Social media can get crazy! There’s always so much to do and the pressure to be everywhere can be overwhelming. Post daily on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Engage, respond, ask questions, pin and do stories too! How do you actually do all of this AND have a life?!
Social media marketing strategies can seem incredibly complicated. You’re probably already struggling for time, so how can you make time to understand and then implement these strategies? You can’t, and so you just keep going trying to do it all the best you can. However, there are ways to keep social media marketing simple and I’m going to share some of them here.
1. Know who you’re talking to
I know, I know….. you’re probably sick of hearing about your ideal customer and that fact that you need to know your niche (and probably narrow it!). But you know why everyone online talks about this? Because it IS so important. You need to fully understand who you want to serve and ‘women’ doesn’t cut it sugar! You need to be WAY more specific than that. You need to know their interests, pain points, problems, spending habits, who else they follow, where they hang out online. This point is key as it shows you where you should be focusing your efforts (HINT: it’s not everywhere!).
2. Focus primarily on where they like to hang out
Realistically you can’t be on all the platforms all the time, it’s just not possible. So go where your audience already is. Take your party to them, don’t try to make they come to you in the first instance. Go to the platform they like to use. Give them value there, before asking them to follow your somewhere else, like joining your email list or visiting your blog.
Now, this isn’t to say you don’t need a presence on other platforms, but be selective and make sure you are focusing on the ones that will give you the most return. You can have a low maintenance presence on the other platforms.
3. Create the perfect content for them
If you don’t know who you’re trying to target, you’ll be creating content and hoping some of it sticks. If you DO know, you can brainstorm ideas of content that you know will appeal to them. If it appeals to them then they will engage with it and your organic marketing efforts will be more effective. When looking at your ideal reader which questions are popular? What keeps being asked? The content you create should answer these questions and the paid products your create can be a deeper dive, more comprehensive or more hand-on training in these same areas.
4. Make the most of what you create
I think if we’re honest most of us are guilty of not really making the most of what we create. We just post it and then it’s dead to us! We need to be much more savvy and make the most of the content we invest our time in creating. If you have a system of content repurposing you can take one piece of content on one platform and use it to create multiple pieces of content on other platforms. Saving you time AND helping to spread your message more widely. Remember people don’t follow you everywhere and even if they do the various algorithms means that only about 6-10% of your audience actually see your social posts.
For example, perhaps you start the week with a Facebook live. You can then get this transcribed for a matter of pence via temi.com. You could edit the FB live and create a YT video and an IGTV video (with a different edit). Then you could use the key points from your live and use one as a question in your Facebook group. Then create 4-5 Instagram images with a key point on each (resize these to share on Twitter and Facebook), jump on IG or FB stories and outline a couple of the main points. Then even think of the next step or a couple of points you didn’t share and this could be a second live later in the week.
So you could create at least 18-20 pieces of content from one Facebook live. It might seem like a lot of work but when you have a system and templates it’s super quick and you aren’t creating anymore original content during that week you’re focused on this repurposing.
5. Schedule your shizzle!
When you’ve created all this awesome content from your original piece you need to schedule it to drip out over the next week to give you maximum benefit. You don’t want it hitting every platform at the same time, spreading it out will mean you reach the maximum number of people and will get you the most return on the time invested. When you’ve scheduled it for the week you could add it to your scheduler again a few weeks/months in the future to ensure traffic is always being referred back to this content.
6. Use tools to help you schedule with ease
If I had a pound for every time I heard someone say they want recommendations for free social media schedulers I would not have to work anymore! Now there are free schedulers out there, but you tend to get what you pay for and the free options will usually mean you are still investing a significant chunk of your time in the scheduling process. By paying, even a few pounds a month, you usually start seeing the amount of time you have to invest dropping.
“You either pay with your time or your money’
There are plugins that will automatically share from your WordPress blog to social platforms, but be wary as in my experience the platforms prefer you to post natively, unless you are using an approved partner. For example, Tailwind for Pinterest or Planoly for Instagram.
Which service you choose depends on your needs and budget, but here are a few popular options (the ones I use are in bold and are also affiliate links).
Twitter: Buffer, Social Oomph, Meet Edgar, Social Bee.
Facebook : I would never recommend a scheduler, just use the native scheduler.
Instagram: Planoly, Plann, Later, Tailwind.
Pinterest: Tailwind
Most of these tools have free options and paid for levels, just remember it might be worth investing a small amount to save you hours of tapping away.
7. Outsource
Remember the time or money thing? There will come a time in your business when you need to hire some help or outsource some tasks. When you have a plan and a system it will become much easier to outsource these tasks. It will also make it cheaper as you will know exactly what you need and someone can get straight on with the tasks.
8. Block out your social media time & be INTENTIONAL
You can very easily go down the social media rabbit hole and lose hours! I know I’ve been there. You need to be very intentional about the time you spend on social AND how you spend it. Block the time you intend to spend, perhaps two 20 minute sessions a day (one am and one pm) and be clear you are there to engage, respond, grow, but not mindless scrolling. Keep that for when you’re watching Netflix!
I hope these tips help you simplify your social media strategy meaning that you can get more return on the time your invest. Have you got any Social Media Marketing Strategies?
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