Social media sites can be valuable places to market your business, and most people maintain profiles on several sites. Regularly updating several profiles can sometimes seem like a chore, especially when you’re busy.
It needn’t be hard though, and if you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by it, here are 5 ways to simplify social media marketing.
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1. Ditch some accounts
As I mentioned in a previous post, it’s ok to get rid of some of your social media accounts. If there are any that you rarely seem to have the time (or inclination) to update, just delete your account and then you can stop feeling guilty about not updating it!
2. Use an RSS reader
Sharing links to other people’s blog posts is an ideal way to find enough content for regularly updating your profiles, and if there are some blogs that you read regularly and you often share their posts, then you should subscribe to their RSS feeds.
Using an RSS reader, such as Feedly, gathers all these feeds in one place and can save you time when you’re looking for links to share. Instead of trawling the internet for good posts, you can just log in to Feedly and a variety of posts will be there ready for you to read and share.
3. Schedule some updates
You can save time by scheduling updates in batches. You can schedule updates directly within Facebook, and use an app such as HootSuite* to do it for other sites, like Twitter and LinkedIn.
Try to set aside some time once a week for scheduling one or two updates for every day for each of your accounts. Grab some quality posts to share from your RSS reader and add in a couple to promote your services, products or your own blog posts.
As social media is meant to encourage interaction, it’s best if your updates aren’t entirely scheduled, so head over to each of your accounts once or twice each day to add in some ‘live’ updates. Scheduling updates like this not only saves you time, but if you sometimes get really busy or are away and can’t spend any time visiting social media sites at least there will be some updates on your accounts.
You might also like: How to schedule posts in Facebook
4. Set a time limit
Spending time on social media sites is a great way to procrastinate – doesn’t time fly when you’re reading your Twitter feed? To stop these sites eating into your productivity, you can limit the time you spend on them.
If you’re only allowing yourself 10 minutes on Facebook, you can focus on replying to comments and posting quality content rather than looking at pictures of your 2nd cousin’s new puppy (save the pet photos for when you’re not supposed to be working!) To make it easier for yourself you could set an alarm to tell you when your time is up.
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5. Get help
If all else fails then you can always subcontract your social media marketing. You can hire someone to manage your accounts permanently, or just get them to help out when you’re especially busy or on holiday.
I’ve hired someone to help out during a couple of busy time and can recommend it. To ensure they’re representing your brand consistently, give them guidelines on what type of content to post and how frequently to post it, and then just relax – stop worrying about your social media marketing and focus on getting through your to-do list!
Next time you feel like you can’t keep up, these 5 tips should help you to save time and simplify your social media marketing. Do you have any tips you’d like to share?
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