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Want to know how to make time for social media marketing? Maybe you’ve already got social media profiles for your business and you haven’t posted in weeks or months. Or maybe you haven’t even opened social media profiles for your business yet because you just can’t envision having the time for social media marketing. Either way I’m here to help. Keep on reading to find out how to make time for social media marketing.
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HOW TO MAKE TIME FOR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Treat social media marketing as a non-negotiable
I can give you all the tips in the world to make time for social media marketing, but it will be pointless if you haven’t decided that social media marketing is a non-negotiable for your business. In most cases where business owners aren’t posting on social media, I can tell that they think it is optional. Most business owners are aware that social media marketing offers great opportunities for their business, but the question is “Do you think it is really worth your precious time?” If the answer is no that is fine. Decide to outsource your social marketing or decide it isn’t right for your business right now. There is nothing wrong with that.
However, if you’ve decided it is worth your precious time from this moment forward you need to treat social media marketing as a non-negotiable. You need to see it as an essential part of your business and treat it accordingly.
Set time aside in your diary
Now that we’ve established that social media marketing is non-negotiable it is time to set aside the time you need for social media marketing. Now at this moment in time, you might not know how much time you need (and the amount of time you need will change over time). However, a good way to start would be to set aside a small amount of time on a daily basis. It could be anything from 10-30 minutes. The reason why I recommend setting aside daily time in your diary is because social media should be social. That means in an ideal world you should be logging in daily to reply to comments and messages, as well as engage with other content. Obviously, engagement is only one part of social media marketing. The other side is creating and posting content. For that you might decide to create content and post straight away, or you might decide to batch content in advance. For content that needs to be created in real-time (for example live video) markdown when you’ll go live in your calendar. Make an appointment in the same way you would for another type of meeting.
Batch create your content
I’m assuming that if you are reading this blog post that time is tight so I would definitely recommend that you batch as much content as possible in advance. I go into more details about how to save time by batching your marketing content here.
The short version is that when you batch content in advance it allows you to focus your mind on the same type of activity for an extended period of time, which is better for productivity. It also becomes even better for productivity if the activity requires you to set up (such as recording videos).
So how can you start batching your content? A great place to start is by batching your content in weekly batches. For example, if you decide that you are going to post on LinkedIn 3 times per week and Instagram 5 times per week you’d sit down and create the 8 posts for the weeks. Now that might mean taking photographs, creating graphics in Canva, writing captions, recording videos, something else or all of these things. The idea is everything you can do in advance you do.
Schedule your content
If you take my advice and decide to batch your content in advance then you can also schedule your content in advance. This is where you create the post and then set it to go live at a time in the future. Depending the platform you use you might be able to schedule your content natively (for example, Facebook allows you to schedule Facebook and Instagram posts on their own platform) or you might need to use a third-party social media scheduler such as Later, Hootsuite or MeetEdgar.
I highly recommend scheduling content because it stops you from having to remember to post in the future and also reduces context switching. It makes more sense to schedule the post at the same time as creating it rather than having to stop doing something else in the future and find your image/video/caption etc. In addition, scheduling your content allows you to post content at an optimised time, which might not be the most convenient time for you to post.
Have a strategy for your content
When it comes to creating social media content it can be a very time-consuming activity. However, a way to drastically reduce the time you spend creating content is by having a strategy.
Social media marketing will likely just be one of the ways you are marketing your business. It should be supporting the other marketing channels you are using and it should play a specific role (or number of roles) in the customer journey. For example, you might have decided that you’ll be using social media marketing to increase your brand awareness and focus on creating posts that are sharable and will help new people become aware of you. Another example is you decide you’ll be using it as a way to drive people to sign up to your mailing list and so you’ll be creating posts about your lead magnets and then encouraging people to sign up. The likelihood is your social media marketing will have multiple purposes.
When you have a content strategy, you’ll know why you are creating social media content and that will drastically reduce the time you spend thinking about what to create. In most cases content creation isn’t the time-consuming activity it is decided what you should be creating in the first place that is time-consuming.
Don’t have a content strategy? Don’t worry I can help you!
I create personalised content marketing strategies to ensure that business owners have a strategy that is manageable by one person and supports the ultimate business goals.
If you are reading this blog post, then I’m assuming that you are short of time and that’s why you need a content strategy that gives you the biggest return-on-investment for your time.
I’m a Chartered Marketer and have over a decade of experience in marketing, as well as being an award-winning blogger and have hands-on experience across most social media platforms. That’s why you can rest assured in having a content strategy that is aligned with your ultimate business goals, but will manageable for one person.
To get a personalised content marketing strategy created in one day book a strategy day here
Follow a weekly or monthly plan
A content strategy will help you to know the why behind your social media content, but it won’t tell you what to post. Social media platforms are constantly changing and providing more options for content creation. For example, originally Instagram just allowed you to post images. Now there is Instagram Stories, IG Live, IGTV and Reels. With so many options it can be overwhelming and you can get caught in the “spending too much time thinking about what you should be doing” rather than the “creating code” more. This is where having a weekly or monthly plan can be very helpful.
Your plan should include the social media platforms you are using, the frequency of your posting and the format/features you’ll be using.
Don’t have a content marketing plan yet? I share how to create your very own content marketing plan here.
Review how you are spending time across your whole business
If you’ve done all of the above and still don’t have enough time for social media marketing then you need to look at how your spending time across the whole of your business. It might be that you are spending longer than you need doing something else and you could reallocate that time. Or you might have to admit that you genuinely don’t have any more time to give to your business and that means if you want to do your own social media marketing you’ll need to outsource another area of your business.
There you have it! You now know how to make time for social media marketing.
Hopefully you can see how you can make time for social media marketing. As I mentioned earlier social media marketing offers great opportunities for business, but only if you are able to invest the time in it.
In the comments, I would love to how much time you’d like to spend on social media marketing per week.
WANT HELP WITH YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING?
Having a strategy and plan is key for making the most of limited time you can commit to social media marketing.
My Strategy Days allow business owners to get a new social media strategy and plan in place in just one day.
I’m a Chartered Marketer and have over a decade of experience in marketing. I specialise in creating bespoke marketing strategies that maximise sales and support business growth, and can be managed by just one person (business owner or a VA).
Don’t spend months making your social media marketing up as you go along. Get in touch today and you could have a new social media marketing strategy in the next few weeks.
You can find out more and book a Strategy Day by clicking here.
Don’t think a Strategy Day is right for you and want to work together in a different way? Drop me a message here to discuss other options.
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