How to Make the Most of Your Time on Social Media: Seven Easy Ways

Social media is no longer an option for any sized business. And it’s not optional for people of any age range, either. Everyone and their grandma is on social media these days. So how do you create posts that are easy to share, quick to read, and how do you maximize your time? Read on!

Photo by JSmith Photo

Have a System and Measure

Having a system is probably the most important part of managing your time. My dad used to say “Do something, even if it’s wrong.” While that’s probably not the best approach, in a way he was right. You can tweak your system later. So decide where you’ll be on the internet (Facebook? Twitter? Pinterest?), and most important–pick the places that you love to be! For instance, I don’t enjoy Google Plus much, so I don’t spend much time there. But you, on the other hand, might love Google Plus!

As Katie Lance write in this article from the Huffington Post, “The right question should be, “What social networks should I focus on that will build my community and build my business?” Also, what platforms do you enjoy the most?”

Measure your efforts. These days, I prefer the analytics within social media platforms. You may prefer to use Google analytics. And most business accounts have built-in analytics, so you can see which posts are getting the most traction.

Curate the Best

Here are some ideas for curation. The important thing is to batch and use blocks of time when you’re curating, to get the best results.

• Twitter Lists. You can make them public or private. Set them up in columns in your scheduler.
• Saved Searches. Save these in Twitter, so next time you can go to your topic easily.
• Secret Pinterest Boards. Think of this as a vision board. You can use secret boards to share things with your clients or save pins that you want to check out later.

For more details, you might want to read:

• Content Curation: 5 Killer Reasons It’s Your New BFF

Photo by Gruenewiese86

Keep Tinkering

Once you have a system, improve on it. If you’ve measured your progress and success, and figured out what you really like to do, challenge yourself to make your system more streamlined. My friend Bridget Willard likes to gamify her time to see how fast she can respond to mentions. Could you do something similar?

Since we’re discussing time here, do you think you can do your social media in an hour a day? Would you believe you can create a wonderful blog post in an hour? You definitely can! Of course, it might take a little practice.

Repurpose, Recycle, Reuse

Once you’ve written something, find ways to use it again. And again. Don’t use it just once! My friend Randy Clark suggests 6 Ways to Reuse Old Blog Posts. I must admit, I’m considering the idea of creating some e-books. At the very least, reusing content on your other social channels helps you save time.

Mention Others and Engage

Mentioning others in your article or on your social media can be a good tactic. If your audience is engaged, that makes your job so much easier. You may need to post fewer times if you have an engaged audience.

Interviews

Interview influencers. Then go back to them and let them know that you’ve written about them or published an article or put up a video. Again, you can reuse your articles or videos over and over.

Photo by pedrosimoes7

Power Partners

Sharing from others with a similar audience to yours saves you time and effort. You can share people in the same field if they’re not in competition, too. For example, a plumber and a tile setter might have a similar target audience, and can refer work to each other. Who do you refer to?

Hire Someone

Why not hire someone who’s an expert to handle the social media for you? If you’re too busy to do your own, why not a done-for-you approach?