their 'suggestions' feed which contains ready-made updates for you to share with your audience, based on what they think you may be interested in.
Twitter lists are another great way of collecting sources that could offer post inspiration or shareable content. Just ensure you always link back to the source and tag the author in them so that they can help to share your update too!
Which tips and tools do you use to save time on social media? Comment below and let us know!