It’s no secret that a successful social media plan requires an investment in time and effort. When many small businesses think of trying social media, the first thing they wonder is how to find the time to do it. It can seem extremely time consuming when social media isn’t your forte. The same time management concerns arise for those who work in social media full time. Between managing accounts, creating content and navigating the latest updates and tools, it can be a lot to balance. Regardless of what you do for a living, time management is probably one of the most important skills anyone could have. And that’s why today we’re highlighting our top time management tips for social media.
Why Is Time Management Important?
Time management is one of those skills that can be used in all aspects of your life, not just at work. The biggest benefit to having good time management is the ability to create better work-life balance. This is something everyone is striving to achieve in life. You’ll also find yourself being more productive if you can better organize your schedule throughout the day. Instead of worrying about everything you have to do in such little time, you can spend that energy actually getting it done. All of this can help alleviate stress and help you to produce better results in the long term.
When it comes to social media time management is a need, not a nice to have. Because there are so many moving pieces at any given time, it’s important to have your barrings. You can also easily spend hours on end scrolling through content instead of actually producing it. So setting a schedule and following a timeline when is probably one of the best time management tips for social media you could get. Now, let’s take a look at some other time management tips that can help you work efficiently.
Time Management Tips for Social Media
1. Optimize Your Productivity
Everyone should have an understanding of their personal productivity. This means knowing when you’re most productive, and what motivates you. For example, there are some who are early risers and get their best work done in the mornings. Others find themselves peaking later towards the end of the day. By having that understanding and planning your most demanding tasks when you’re productivity is at it’s highest, you’ll be more successful.
When it comes to time management tips for social media, you should also be optimizing your content’s productivity. What we mean by this is ensuring you’re publishing your content, be it on Facebook or Instagram, when it can perform at it’s peak. Every social media platform has it’s peak hours – meaning times where users are most active. And within that you should have your own insights that give you a sense of when your audience is most active. You should be striving to share content during those time to maximize your potential for engagement.
2. Create a Strategy
Out of all the time management tips for social media that we can give, having a strategy is high up on the list. As a matter of fact it’s probably the top tip for social media in general. Your social media strategy should include everything from your audience research to determining the days you’ll post content. Taking the time to set a schedule and plan your content ahead helps takes a big chunk of work of your plate in the long run. It allows you to go into content creation and overall account management feeling prepared. This will also help you to avoid wasting time brainstorming content ides on the spot.
3. Determine Your Biggest Impacts
This is one of the time management tips for social media that many don’t think about. But determining your biggest impacts can help you to work smarter and not harder. Why waste time into a task or project that doesn’t deliver results? If you’re spending all this time on quality Facebook content, but your audience isn’t really on that platform what’s it all for? You should instead focus on the platforms and types of content that resonate with the people you’re trying to connect with.
4. Use Social Media Tools
The great thing about social media is that you don’t have to do everything on your own. These days there is an app for everything and when it comes to social media tools there’s no exception. Not only are there apps, but social media platforms themselves have an array of tools built in to maximize your experience. Facebook for example has their Business Suite that offers a variety of features including post scheduling. Here you can schedule posts in advanced for both Facebook and Instagram, provided your accounts are connected. When it comes to time management tips for social media, this couldn’t be a better time saver for you. This will also help you stay consistent with posting instead of forgetting to post on a specific day or time.
5. Avoid Multitasking
Multitasking is one of those skills that not everyone can do. And that’s probably for good reason. Many professionals would argue that multitasking is a great way to either get nothing done, or get everything done half way. You should be able to multitask when it comes to managing different projects or overseeing different areas. But when it comes to getting individual tasks done it’s best to focus on one thing at a time. This couldn’t be more true when it comes to social media. While you should be able to multitask things like different platforms in social media, avoid trying to do too many things at once. For example if you’re just starting out on social media, use only 1 or 2 platforms to start off. Once you’ve mastered that and have a good rhythm going then you look to expanding your horizons.
Another way to manage multitasking the right way is to schedule out the time you spend on social media into specific areas. So say you plan on dedicating 3 hours a day to social media. It’s important to break that down into how much time you’ll spend engaging, creating content and back end tasks like insights and planning. That way you can focus on each individual task at a time versus feeling overwhelmed with all that needs to be done within a short window of time.
