How to do a lot on social with a little time
Social media is addicting. It’s designed to be that way. If you haven’t seen The Social Dilemma on Netflix, I highly recommend it. In the documentary, the people who helped build the platforms share this very fact. They discuss how they designed these apps to tap into our deepest psychological need to feel connected to others and our fear of missing out.
The same can be true when you’re working on your social media strategy. We’re all busy people with a lot to do each day. When you do dedicate time to your social media, the last thing you want to do is look up after an hour spent scrolling for content ideas and no progress made.
Here are my tips to make the most of your time when working on your social media marketing:
Block time on your calendar
If you’re struggling to even find the time to get on social media, schedule time on your calendar. I advise people to budget about 10 minutes per day per platform. Then get specific with what that time is for and set a clear goal for yourself — “In this time I will accomplish X.”
It can be helpful to block chunks of time for specific actions. For example, Monday’s 30 minutes could be simply to scroll and look for content ideas. Then Tuesday could be to engage, follow new accounts, respond back to any messages or comments. On Wednesday you could create content and then spend Thursday writing the captions and scheduling them.
2. Recycle and repurpose your content
I truly can’t say this enough times. Creating content is hard. Don’t let all that hard work go to waste. It’s ok to repost your content. Not everyone who follows you is going to see every post you share. Over time we also get new followers which is new eyeballs on our content.
You should freshen up the post a bit when you’re repurposing old content. Maybe there’s something timely that you can tie into some new copy or swap in a new photo or video.
When planning your content you should also think of ways to repurpose it. At Carolina, I oversee a group of students who help create content for our social media platforms. One project they worked on is a great example of repurposing content.
For Teacher Appreciation Day, a group filmed students sharing a teacher who has impacted their Carolina experience. They did this on their IPhones. No fancy set up required. Then they edited the video into a 30 second Reel for Instagram. They also pulled out photos and quotes from the video and organized them into a blog post. Finally, they repurposed those same photos and quotes into an Instagram story with a swipe up to the full blog post. From that one video session, they created three pieces of content and easily could have made more.
3. Use a scheduling tool
Third party apps and tools are very helpful to schedule your content. Oftentimes, life gets busy and we realize we haven’t posted on social media in awhile. Having a management tool can help solve this problem.
I use Hootsuite at work, but I know this is a pricier option. A few others I’ve heard good things about are Later, Buffer, Sprout Social and AgoraPulse. Here is a list of additional tools. Some have free versions and others are paid plans, but I’d encourage you do so some research and see if there’s a tool that might meet your needs.
4. Consume content
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes that if you’ve taken any of my classes or trainings you’ve definitely heard me say.
“To be a good creator you have to be a good consumer”
I was watching a webinar the other day and the person said we should be spending 20% of our time on social media actually creating the content and 80% of time scrolling, absorbing and engaging. However, most people make the mistake of doing the reverse. I think this is great advice. Set time aside to simply scroll. Go down some rabbit holes. You never know where you might find inspiration for your next social post.