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’m not alone with this.
Preparing and posting updates on social media can take up So. Much. Time.
So, what do we “normal” people do, who simply don’t want to spend hours each day on social media?
In this episode of the Blissful Biz podcast I’m going to share my favorite strategies and tools with you that I use to organize my social media updates, that help me stay sane and enjoy sharing on social media.
Here are my 6 quick & easy ways to simplify your social media tasks.
#1 Don’t try to be everywhere
There will always be new social media platforms and features popping up. But just because they’re there doesn’t mean you have to be using them.
You don’t need to be on every single platform. Don’t feel like you have to do what everyone else is doing.
I recommend that you start with ONE social media platform, and only when you feel you have managed this one, get more active on another one.
Because if you post inconsistently and mediocre content everywhere, you’re actually not going to grow your followers anywhere.
#2 Don’t feel like you have to post 3 times a day
I can’t think of any yoga teachers I know who have enough time to come up with quality content for 21 posts a week.
And if you’re not coming up with quality, it’s just going to be fluff. People are sick of seeing fluff in their social media feeds, so they’re not going to interact with it, which tells the social media algorithms your content is fluff. And your content reaches fewer people in the future.
It’s really all about quality. You need quality content, not quantity.
If you can only post 3 x a week, but those 3 posts are bursting with value and are well-written, then commit to that.
This is what I’m doing and I’m happy with my results, though my followers are probably not growing as fast as they would otherwise, but I’m totally fine with that.
#3 Repurpose and reuse content
What also simplifies things a lot is to repurpose and reuse content.
When I’m creating a new blog post or a podcast episode, I try to repurpose this content into social media posts, so this lessens the pressure to come up with new content.
People aren’t going to see your content in every single place that you post it, so you don’t need to feel like it’s overkill.
You can also use something again that you posted already in the past.
Like if you had a post on Instagram a year ago that got a lot of engagement, change it a bit and post it again.
You might be thinking, “Won’t this annoy people?”
The answer is probably not. Rarely anyone looks at your old posts or will remember them.
#4 Plan ahead and batch your content creation
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.
Then 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.
#5 Schedule your posts ahead
You want to schedule your social media posts in advance and not post every day on the fly.
Thankfully there are great tools available to make this super easy.
These are the tools I use 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, plus content from other people. Tailwind also has a great feature called SmartLoop which will repost my older pins to selected boards, so it has a higher chance of showing up again.
*This is an affiliate link, which means I might earn a small commission if you sign up through the link, without any extra costs for you.
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.
And for Facebook I use Facebook
I used to use SmarterQueue to post 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. It’s more work, but I’m curious to see if it’ll make a difference in my reach.
#6 Use templates for connecting and answering questions
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.
If you get a lot of inquiries or questions about the same topic, for example about an upcoming retreat, save your replies in your notes app or Evernote so you can simply copy and paste them. Just make sure to edit them and address people directly. You never want to sound like a bot or impersonal.
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.
And there you have it! 6 tips howe to simplify your social media tasks. I hope these tips help you find your bliss in using Social Media again. My goal is to help you better manage and streamline your social media tasks in order to get the most for the time and effort you put in.
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