David Tubbs
Marketing & Communications Lead
Greater KW Chamber of Commerce
Social media use has been growing steadily higher for businesses and professionals in all industries and business sectors. From Facebook to Twitter, and even Pinterest, more businesses have taken up the mantle of low cost marketing that social media offers. Many make the jump to social media because it is a cost effective way to market, however, one of the biggest things they don’t think about is the time commitment it can take. Proper time management is of vital importance or you might risk jeopardizing the proper Return on Investment (ROI) that social media can offer you.
1. Don’t Try To Do Everything
When starting out, or even re-evaluating, your social media use you should never try and operate too many social networks at once. One of the biggest issues businesses and professionals face is that they feel they need to do everything. It’s much better to master one social network and build a sustainable audience there than try and operate Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest all at once when social media management isn’t even your full time job.
The worst crime in social media is to start a network feed for your business, promote it, then proceed to post for a week or so and then disappear turning your social media channels into a ghost town. It looks very bad on your brand reliability. Stick to what you have time for. Start with one and go from there.
2. Create a Set Schedule
Beyond limiting yourself to the select social networks you can handle you need to create a set schedule for the time you can spend updating posts, brainstorming content, and building connections. Without it you can literally see hours disappear from your day. I’ve seen people lose entire hours reading Twitter and responding back at forth. The act of responding is great, but to spend an enormous amount of time doing that day in and day is not productive.
Set aside a half hour in the morning, a half hour in the middle of the day, and a half hour towards the end of your day. By creating a schedule inside your own weekly calendar you will start to slot it in accordingly around your regular work schedule. This will help you keep your channels from becoming ghost towns and allow you to not spend extraneous amounts of time on Twitter, Pinterest, or LinkedIn.
3. Stick to Your Schedule…at Least at First
Now you need to stick to your schedule. Develop a feel for the time you need to spend developing content and building relationships. As you continue getting use to your schedule look at expanding your time by 30 minutes a day after a week if you see an increase in engagement stick to that time for a while and steadily move up as you feel your time can allow it. But always continue to set aside the time in your calendar so you can receive notifications on when to begin and when to wind down your social media time.
Without checks on your own actions time can quickly slip away and your daily productivity may suffer. Don’t let that happen. Stick to the networks you have time for and stick to your schedule. Then, all will be well!
