We all want to be productive in our businesses, and social media is no exception.
Here are a few essential social media productivity tips that will help your team become more efficient without sacrificing on quality:
Do less, well
In life, and especially in social media, it’s easy to keep plugging away and imagine that, just because you’re producing a certain volume of content, noise, or engagement, you’re doing your job. This is the road to productivity ruin! Far better to focus on doing one or two things really well.
In social media terms, this means, for example, one great blog post instead of five passable ones, three smart tweets instead of ten me-too RT, or one fabulous Facebook post instead of three that make your fans go ‘meh’. Focus and thrive.
Allocate specific times for social media
Social media channels can be so distracting. You open up Twitter and before you know it 30 minutes is gone. I allocate specific times for social media activity and stick to it.
I use a separate browser and when I’m finished with the time I have allocated I shut down the browser.
Use the right tools
One of the key issues with social media is getting stuck in a time-suck mode where you flit about from post to post because something interesting appears on your feed.
If you use the right productivity tools, that is minimized because you can focus on the things you need to concentrate on and not get distracted (well, not quite so much anyway).
If you don’t have a good strategy in place the tools won’t help you. But with the right tools you can become more effective and efficient.
For example, when I release a blog post, I use an AI writing assistant to turn it into effective social media updates for cross-channel promotion. This type of automation makes perfect sense. There are also a few great WordPress plugins that automate social media posting (or make it easier and faster).
There’s nothing bad about using social media scheduling tools if you schedule them to deliver your messages during ‘waking hours’ (so that you can respond to questions). Without automation, you cannot be everywhere which is required for building your brand recognizability.
I schedule a selection of curated articles, questions, and updates each morning to be delivered through the day, but then ensure I’m around at the scheduled time to discuss them with my followers (during my allotted time blocks). After all, it’s called ‘social media’ for a reason – the idea is to be social, not use it as a push channel for your new, and then ignore it!
Analyze your results
If you’re not analyzing results on social media you can easily waste your time. For example, we are building up an email subscriber base so we measure the email conversion rate across each of the social channels.
We then focus on the channels that are achieving the higher conversion.
Have a routine
Arbitrary use of social is my downfall. Because I work in a role where social media is important it’s ‘okay’ for me to have my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc etc etc open all the time.
However, I like to distract myself so I have a tendency to jump onto one of those accounts when I should be doing something else. The cure for this is to have a routine – for example, I do my tweet scheduling for the week on Monday mornings, and try (try is the operative word here!), to just check in at specific times during the day.
I’m ready to admit that this is a work in progress for me, but it is helping, and I still allow myself some random social time when I’m doing nothing else (like waiting for a train).
Keep your eyes on the prize
Why are you on social media for your business? What do you want it to do for you? You need to know the answers to these questions and you need to keep those answers in mind. Most of us business users are not here to share pictures of lol cats, however much we love them.
We’re here to build and engage with an audience, to talk to them and support them, and to encourage them to like us and our products/services. If your social activities aren’t helping that to happen, then you’re wasting your time.
Print your schedule every week
Staying productive is hard to do when working on the Internet where there are so many distractions, but I have found that having a weekly printable planner works wonders for my productivity.
There’s no time to think about what I have to do next which means there is no time for me to get lost on an awesome website I shouldn’t be on. I can only say a day was productive if everything was crossed off and I love crossing things off my list!
- Set alarms on your phone, iPad, or computer. For example, I set an alarm for 7:30, 8:30, 9:30, etc… to check all of my client’s Twitter accounts on MarketMeSuite as well as all real-time keyword searches. If I don’t do this I get sidetracked and caught up on other tasks even though I know that Twitter is an important platform for all of my client campaigns.
- Take breaks for different things. Only check your email at certain times and only check your personal social media accounts at certain times throughout the day. Also, take real breaks. I get up and walk my dogs to clear my mind when I start getting that ADD feeling. By the time we are done, I am refreshed and ready to get back to crushing social media for clients.
- Have a social media to-do list. I personally have tried the iPad, phone, and web-based apps and have found that actual paper and pen work the absolute best. Type up a weekly to do for all clients and cross them out as you knock out the tasks. This keeps me productive probably more than anything else!
Single-task
When managing anything tactical – whether it is social media, email, marketing or sales – single-task it. I’m here to tell you that multitasking just doesn’t work.
Focus on doing one thing at a time to really save yourself hours a day. When you multi-task, you end up going off on tangents and spending hours getting something done that really would have only taken minutes.
Combine single-tasking with time-blocking
Book the time needed to manage your social media in your diary just as you would an appointment or meeting.
I book four 10-minute slots per day to check and respond to my social media accounts, just as I also have regular time blocks set aside for email management, major tasks, calls, meetings, and another key ‘to-dos’.
Treating my social media messages as if they were an Inbox
Social media dashboards need to give you the ability to “archive” or “hide” social media messages that you don’t need to take, or have already taken action on, in order to remain productive and focus on the important engagement.
That’s why I use MarketMeSuite.
Monitoring all of my social media from one Inbox
Studies show that it is more efficient to monitor all of your social media from one dashboard rather than jumping around.
Even if I might end up posting directly on a site, the ability to get a “flag” when I should go to another site for posting helps me remain efficient. That’s why I use the social media inbox and look forward to its expansion into other social networks.
Tips for staying productive on social:
- Consolidate into one, easy-to-manage “launch control” system
- Schedule dedicated time to do your social media “rounds” and have a clear routine for what those rounds entail, vs. staying constantly plugged in.
- Check your stats and insights, have an understanding of what reaps the most rewards, and focus most of your social media time on doing those things.
