Raise your hand if you feel overwhelmed by social media and this constant need to post more, share more, be live more!
Yeah, I knew I’d be not alone with this 😝
Preparing and posting updates on social media can take up So. Much. Time. And okay, when Instagram for example is your main marketing channel, it might be reasonable to spend 1-2 hours each day on it. But what about us “normal” people who simply don’t want to spend that amount of time on social media? How much time should we spend? And how should we organize our updates?
Here are my favorite strategies and tools that I use to organize my social media updates, that help me stay sane and enjoy sharing content on social media:
#1 Plan ahead
At the end of every month I sit down and create a content calendar for the month ahead, covering my posts on Instagram, my Facebook page and my Facebook groups. I look at upcoming holidays, promotions I’m doing and everything else that is going on and write down what I want to post when. Here I only use headlines, not final captions.
Next I look at what images I’ll need to cover those topics. I’m browsing through my existing photos, decide if I can maybe edit them slightly differently and re-use them, look at stock images or, in the ideal world, schedule a photo shoot. The point it to have as much ready for the upcoming month as possible.
#2 Batching
Each Monday I sit down and create the social media posts for the upcoming week. I add stuff to my Pinterest queue in Tailwind, I write and schedule my Facebook posts and I create my Instagram captions.
Some people do this monthly, but I find this too overwhelming and weekly batching much more manageable for me. But still, the more you can prepare in your monthly planning session, the more time you in the weeks ahead.
#3 Scheduling
Here are the tools I can for scheduling and posting:
I get a lot of traffic from Pinterest each month and that wouldn’t be possible without Tailwind. Each week I add 2-3 pins to promote my newest blog post and schedule them in Tailwind. Tailwind isn’t free, but definitely worth it if you’re ready to up your Pinterest game.
I use the free Later plan to plan and schedule my Instagram posts on my Mac. When the post is ready to be published, I get a notification on my phone, open the Later app there and post it manually. This works perfectly and I prefer writing my captions and editing my pictures on my Macbook and not on my phone. Only when I want to post a gallery or stories I do this directly in the Instagram app on my phone.
Facebook for Facebook
I used SmarterQueue to post automatically on Facebook but cancelled my subscription because I heard from many people that Facebook prefers it if you use their native scheduler and not a third-party tool. So now I add my posts in Facebook directly and then schedule them with their schedule feature. It’s more work because Smarterqueue also reposted my posts, which I loved, but I’m curious to see if it’ll make a difference.
#4 Engaging with your followers
Every day I schedule around 10 to 20 minutes in the morning and again in the evening to look at my social media accounts and answer DMs and comments. I love engaging with my followers and this is what social media is all about for me. But I don’t want to get lost scrolling through my feed, so I try to be super aware of this time. I mean, I’m not perfect, and you’ll catch me going through my Instagram feed when I’m waiting for my dinner or bored, but I try to see that as my free time and not “work”.
