You’ve built a comprehensive and solid strategy. You’ve studied your audience. You’ve come up with some engaging campaigns, rolled them out, and measured the results. And you’ve done all this consistently and are now reaping the rewards of your social media prowess.
Sound like a dream? For a lot of business owners, it is. Rolling out a social media strategy sounds great on paper. You make all these plans and start off with all sorts of motivation, and by week two, you’ve all but given up. Don’t worry. This is completely normal.
Why?
Because when we are trying to get down to the business of running our business, our marketing and social media efforts tend to take a back seat. This is counterintuitive to us, because we know that the primary way we can drive new business leads is to be out there, telling our story.
So how do you make it work? How do you find the time to run your business AND do the daily maintenance of a social presence? Here are a few things you can try.
Review Your Plan
If you’ve got a strategy in place, now is the time to take it out and review it. What are your short, medium and long term goals? The answer to that question will help you to remember why you’re doing this in the first place. Review the strategies you’ve come up with and think about ways you can start to implement them on a regular basis.
Get the Right Tools
Are you listening on social media? If not, get yourself set up with Hootsuite (there are free and paid versions). This will help you to link all your social accounts in one easy to navigate place and you’ll save time and energy by setting up custom searches on industry keywords and phrases.
Also, if you don’t already have a content editorial calendar, make one now. You can download tonnes of templates online, or you can make one yourself. The calendar will help you to stay on track with your upcoming postings and let you know where you have holes to fill with content.
Schedule it in
Do you get to mid-week and realize that you haven’t posted anything on social media? It happens to the best of us. Pick a time as early in your week as possible (I like Monday mornings) and schedule in an hour of social media time. You can skim your feeds for interesting things to share, engage with your audience, write a blog post or two, and plan out your calendar. If you have Hootsuite set up you can schedule your posts for the week. (Remember, scheduling is not a substitute for engagement – you still need to know what’s happening in your feeds!)
Finish the Week Strong
At the end of the week, set aside a half hour or so to review your social media activity for the week. Take note of any interesting metrics (likes, shares, comments) and relate that back to any new qualified leads generated or sales made. Keeping on top of your metrics will help you to realize the return on your investment.
These are just a few things you can try if you want to keep your social media activity thriving. Still don’t have time for all of this? Well, Jester is here for you! We can help set up and maintain your social media presence and monitor the results. Want to know more? Get in touch.