An out-of-date social media profile can raise all sorts of speculation in a visitor’s mind. Are they out of business? Will they reply to my direct message? Do they take their business seriously? This often results in one of the worst decisions in marketing: the decision to do nothing at all.
Much like yourself, most business owners don’t have hours in a week to stay on top of their social media goals. It goes something like this: you commit to posting great content on social media every single day. You’re on a roll for a few weeks. Next thing you know, more pressing tasks get in the way – and you’re forced to leave social media on the back burner. You eventually desert it, which takes a toll on your lead generation efforts. You promise to start again next month. “I’ll take it seriously this time”, you say. History repeats itself.
This is enough to turn social media into a daunting prospect, and that’s why some business owners pay a full-time social media manager. That’s valid. But what if you’re just starting out, or can’t afford one for some reason?
The good news is, not everything is lost. No one has to be a social media expert to create a consistent strategy that benefits both their prospects and their business.
As your company grows, you can start thinking about hiring a social media manager. But for now, here are a few tips that will save you hours of work every day.
Use a Content Scheduler
Content schedulers, like RecurPost, HootSuite and Buffer can be lifesavers, especially if you’re a procrastinator. They’ll spare you from whipping up unthoughtful content at the last minute, and they’ll make sure every single piece gets posted at the right time. Not a second later.
Now, if the question is when to schedule your posts, this will depend on several factors. When is your audience most active? What’s their demographic? Built-in tools like Instagram insights will help you determine that.
As for the scheduler of your choice, they’re pretty straightforward to use. Just set up your posts’ publishing date and time, and don’t worry about it anymore.
Create Your Content in Batches
You have two choices: to brainstorm, plan, create, and publish a piece of content once every single day…or doing the same thing for various pieces of content, only once a month.
Some people choose to do both. But if you ask us what the easiest option is, creating content in batches wins by a landslide. When you set aside a monthly session to produce, schedule, and publish content, you’ll free up so much time during your workdays. After all, even the best content creator in the world doesn’t have the time (or creativity) to come up with ideas every day.
Are you going to batch-create your content once a week? Once a month? It’s your call, as long as you sit down and do it.
To help with this idea generation process, listen to your customers and use those questions to produce useful content. The problems they ask you about, are not unique to them, there are others suffering the same way!
Repurpose Your Content
Who says you have to create original content every single time? You don’t. Sometimes, repurposing or “recycling” your content is the way to go.
If you create content for multiple channels, say, for Instagram and a WordPress website, you’ve got gold in your hands. As an example, displaying a valuable passage of your blog post designed as a quote is an easy strategy you can use. Or, you could repurpose passages of your blog posts into bite-sized captions.
Of course, make sure you drop fresh, original content every now and again.
Share External Content
Yes, that’s completely fine. You can find so much valuable information about your field on YouTube, news sites, and even viral TikTok memes. You just have to keep an eye out for anything that may be of interest to your audience.
If you find news worth sharing, cite the source and let your audience know why that matters for them. If you find an entertaining video, use it as a much-needed break from your professional content. Be sure to cite your sources every time you repost something.
We’re not talking about reposting competitors, by the way. You could, however, draw some inspiration from their social media feed and give it your own twist.
Make Questions a Source of Content
People love having their questions answered. Some of them have many pressing questions, but are scared to put them out there. In this case, you can use one simple tool for a double benefit: creating content while answering questions.
Instagram’s question stickers are a great way to do this. Not only do they allow you to better interact with your audience, but they can increase your perceived authority by displaying your expertise. All you have to do is post a question sticker, encourage questions, and let them come in. If any questions stick out to you, screenshot it, and elaborate on your social media feed.
Your audience will thank you.
How’s Your Social Media Strategy Looking?
If you’ve been wondering how competing social media pages stay consistent every single day, that’s the secret sauce. Nobody is creative all the time, and not one business owner has several hours to spare. What they do have is a smart social media strategy in place.
If you can afford a social media manager, go for it. If you can’t, the tips above will keep your strategy solid until you decide to take the next step.
