Between posting relevant and engaging content on a regular basis, learning about new tools, filming videos, promoting your services and products and staying up-to-date on trends, overwhelm is only a mouse click away…
In this post I’m going to share some tips and tools with you both to keep order and stay sane.
Decide how often and when you want to post
It used to be important that you posted at a time that your audience was online. Today, because of the algorithm, engagement and a strong start of each post is much more important, more so than ever before.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, with the algorithm Facebook and Instagram both decide what will be shown to each user in their feed.
Here’s how the algorithm works:
After you post something, Facebook and Instagram show your post to a small number of your followers.
If your post gets a reaction – for example people are reading it, liking it, commenting or sharing your post – it will be shown to more of your followers.
But if nobody reacts, your post is dead in the water…
That’s why quality is more important than quantity today. This might mean to spend more time on creating your posts instead of posting daily.
BUT – Your online audience also responds to rhythm and consistency, so choose a posting frequency and stick to it.
At a bare minimum, aim to post 3 times a week on Facebook and Instagram each.
In general, it’s preferable to post in the afternoon or evening, but don’t worry about it too much. Post when it works for you.
Set up a content calendar
Setting up a social media content calendar will allow you to organize your social media activities far in advance in order to make your social marketing more manageable.
Have you ever had an event sneak up on you? I’ve been there before, and in the mad rush to produce content for the event, I kinda wished I had written it down on a calendar. When you plan your content in advance, you can prep and organize around the key dates that could influence your content.
With a content calendar you also don’t have to spend valuable time each day searching the internet for that day’s content to share, which will kill your productivity. A Calendar helps you see what’s coming up so you can carve out time in your schedule to get ahead.
Start with the next three months. What events do you have planned? For example upcoming retreats or workshops? Private events? Are there any special holidays? For example right now, in October, start thinking about the holidays period and what you want to post then.
Prepare your content in batches
Reserve some time each week to prepare and schedule all your social media content in one batch. This means to prepare all your images, write your copy and research hash tags in advance.
I always schedule a few hours each Monday for this and found it the best way to work efficiently without letting social media updates impact too heavily on my day to day life.
Make sure to allow some flexibility and leave enough time for unforeseen events.
Schedule posts in advance
You can schedule all your Facebook posts for free directly in Facebook. Simply choose ‘Schedule‘ instead of ‘Publish’ and choose date and time.
Instagram doesn’t allow you to schedule posts yet in their app, but you can use apps that allow you to prepare all the images, accompanying descriptions and hashtags in advance.
I use the free version of Later to schedule my Instagram posts. Later allows you to schedule up to 30 posts per month with the free account.
You can upload images from your computer, add the copy and hashtags and schedule your post, and Later will automatically post it on Instagram for you.
Other tools you can use to schedule your content are for example:
Engage with your audience
Now that you have all your content creation out of the way, schedule 15 to 30 minutes a day to engage with your audience on your social networks.
Like posts, answer comments and questions and post comments and find new accounts you like and follow them…
Basically put the ‘Social‘ back in ‘Social Media‘.
After that try to leave social media alone for the rest of the day!
