So you’ve figured out which social media outlet or outlets are the best fit for your business and your target audience. As a small-business owner or sole proprietor, you probably haven’t figured out how to squeeze 25 hours into a 24-hour day! Here are a few ideas for finding the time to maintain your social media presence.
1) Take advantage of free scheduling.
You can schedule a week’s worth of daily Facebook posts all at the same time, for example, by using the scheduling option. (Note: This only works for a Facebook Business/Organization Page, not for your personal Facebook account. Not sure about the difference? Let’s talk.) Type up your post and instead of clicking on the blue “Publish” button as usual, use the pull-down arrow to the right of the “Publish” button and choose the schedule option.
Free software, such as Tweetdeck among many others, allows you to schedule and manage posts for your Twitter account. And then there’s Hootsuite, which handles posts for numerous social media sites all in one location. Bottom line: Spend a few minutes researching free scheduling programs online now – and you’ll save yourself hours in social-media management in the coming year.
2) Do not create new content for each social media site.
Take Infusion Studio as an example. Daily Twitter posts usually consist of a recommended article relating to small business and/or design. Once a week or so, we toss in an inspirational quote or link to one of my blog articles. Those same Tweets are used for the daily posts on our Facebook Business Page – with a few modifications (remove the Twitter hashtags, add a comment about the article that couldn’t be included within the 140-character limit for Twitter, etc.). It would be double the work to create completely different content for each format – double the work without seeing double the benefit.
3) Outsource!
Many, many small businesses and sole proprietors now turn to independent writers, local social media companies, or marketing firms to handle their social media posts. By setting a weekly/monthly budget and keeping an eye on the status reports your social media person generates, outsourcing can be an excellent way to boost your online presence.