These days, it seems like nobody has time to waste. Time is money, and there’s not enough of either to go around.
If you’re a small business owner you know what we’re talking about. Marketing your business can be a full-time job and you already have one! So, if you need to streamline your small business marketing efforts, check out these time-saving tips for promoting your company on social media:
1. Establish goals
Lack of a plan is the number one time-waster for any marketing campaign. Why? Without a clear strategy your social media efforts will be largely hit-or-miss, wasting valuable time, money and human resources.
Before you do anything, figure out what you want your social media marketing campaign to do. This will dictate where the resources go.
2. Set a schedule
Promoting on social media involves timing and consistency. Recognize this in advance and you’ll stay on track and save time. Set a posting schedule for your updates and tweets. Be sure to post regularly and preferably at the same times each day or week. Automate some of your content with tools like Socialoomph or Hootsuite.
3. Brainstorm in advance
Inspiration for blog posts, tweets and other updates can come any time, anywhere. Organize your thoughts and jot them down in advance of creating and posting the content. This way, you’ll always have a repository of content ready to go when you need it.
Use time-saving tools such as Evernote or even a simple spreadsheet to help you to keep your ideas organized and at your disposal.
4. Link your social media accounts
Link together your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. When you do this, your post to one account will automatically post to the others. This is a great time-saver.
Remember, though, that posting unique content on each of your social media accounts is always a good idea, as each one is likely to have different types of people following you, and each of these groups has different and varied interests. Tailor your content to your audience! Targeted content always delivers the best results for the least effort.
5. Simplify the search for content
Have content come to you, rather than have to hunt it down. Set up Google Alerts for your topic and/or subscribe to RSS feeds for blogs and sites in your niche industry. This brings a wealth of ideas and current information right to you, so that you can sift through and decide what to use for your next post.
This also has the potential to make you a resource for others. Compile a list of other sites that you think your readers will find useful and distribute the list through your social media accounts. Content curation is a time-saving way to establish and boost authority without having to write new content—just make sure you cite the original source!
Try these time-saving tips for marketing with social media, and see how an efficient and effective social media campaign can make your small business stand out from the crowd.
