Companies that invest their time in social media marketing have to stay focused, socially aware, and very organized. A business owner or their employees likely spend their days engaging on a variety of channels and struggling to keep up with it all. There has to be a balance between curation, customer service, writing stellar content, working on advertising needs, and so forth. In other words, it gets challenging trying to juggle everything! Below are some tips to help with social media productivity.
Are you networking in the right places? To take advantage of social media, you need to explore all the sites. Consider which sites to interact on without spreading yourself too thin. Social Media Examiner elaborates on this topic more:
What social networks do your customers favor? Are they on Twitter and Facebook, but haven’t embraced Google+ yet?
Ryan Little writes, “One recent study on social media usage revealed that the average user has two social media accounts. While some users find pleasure in multiple networks, there are people who have found a single community they love and stick with it, even when the temptations of a new social network arise. And there are others who have used various networks and narrowed their usage down until only one platform remained.”
The situation gets a little more complex for businesses. It’s important to keep in mind that your customers may favor one network today and in six months discover that another meets their needs better.
Follow your customers and prospects so you can network in all the right places.
Another way to boost productivity is by using your time wisely because it can go by in the blink of an eye if you’re not careful. Top Rank Blog recommends setting up some boundaries and sticking to them to avoid interruption and not being as productive.
I have often thought that I was invincible and could simultaneously focus on every task at once. A balancing act acquired from years of having too much to do, and not enough time. I considered multi-tasking an art form and a higher form of organization than my counterparts who only focused on one thing at a time. I could not have been more wrong.
In recent years I’ve had to buckle down and force myself to devote all of my attention to one task at a time. I’ve found that the quality of my work has improved and the level of my stress has decreased significantly. Some tactics that have worked for me include:
Closing my email when I’m working on social media tasks
Exiting from all browser windows and tabs except for the one I need to work on
Disabling chat or closing chat windows to avoid distraction
Picking 15 minutes a day to indulge in activities such as checking personal social media profiles, responding to texts, or chatting with friends.
Spending 30 minutes to an hour each morning reviewing emails and responding, do the same thing before leaving at the end of the day.
It is significantly easier to stick to your schedule if you are working ONLY on the tasks you have scheduled in the time allotted.
To be a stellar social media manager or business owner who regularly uses social media to bring exposure to a company, it’s prudent never to stop learning. According to Social Sprout, that means staying up to date on a variety of trends from communication to copywriting niches. Make sure you have a great set of skills and if you feel you can improve on some think of ways you can do that.
Social media managers are expected to be an experts in many topics and to be aware of all the latest developments and trends in marketing. Every social media manager has to be:
Skilled in using multiple social media tools
Experienced in managing social media campaigns using paid ads
Cognizant of the algorithms used by each platform to present content to its users
Proficient in using web analytics tools and understanding social media metrics
It’s also helpful to continually improve your skills in areas such as:
Copywriting
Marketing
Project management
Design
Data analytics
Presentation
Communication
It is essential to also keep up to date with the latest developments in digital marketing. Follow social media marketing industry people on Twitter and develop relationships with people and companies that are driving change.
Whether you’re using social media to promote your products or a client’s products, Hootsuite recommends using each social media channel according to its strengths and outlines details about that below.
Using social for promotion isn’t as easy as simply tweeting about your brand every once in a while or using Facebook advertising. You need a strategy in place to optimize your results.
For starters, use the famous 80/20 rule (also know as the Pareto principle) of social curation: 80 percent of your social promotional and selling success (the event) comes from just 20 percent of the cause (your social curation). Therefore, your social content across all your channels should be no more than 20 percent promotional. The other 80 percent should be about your customers—engaging with them and sharing relevant content that they will find valuable.
Then, you have to use each social channel according to its strengths.
For instance, if you’re selling T-shirts or jewelry, your best bet is using Instagram or Pinterest due to their image-centric nature. If you’re an apparel, beauty or jewelry retailer in the U.S., you now have the ability to tag your images in Instagram, so detailed product information, as well as a link back to your site, appears alongside the image.
Similarly, on Pinterest, small businesses can sell their products directly on the site, thanks to Buyable Pins, allowing customers to make a purchase in only a few clicks.
Part of being productive is carefully following the trends, such as the constant changes that come up from Facebook, for example. Follow a variety of social media sites’ updates so that you won’t be in for any surprises. Imagine how annoying it would be if a big change happened on a site just when you’re getting the hang of using the site to your advantage. Social Media Examiner has tips on how to keep updated on the changes:
Got the hang of your Facebook Page? Enjoy it while you can, because based on Facebook’s history, the only thing that’s certain is that Facebook will change.
A Google search for the words “Facebook changes” brings up a great number of results with a range of topics such as changes to timeline, cover photo policy, implications for merchants, mobile layout and much more.
Rachel Sprung suggests 5 ways marketers can keep updated on Facebook changes:
Follow Facebook’s business changes for regular updates.
Follow the Facebook tag on TechCrunch.
Set a Google Alert for Facebook updates.
Follow new posts on AllFacebook.
Follow social media and tech experts.
No one wants to have their Page change features on them without having ample time to prepare. Keep up to date with Facebook developments to make sure you don’t miss out on the changes coming down the pike.
Of course, it’s essential to be productive so that everything gets done promptly, but that doesn’t mean time won’t get away from you from time to time. After all, Harvard Business Review brings up a great point when they point out that social media never really ends. You can do your best to set up boundaries, but realize that change is inevitable. It’s up to you whether you want to get with the times or get left behind.
Recognize that you’re never done. If you’re the kind of person who told your organization five years ago that they had to get on Twitter, or ten years ago that they had to change to a content-managed website, or twenty years ago that they needed to get an internal email system, you’re always going be the kind of person who is looking around the curve to the next tech opportunity. If you’re thinking that all you need now is to get them on mobile, or get them using analytics, or get them using Salesforce, and then you’ll have them all set…well, it’s a safe bet that there will be a next thing. The curse — and the joy — of being a stranded evangelist is that you’re destined to live in the gap between what your organization is today, and what it could be tomorrow.
Accept that this gap can be a deeply uncomfortable, exasperating and even painful place to live, and you will be freed to do what you do best: inspire your organization with contagious excitement about technology’s potential to transform your communications, your customer relationships and your core value proposition. Like William does at Vancity.
Sources: Social Sprout, Hootsuite, Social Media Examiner, Top Rank Blog, Harvard Business Review
CHALLENGE Yourself to Profit!
Free Download: Build Your Profit-Generating Online Business With This Free Blueprint
Sign Up, follow the easy steps and You'll get the tactics, strategies & techniques needed to create your online profit stream. It's free!
