Stop Wasting Time on Social Media

Did our sassy headline get your attention? Good. This article is all about tips to make your social media management less time consuming and more effective.

Know Your Platforms

If you’re just beginning your social media journey or ramping up efforts, don’t make the mistake of spreading yourself too thin. Not all social media sites work well for all businesses. Focus your efforts on platforms that work best to get your message out to the correct audience. Look at your existing sales process and go from there. If lead generation on Facebook doesn’t make sense – don’t do it. There’s nothing wrong with having a consistent identity across platforms, but your time and marketing dollars are precious so put them where the biggest impact will be made.

Taking on too much social responsibility also leaves the door open for accounts to go stale or dormant when the person in charge of them gets busy. Have you ever been to a business Facebook page and the last post was 9 months ago? It’s not a good look.

Expedite Content Scheduling

Are you posting to and running your social accounts separately? Please, we beg of you, check out the following products: Buffer, Hootsuite, Sprout Social. Platforms like these are super easy for SMBs to install and launch all-in-one social management. If you’ve got Hubspot or similar CRM, look into using the built-in management tools they offer.

Not only do these platforms let you manage all your accounts from one app (with a ton of cool features), they also offer a boatload of insights and analytic tools to help you better understand your audience, how they feel about your brand, and what messages resonate with them the most. They are intuitive, easy to navigate and built for social managers. Note: These platforms automate tasks but still require the human touch necessary for generating authentic content.

Post Original Content

Posting third party content as part of your overall schedule can be great. Your audience benefits from it, it allows you to align yourself with other organizations, and it’s an easy way to make sure you stay active posting between original pieces of content. However, if you’re not making a true effort to link customers back to your original materials (IE, your website, blog, etc.) to either learn about you, buy from you, or join your cause – you may just be wasting time.

When you do post original content, be sure to follow best practices for doing so. Use hashtags, include a call to action button (if applicable), pay attention to the best days and times to post material, and listen to your audience when they comment and interact with your content!

Schedule Social with Global Marketing Efforts

This probably seems like a given for most marketing managers but it’s not uncommon for the social manager to be siloed from some key sales and marketing activities. For example, Ben Boss is going to a big conference with the potential for major brand engagement on social. Sam Social is unaware of these activities and therefore unable to leverage the event for brand exposure and free press. Communicate with your people. Include social as a key player in your overall marketing plan.

Ask for Help

When it comes to social management and marketing – it’s more than OK to ask for help. Posting an article and pressing the boosted post button might work for some but for larger organizations with more robust marketing integrations, it’s simply not enough. New Park Creative works in a few capacities to help organizations use social media to grow. There’s a lot of companies out there selling social media management plans. The truth is, you should only entrust the management of your identity on social to a team that knows your business inside and out, and even then, you must be an active participant in the process. For brands that use social as a means for customer service, it’s even more important to charge in-house personnel with the task of management. We evaluate what is best for the success of your organization and suggest a strategy based on that.

We’re here to help. New Park Creative offers services from consulting to full social management services.

Social Media Management