6 Ways to Simplify your Social Media
Churning out Social Media content week after week can be can be a difficult and draining task.
The pressure to post fresh and engaging content every day in order to 'keep up' with your competitors can be overwhelming to say the least.
To help ease the overwhelm (and your to-do list!) I've put together a list of 6 ways to simplify your Social Media.
By simplifying your social media process, the whole channel will become more manageable, and the more manageable it is, the more likely you are to stick to it and see consistent growth for your business.
1) Quality over Quantity
It might feel logical that in order to be seen more often by your target customer, you should have a presence on all available Social Media Platforms. The reality is that by doing this, you're stretching your limited resources extremely thin. Audiences use different social media platforms for different reasons which means for content to perform well, it should be tailored to each specific platform rather than just copied and pasted around them all. This is an extremely time consuming commitment, especially given the fact that your desired customer will favour one or two platforms over all of the other ones anyway. To simplify your approach to social media you need to identify the one or two platforms that your target customers engage with the most, and FORGET the rest! Not only will this save you time, it should also help to improve engagement within your chosen platform(s) as you have more time to nurture your followers with a better quality of content.
In summary:
Don't attempt to be on EVERY platform.
Focus on the 1 or 2 you know perform the best with your target audience and IGNORE the rest.
2) Don't post EVERY day
If stressing out about having to post on Social Media every day is stopping you from posting at all, STOP!
There is a huge pressure within social media that in order to succeed and grow your business you need to be on every platform and posting EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. While this technique will see more rapid growth than posting less frequently, it's simply not practical or achievable for a lot of small businesses and can lead to burnout.
It's far better to commit to an achievable frequency of posts that WORKS FOR YOU and ensure that the content your providing is:
Engaging
Of use to your customers
Adds value to your business
3) Plan, Plan, Plan!
Writing posts from scratch on a day to day basis is a seriously inefficient use of your time.
You'll probably find yourself struggling for content inspiration which will then have a knock on effect on the time you have to spend on other areas of your business each day. It will also mean that your content is likely to lack focus as it's unlikely to be part of a well thought out plan.
Instead, you should set aside at least 2 hours at the start of the month to create a consistent and coherent content plan for the month ahead.
By planning all in one go, you can ensure that all of your key themes are covered throughout the month and you have a good mix of posts.
4) Scheduling tools are your friend
Once you're happy with your content plan it's time to get scheduling. There are lots of different scheduling tools available but my favourite is Later. It's straight forward to use, you can post to a number of different social media platforms at the same time and it's completely free up to a certain number of posts per month.
Once you've successfully scheduled all of your posts for the coming week or month, you can sit back and relax / stress about other areas of your business instead!
5) Repurposed EVERYTHING!
Struggling for content ideas is a huge issue for many small businesses and can often be the difference between posting consistently and not posting at all.
I've previously written about finding quick content Ideas for Instagram but the chances are you probably have a wealth of inspiration and content under your nose, you just need to know where to look for it. If you're stuck for ideas why not try:
Combing your website for content and images you can transpose into posts.
Editing down blog posts into bitesize carousel posts.
Looking back over previous months and re-use tweaked content with fresh imagery for up to date posts.
6) Be kind to yourself...
Anyone managing social media for a small business will know that creating content week in week out can be tough. Especially when its not your only responsibility or pressure.
That's why it's so important to remember to be kind and give yourself a break.
Even if you only manage to plan and schedule 50% of your posts for the next few months, that still HALFS the number of times in the week or month that you're scratching around trying to find fresh inspirations...and that's not a bad start!
THANKS for reading my post! I hope I've given you a few new methods to help simplify your social media.
If you like the idea of being more organised and streamlining your social media but you don't have the time to create a plan. Or you feel like you'd benefit from some 1 on 1 time to learn how to get better at doing it yourself, get in touch.
Or if you've got your socials sorted but need help with other areas of your online business, take a look at my other Digital Marketing Services or follow me on Facebook and Instagram.