Do you struggle to find enough time in your day to manage social media?
Does the thought of juggling your social media tasks make you break out in a cold sweat?
Let’s face it, business professionals are busier than ever. Between email, phone calls, projects and team meetings, adding social media to the mix is a recipe for overwhelm.
As Jan Jasper, author of “Take Back Your Time” points out,
“You can see it all around us,” “People talk too fast. We’re always in a rush. We start things and don’t finish them and are constantly nagged by the idea that we’ve forgotten to do something, but we’re not sure what it is.”
With so much coming at you, it’s easy to see why managing social media can feel like a burden, instead of a joy.
If you’re ready to take back your day and do away with time wasting tasks, then read the simple tips below.
Each one will help you adjust your tactics and better manage time on social media.
Social Media Time Management Tips
1. Get Strategic
Have you ever hopped on the Internet, perused Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus only to find you’d wasted an hour? It’s easy to do, especially if a hit or miss strategy is your sole plan.
To succeed in today’s hectic online world, you need a social media strategy that offers focus each time you get online. Not only does a strategy allow you to act on purpose, it forces you to steer clear of time-wasting activities.
Not that there’s anything wrong with saying hello to your friends or family, but there is a time and a place for that.
Want to save yourself countless wasted hours on social media?
Answer a few questions:
- How does social media work in harmony with your offline efforts?
- What does social media success within your business look like?
- Which social channels support your business growth?
- Where are your customers hanging out?
- What are they talking about and how can you become a valuable resource?
Be thoughtful when answering. You need to understand why you’re using social media and how it fits into your marketing plan. A report by ITSMA confirms the importance of fitting social media into your big picture.
Marketers can’t afford to let social media channels become silos within their organizations. Research shows that social media is not as effective when used in isolation. B2B marketers have the most success when using social media to support and enhance more traditional relationship-based marketing tactics.
You need to get integrated. Determine how social media works in tandem with all of your other marketing efforts. Once you’re clear about it’s purpose, your next step is to put your plan in place.
Keep in mind, this should not be an overwhelming process. It’s as simple as opening a Word or Excel file and breaking down what content you will share and what actions you will take to grow your reach, engagement and bottom line.
For example, the spreadsheet below explains the:
- What – what action are you taking?
- Where – where is this action taking place?
- When – when are you performing the action?
- How – what tool are you using to track, measure and engage?
2. Track Your Activities
Have you ever wondered where you’re actually spending your time each day and how much time each task takes?
For some reason, tracking daily activities in the offline world is a best practice to managing your day. From phone calls to email, having a firm grasp on where you’re spending your time just makes sense.
But that practice never fully transitioned into the online world. When trying to wrangle your time, you must track how long it takes to manage your social media to-do’s.
Tools like E.ggtimer and Rescue Time will help you stop wondering where your time has gone. I use E.ggTimer to limit my time on certain tasks. It’s simple to use and allows you to set your time like an old school egg timer.
For example, only have 30 minutes to spend writing your tweets for the week? Schedule your egg timer, start writing and call it quits as soon as it goes off. I find this helps me stay focused and distraction free.
Rescue times is also an invaluable tool in its ability to eliminate interruptions. This includes the option to block certain websites while working on specific tasks.
If you want to stop wasting time falling down a Facebook rabbit hole and instead accomplish important tasks, this tool is for you!
3. Be A Password Master
Do you find yourself scouring sticky note after sticky note for elusive passwords? Have you searched only to find that the sticky no longer exists?
I feel your pain. Managing the passwords to your social networks (and each site you visit on a daily basis) can feel like an arduous task.
That’s where Roboform swoops in and saves the day. It’s been my go-to secure password management system for almost a decade. Not familiar with it?
How Roboform Works
Visit a website, login and Roboform will securely save your login information. The best part? The next time you visit that website, you’re automatically logged in.
Plus, you can access your Roboform logins from any computer with Roboform Everywhere. I don’t know about you, but for me, this saves too much time, energy and brain cells to even count.
4. Use Automation in Moderation
Automation can be a huge time saver. It can automate repetitive or mundane tasks, increasing efficiency. And if you’re using social media to market your business, time is money.
However, automation should never replace the conversation. You never want to push so much out through automation that you take the “social” out of social media.
What you can do with automation is schedule upcoming content to maintain a consistent posting schedule. Tools like the Hootsuite Autoscheduler can help you view your scheduled messages for the day, week, or month, to make sure you fill the gaps between posts.
Whatever the tool you decide on, let it assist you in building relationships and creating meaningful conversation. It should help, not hurt your daily efforts.
From apps to widgets, automation tools can expand your presence while allowing you to stay engaged and involved in your growing community.
A few of my favorite automation options:
5. Set Boundaries
Nothing can suck up your day like social media when it’s not managed. In order to do away with time sucking activities, you must set boundaries.
Determine how often you’ll check each social network and then track your time using free tools like FocusBooster.
FocusBooster is an app based on the Pomodoro Technique, a time management system designed to instantly improve productivity.
How it works with social media:
- Choose the social networks you will visit.
- Determine what your goals are for each network and have content ready to share.
- Set the timer for 25 minutes.
- Focus on your task (s) for 25 minutes and then shut your social networks down.
- Give yourself a 5-minute break.
- Move on to your next money-making activity.
Final Thoughts
As you work to refine your social media workflow, realize that Rome was not built in a day. Managing your social media activity is fluid and determining where your time is best spent will change.
Get laser focused on what matters most today. Laser-like focus on the task at hand is a deadly weapon that will help you accomplish more social media tasks in less time.
If you want to get off the treadmill and truly take control of your day, you need to pay attention to how and where you’re spending your time.
Neil Ferree says
March 15, 2015 at 1:57 pmYou’re right Rebekah, its VERY easy to fall prey to spending an inordinate amount of time on social media sites. Awhile back you mentioned Rescue Time so I’ve added the Chrome extension and still curious why it tags my time on Google+ as “unproductive”?
Jimit says
February 11, 2015 at 2:44 amVery nice post rebekah.
There are few more area where we can use automation tools. I personally do sharing using automation tool socialpilot.co and use Zapier for cross sharing between social media profiles.
There are many other spot where we can use automation like content curation, feed automation, Finding evergreen content and reshare.
Great post as always 🙂
Rebekah Radice says
March 15, 2015 at 12:24 pmI’m a big fan of Zapier as well Jimit. There are a lot of great automation tools out there that free up our time to really get in and engage.
Brad Marcus says
November 17, 2014 at 9:47 amTerrific points. So many people have no definite strategy and just post “whenever”. Having a plan and using productivity tools is critical for successful social media engagement.
Rebekah Radice says
February 10, 2015 at 4:51 pmFor sure Brad. It’s always better to be prepared, rather than implement a hit or miss strategy.
Tina Duplayee says
November 6, 2014 at 12:52 amThank you for such an informative post. I’m fairly new to social media (Google+ and Twitter)and have been struggling with time management over the last year with my business. I will being utilizing a majority of these apps.to calm the A.D.D., time management is the worst for me because I have a tendency to hyper focus on certain areas. Having A.D.D. does have it’s benefits though esp with social media. I’m extremely creative and can create some very engaging posts, pictures etc…..downfall I don’t know when to stop =( Staying positive and looking forward to trying some of them. Thanks Rebekah
Rebekah Radice says
March 15, 2015 at 12:26 pmThere has to be a plus to ADD, right? Especially since so many of us suffer from it when it comes to social media. 🙂
I’m glad to hear these were helpful! Any little bit that can help with focus and productivity I’m all for!
Andrzej says
October 22, 2014 at 9:30 amGreat tips which for sure I will implement some of them…thanks for such an info
Rebekah Radice says
October 22, 2014 at 10:03 pmGlad they’re helpful Andrzej!
Suzie says
October 22, 2014 at 5:51 amHi Rebekah,
Fabulous and informative post as always. Managing social media definitely takes time, focus and planning otherwise you get sucked into the abyss. As you said, use a timer!!!
There are so many incredible time-saving tools to help with curation, posting and metrics that people have the opportunity to find what works best for them BUT they must put them into play.
I must run – the timer dings and client projects require attention.
Enjoy your day and thank YOU.
Rebekah Radice says
October 23, 2014 at 9:02 amGreat word Suzie…the “abyss” is absolutely what it can feel like. Timers are our friend when it comes to staying effective and focused on social!
Neil Ferree says
October 21, 2014 at 5:43 pmYou keep coming up with useful & practical SMM tips Rebekah. What I like most about this post, is these productivity ideas aren’t just for SMM experts but small business owners who are already strapped for time and resources can implement your ideas and processes today, not 6 months from now!
I’ve been on the lookout for am SaaS timer that will keep a cumulative running total of time spent on my SMM task(s) for myself and my SMB clients. I’m doing it manually now and its getting a little unwieldy 😉
Dustin Stout says
October 21, 2014 at 4:41 pmAnother excellent post Rebekah! I\’ve been looking for a better Pomodoro timer– Focus Booster is gorgeous! Thanks for that! 😀
Rebekah Radice says
October 23, 2014 at 9:34 amIf you’re a fan of the Pomodoro method, you’ll love Focus Booster Dustin. It forces me to take breaks, which is a really good thing and something I can catch myself not doing which of course leads to big burn out.
Sharon says
October 21, 2014 at 3:42 pmThanks Becca, Helpful tips ineed cheers
Rebekah Radice says
October 23, 2014 at 9:35 amHappy to hear it Sharon!
BritatSproutSocial says
October 21, 2014 at 11:19 amThank you both for the kind words about Sprout! Always appreciated.
Rebekah Radice says
October 23, 2014 at 9:36 amMy pleasure Brit! You know what a fan I am. Always happy to sing the praises of Sprout Social!
elizabeth maness says
October 21, 2014 at 7:15 amThese are some great tips Rebekah! I get sucked down the rabbit hole daily!!! I am going to try this and see if I can get more done! LOL
Rebekah Radice says
October 23, 2014 at 9:38 amLOL Elizabeth…it’s a challenge we all face. Sometimes its fun to go down that rabbit hole, but most of the time, it’s just a waste of our day.
Alois Belaska says
October 21, 2014 at 3:49 amHi, Rebekash, beautiful and useful post!Btw. thanks for mentioning Friends+Me 🙂
Vatsala Shukla says
October 20, 2014 at 10:37 pmHappy Tuesday, Rebekah. Thank you for the timely reminder that our presence on social media needs to be focused rather than throwing one shoe in one corner and the other in the next. Of all the social media platforms, I find Facebook the most engrossing and it is so easy to forget about time. That’s where having a timer, even if it is on the computer comes in handy.
I use 2 of the automation tools you mentioned but still prefer to be spontaneous in my social media activity. That’s when I get the most engagement.
Dennis Seymour says
October 20, 2014 at 8:52 pmHi Rebekah!
Coschedule has helped me a lot lately. That plus buffer, they make the messages much much much easier.
I use Lastpass instead of roboform. It does wonders! 😀
Thanks for the recommendations! I’ll be trying out postplanner soon!
Rebekah Radice says
October 20, 2014 at 10:10 pmI tried to use Coschedule and struggled with it Dennis. I’m glad to hear you’re having success with it! My hubby uses Lastpass as well and swears by it. They’re both so similar, it’s all about finding what works best for you! 🙂
Andrew says
October 20, 2014 at 8:20 pmHi Rebekah,
Thanks for this awesome post. I find myself going through the same type of things you mentioned and alot of the things here you mentioned, could be a good solution.
I really like the action plan spreadsheet and it’s something I could really see myself implementing. When you’re doing the things the spreadsheet is set out to accomplish, you won’t be wasting precious time any more.
I love the focus booster tool. It’s something I definitely need. I’m a person that goes on social media and can really get lost looking up posts that people have posted so I can determine whether to click on it and check it out/comment on it. I need to give myself a specific set of time to do that rather than no time at all.
Thanks for this.
– Andrew
Rebekah Radice says
October 20, 2014 at 10:12 pmI know you’re not alone Andrew. We can all lose time in social media if we allow it to happen. I love FocusBooster because of the thought behind it. Work hard and then take a break. It’s good for the mind, body and spirit!
Denny McCorkle says
October 20, 2014 at 12:28 pmRebekah,
Thanks again for your valuable insight.
The password suggestion is good, though what about on the smartphone. Is there an app that works well for that?
This is another of your posts that will become required reading in my Digital Marketing and Social Media Marketing courses.
Denny
Rebekah Radice says
October 20, 2014 at 10:16 pmHi Denny! That’s the beautiful thing about Roboform…it works across all devices. There’s an app, so whether you’re on your desktop, laptop or mobile device, all of your information syncs.
Magdiel Leyva says
October 20, 2014 at 12:22 pmHi Rebeka,
I was reading your post, very helpful tools. Thx, Must people do not know about this tools and my question is why?
Regards
Rebekah Radice says
October 20, 2014 at 10:18 pmUnfortunately not Magdiel. I’d say that the number one reason is a lack of time. It’s just too much to keep up with!
Harleena Singh says
October 20, 2014 at 9:26 amHi Rebekah,
That was an informative post indeed 🙂
Your tips were spot- on and so much needed by all of us, especially bloggers who have a tough time managing their time on the social media. I know because I’ve been there and if I don’t come away from one social platform, I can be stuck there for ages!
Honestly speaking, I used to use some of the tools you mentioned, but not any longer because I know in my mind that my time is SO limited, now more so with the growing blog community and forum at my blog, that if I don’t time my work, I’d not be able to proceed further. I guess we all need to choose and decide what works best for us, isn’t it?
Thanks for sharing this with us, and I’d surely be sharing this post all over because I know it would help lots of people. Have a nice week ahead 🙂
Rebekah Radice says
October 20, 2014 at 10:20 pmAbsolutely Harleena. As I said, it’s all a process. What worked for us a month, year or even just a few days ago may no longer fit our needs. Adapt and change. That’s our life as bloggers, right? 🙂
Reginald Chan says
October 20, 2014 at 8:46 amHi Rebekah,
AWESOME post! Personally, I really love the Twitter timetable. I think I got to have one … yes, right now!
I also got to highlight about Sprout Social. I used it for sometime and it’s plain awesome. Love the Smart Queue and makes sharing at the right time so easy!
Great tips dear friend. Shared this around and have a blessed week!
~Reginald
Rebekah Radice says
October 20, 2014 at 10:24 pmIt really is a time saver Reginald. You will love it! Especially since I suspect you’re a checklist guy. This makes what you do and where you go online so much easier!