Posting on social media platforms regularly can seem like an easy task to do initially. As we know, running your own business means that things can pop up at the last minute. This can mean that making sure your channels stay active can be more difficult to uphold when other things take priority. It’s important to stay active on social media as it helps to retain your audience and ensure that they are kept up to date on any news you have.
Because things can pop up it helps to be ahead of the game so that you don’t have to worry about your social media audience missing out on new content. In this blog, we are going to go through some tips to help keep your social media channels running in the most efficient way. Enjoy!
Have an achievable plan
The first thing that is important when keeping your social media platforms running is having an achievable plan in place. Having a plan of how many posts you are going to post a week, on what platforms will ensure that content is being posted regularly. Create a plan that you are able to fulfil in the time you have to work on it. As a business owner you probably already have your books full, so keep this in mind when planning how often you want to post. Start with once a week on a few channels, this way you will only have to invest about an hour a week.
It will help even more to have posts created at least a week in advance, if not more. When you post just when you have time to, your social channels will be irregular and are likely to be forgotten about. We strongly suggest having a few backup posts that you can quickly get out just in case your time is taken up by other things. The most important thing is coming up with a plan that is achievable to ensure it is possible for you to upkeep. If you want to learn more about setting achievable social media goals, read our blog on this exact subject here: https://manukamarketing.co.uk/articles/setting-achievable-social-media-goals/
Use scheduling software
Once you have come up with a plan it is time to start implementing it. Spending an hour or so a week planning your social media for the month can save you hours of time. Once it’s done you can then move on to other things. Having all of your socials planned and scheduled also means that you can account for any days off sick or holidays.
There are social media scheduling tools that are extremely useful when planning social media posts. These platforms allow you to schedule your social media posts to go out at certain times/days. They will then set those posts live for you without you having to click a button. This helps to streamline your social content posting and saves you from having to upload each post manually. There are many different platforms out there that can help with this task. We have put a few of our favourites together HERE
Plan ahead as much as possible
We are in danger of sounding like a broken record here but plan, plan, plan as much as you can. Keeping your social media platforms running means that they need constant updating. This takes some time, which you may not have a lot of. Planning your posts in advance means that you don’t have to set ahead time every week to schedule your social posts. Your chosen scheduling tool will just keep updating your social channels with ease. We recommend that you plan a month in advance, this way you don’t have to worry about your social channels for a while, you have enough time to plan more future posts and you can account for any days off.
Sometimes you may have to plan your social posts even further in the future. Say you have a holiday or work trip coming up, leaving your social channels with no content could lead to some of your audience unfollowing. Planning ahead and making sure that your channels are still active ensure that you are retaining the audience that you worked hard to build from the beginning.
So there are our tips on how to keep your social media platforms running. We’re not going to lie, it can be a tedious task sometimes but it is well worth it. Social media audiences are hard to gain and it would be a shame for them to be lost just for not having time to update them. With these tips, you should be able to keep all your social channels running and get rid of the anxiety of not having time to spend on creating social content. We hope this helps!