An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Managing Time on Social Media
Anybody who has scrolled through the news feed of their favorite social media network knows how easy it is to lose track of time. The next thing you know, what you planned to spend 5 minutes doing turns into 20. I personally had to cut back on Pinterest when I first joined, because I would get lost in all the inspiring and creative projects and recipes and waste hours of precious time browsing.
When you’re trying to grow a business or ministry and serve more people, there are so many demands on your attention both inside and outside of the business. Every minute needs to be used wisely and purposefully. So, how do you make sure you’re not wasting time when you hop on social to connect with followers and grow your community?
How to Manage Your Time on Social
1. Plan a Content Strategy
Take some time quarterly or semi-annually to look at the weeks and months ahead to plan out themes, blog post ideas, and notable events. Hootsuite offers a great template here. Also, determine what topics and types of content you plan to share with your community. This will help to prevent you from scrambling at the last minute and will help you provide value consistently.
2. Batch Tasks
Repetitively doing a specific task will allow you to get more done in less time. Set aside blocks of time throughout each month to:
- search images to use in posts
- create graphics with text
- film or design tutorial videos
- curate beneficial and interesting content to share
- write blog posts
- build relationships and follow targeted accounts
3. Batch Schedule
Use the Facebook scheduler or other scheduling tool to set times for posts to publish throughout the week. This should be a combination of curated and original content. Evergreen content can be shared routinely in the future, as well. This should free you up to spend more time engaging with followers and influencers on social media and to focus on other responsibilities.
4. Set a Timer
When replying, commenting, and scanning content on social, be sure to set a timer. If you only have 10-15 minutes to designate to this per day, use the timer app on your phone or even use a kitchen timer to keep you on track!
5. Stay focused
Social media is full of noise and distractions. Sometimes you turn off your phone or computer only to feel drained and disappointed with the loss of 45 minutes of your life to social media. It’s easier said than done, but try to be intentional about what you are trying to accomplish with social by setting goals to complete specific tasks.
It will take a little time to get adjusted to new scheduling habits, but a little planning will help with taming the social media beast.
How do you manage your time on social? Share your tips in the comments!
For more free resources and tips on working smarter (not harder) when it comes to social media, check out my Streamline your Social Quick-start Guide!
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Comparison of Free Plans for Scheduling Social Media Posts
If you’re looking to step-up your social media presence to promote your message more consistently, you’ll likely need to schedule posts in advance unless you plan to be on social media 24/7. And who has time for that?! If you’re hesitant to add automation to your social media strategy because it seems impersonal, read 5 Ways to Humanize Social Media Automation.
Some social media platforms have native scheduling capabilities, like Facebook and more recently Twitter (via Twitter Dashboard iOS app). There are other social sharing tools that can assist with publishing posts at a later time. This allows for batch scheduling and can save time during the day or week, depending on how far out you will be planning your posts.
If you’re exploring your options or focusing on growing just one or two platforms right now, I recommend starting off with a free plan. Below is a comparison of free plans from scheduling tools that I’m familiar with.
Note: some less familiar third-party apps are not in compliance with the guidelines of certain platforms and could result in the suspension of your account, so be careful about what you use. The ones on this list follow guidelines to use for posting. Also, at the time of this writing there aren’t any approved tools that I’m aware of that allow direct scheduling to Instagram. Instead these tools allow you to set up your posts and then alert you when it’s time to publish directly to the network.
Free Social Scheduling Plans
Buffer
Free Scheduling Available for These Social Networks: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and Instagram
Number of Social Accounts: One account per network
Number of Scheduled Posts: 10 posts per profile
Analytics: No report, but will show top tweets and posts
Link Shortening: Yes
Pros: Browser extension for adding articles easily to content queue, available on desktop and mobile app, Pablo image creator, and video and GIF uploader, ability to “re-buffer” previously shared content.
Hootsuite
Free Scheduling Available for These Social Networks: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, and Instagram
Number of Social Accounts: 3 social profiles
Number of Scheduled Posts: Unlimited
Analytics: Basic report that shows follower growth
Link Shortening: Yes
Pros: Ability to interact and monitor mentions, people, and topics from the Hootsuite dashboard, Hootlet add-on for Chrome to share articles, available on desktop and mobile app
Post Planner
Free Scheduling Available for These Social Networks: Facebook and Twitter
Number of Social Accounts: 1 profile
Number of Scheduled Posts: 5 per day and 25 total
Analytics: None
Link Shortening: No
Pros: Gives status ideas and shows viral photos and top articles to help boost engagement on posts
Later
Free Scheduling Available for These Social Networks: Instagram
Number of Social Accounts: 1 User, 2 social profiles
Number of Scheduled Posts: 30 photo posts per month
Analytics: No
Link Shortening: N/A
Pros: Schedule posts on desktop or mobile app, view overall layout of scheduled grams with rest of Instagram feed, search and re-post
Summary
Buffer and Hootsuite are great as overall social media management tools for multiple channels. I personally think that Buffer’s format is more user-friendly and find the browser extension to be extremely useful. I also love the “re-buffer” option. However, Hootsuite’s ability to monitor keywords, hashtags, and other conversations is very valuable.
Post Planner is a handy supplement to a more robust scheduling tool to find out what articles and photos are getting great engagement, so you can share the relevant ones to your niche and message. Even though you can plan Instagram posts in Hootsuite and Buffer, I love how you can preview your feed in the Later app.
What’s your favorite scheduling tool? Which features do you find to be the most valuable?
For more tips on how to Streamline Your Social. Get my FREE Quick-Start Guide here!
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