Productivity Hack For Influencers: Social Media In 30 Minutes A Day
As a pet blogger or influencer, you need to give face time on social media. You need to be present. You need to tweet. You need to RT. You have to post comments on Facebook, reply to Facebook comments, share posts, find new people to like and comment to. Add LinkedIn to the mix. Now sprinkle in commenting on blogs, pinning to Pinterest, Snapchat and Google+. Calm down. Breathe.
Social Media in 30 Minutes A Day
If you’re a social media manager–and if you run your own blog, you ARE a social media manager–your tasks consist of:
- Curating content
- Writing content
- Posting content
- Scheduling content
- Measuring the success of your content
- Responding to comments
- Listening in on online conversations and getting involved
- Planning new content
- Experimenting on new social platforms or with new ways to share content
Make this task easier by grouping like tasks (just as you did when you began time blocking tasks).
- Group one: Curating, writing, posting and scheduling. This group grows your content bank.
- Group two: Responding and listening. This group grows your community.
- Group three: Measuring success (through analytics) and experimentation. This group measures your growth.
Determine how you want to use your daily 30 minutes:
Do you want to concentrate all of your time on writing content for your social pages? Do you want to spend it interacting with your followers? Perhaps you’d like to delve into the analytics so you can determine whether your efforts are reaping any rewards.
If you’re looking to reap the most benefit from the 30 minutes you have allotted for your social media management, I suggest doing a little bit in a lot of places. When I first started out and allotted myself 30 minutes, I would spend 10 on Facebook, 10 on LinkedIn, and 10 on Twitter. Remember, this is 30 minutes a DAY, so it will add up. If you don’t do all you’d hoped for in Monday’s 30 minutes, you can focus on leftover tasks during Tuesday’s 30.
Consider the Rule of Three for social media management:
- Post three status updates (one on each platform, three on one platform… your choice).
- Comment on three status updates on your pages from followers.
- Find three people to follow and comment on their updates.
Use one a tool to help with your social media management, such as:
Use the Facebook scheduler for your business page status updates. I caution against using a scheduler for all of your social media status updates because you want to have a live presence, but a scheduler can save your behind and free up some time.
When doing your time blocking, schedule in 30 minutes for your social media tasks. If you find yourself with a larger block of time in which you can focus on social media, use it wisely. Focus on the social media page you’ve neglected.
Know that if you work full time, if you have a family, if you live with a houseful of pets, if you are doing any of the dozens of tasks necessary to grow your business and make a living blogging, you have to give yourself breathing room and give yourself grace to let a few things go. I believe it’s better to do a spend a little bit of time on all of my social sites than to spend all of my time on one and neglect the others. It’s a delicate balancing act.
Do you struggle to do it all on your social pages? Do you feel you’re missing the boat on certain social platforms because you’re not there often enough? Do you truly need to be on ALL social platforms? During one of your thirty minute social time blocks, dive into your analytics and see if your efforts are bearing fruit, if one platform is and another is stagnant, perhaps you should focus your efforts on the social platform that is growing.
Robbi Hess is an award-winning author, full-time writer, newspaper columnist, writing coach and time-management guru. She works with bloggers and solopreneurs and blogs at All Words Matter.
