Finding Time for Social Media
Social media can be overwhelming. First, there is the learning curve but then you have to keep up with all the posts, tweets, and contacts you make. This week’s blog, Finding Time to be Social is by Giselle Aguiar, Social Media Wiz. She has great tips on ways to stay focused, save time and handle all your social media in bite size snippets of time.
Finding Time to be Social
The new marketing paradigm shift has a lot of business owners baffled. They know they have to blog and they know they have to do social media, but they just can’t imagine where they are going to find the time!
And that’s just it. It take time to write blog posts. It takes time to build a following. It takes time to network.
But you have to do it. Consider it Sweat Equity.
First you have to get into the mindset that you’re NOT wasting time. It is productive time that you are using to market and promote your business; establishing yourself as an expert in your field.
Then you have to start with a couple of plans: a Strategic Plan and a Tactical Plan.
With the Strategic Plan you outline:
⁃What your goals and objectives are
⁃Who is your target market(s) – age, gender, what are their interests and pain points, etc.
⁃How you are going to use each network: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest and YouTube to reach and build relationships with your target(s).
⁃What you’re going to blog about? What is your content marketing strategy?
The Tactical Plan outlines:
⁃How much time you are going to spend on each network to reach your goals
⁃How often you are going to blog (should be at least 1x a week – 2-3 times for best results)
It takes time to build a following
Figure if you’re starting from scratch, you want to build a decent social media following in 30 days. You need to spend at least 90 minutes a day on social media. Now that doesn’t mean you need to carve out a block of 90 minutes once a day. You can break it up.
⁃15 in the morning – see what’s new in your industry and share some content
⁃15 minutes at lunchtime – see what’s trending on Twitter & Google+ to see if you can ride on its coattails
⁃15 minutes in the mid-afternoon – check what’s new on LinkedIn
⁃15 minutes while you’re waiting for something you can check Facebook or Pinterest
⁃30 minutes in the evening to monitor any retweets, mentions, and thanking new followers
There! You spent 90 minutes! Now that wasn’t that hard. The less time you spend a day, the longer it will take you to build a following and see results. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Here are the tools you need:
⁃Mobile apps for each network.
⁃TweetDeck to help monitor Twitter and schedule tweets for the future.
⁃HootSuite to monitor 3 networks for free – Facebook business page, Google+ business page and your LinkedIn company page. Schedule posts for the future.
⁃Feedly.com to help you keep up with industry news and bloggers and find content to share.
Magic Numbers – This are your goals in building a following:
⁃LinkedIn: at least 50 connections, join at least 5 groups
⁃Facebook: 30 likes so you can get insights
⁃Twitter: 100 followers, then use SocialBro to analyze your followers
⁃Google+: 100 “active” followers (you share, +1, & comment on each other’s posts) – Google rewards you with an increase of 14 spaces in the Google search results page.
The more often you blog, the more traffic you will drive to your website and you’ll come up on the first page of Google search.
If you need help, contact Giselle for a free 30-minute phone consultation an analysis. She’ll take a look and see what you’ve already got set up and give you tips on what you can fix and how you can make it all work.
Free ebook: What is Inbound Marketing? http://giselleaguiar.com/training/down-free-e-book-what-is-inbound-marketing/
About the Author:
Giselle Aguiar is a social media, inbound and content marketing strategist & trainer helping business owners learn how to leverage the power of social media marketing, increase traffic to their websites, generate leads, increase brand awareness and establish themselves as experts in their fields.
Giselle has worked in Internet Marketing in one form or another since 1995. Before that, she worked in traditional marketing, promotions, hospitality, event planning, retail and broadcast media. She’s the Official Blog, Newsletter and Social Media Manager for Greater Phoenix SCORE. Contact her at [email protected]. Web giselle@azsosite: http://azsocialmediawiz.com
Margo Crawford is a Productivity Coach and Professional Organizer with Wave Productivity. She works with entrepreneurs, small business owners and business professionals to help them get more focused, organized and productive in their workplace. She coaches nationally by phone and in person in Phoenix, Providence and Boston. If you want to get more organized in your office call 602-677-8275 or email [email protected].