Social Media in an Hour a Day (or Less!)

Social media can be a full-time job – for an entire team of people – but most companies don’t have the resources for that. so, today, I’m here to offer some tips to get the most out of your social presence in as little as one hour per day. Here we go!

Block off 30 minutes on your calendar each morning and afternoon

I’m serious. Go to your Outlook or Google calendar right now and create a recurring meeting to spend 30 minutes on social media every weekday morning, and 30 minutes each weekday afternoon. I would suggest you schedule the morning social session as early as possible so that you can listen and respond to chatter that’s happened since your last log in. The afternoon session should be later in the day, so you spread our your log ins, but you may want to schedule this directly after lunch to make sure you don’t forget to do it (we’re creatures of habit).

Check your brand mentions

Spend 5-10 minutes to check your mentions in your morning and afternoon sessions, either through a tool, in the native apps, or through email notifications. This is your opportunity to engage with people who are already engaged with your brand. Answer questions, ask questions, thank people for retweeting and sharing your content, and retweet and share their content. This make take 10 minutes in the morning, when you have more to review, and 5 minute in the afternoon, for a total of 15 minutes per day.

Schedule some posts

Spend 20 minutes per day finding great content to post, and scheduling it to go out throughout the day. Follow the 80-20 rule, and post your own content 20% of the time and other people’s content 80% of the time. You may choose to do this all at once – either in the morning to account for the entire day or in the afternoon to cover the following day – or you may prefer to schedule some posts during each of your social media sessions. To curate great content quickly, I would recommend subscribing to your favorite industry blogs an publications via email or social media so there is always quality content at your fingertips.

Make new friends

I was a girl scout, so I hear this and immediately sing, “Make new friends, but keep the oooold, one is silver and the other gold” – and this rings true in the social sphere, as well as IRL (in real life). You should spend 10 minutes each day engaging on social media, which will help you bump up your brand mentions. I use Meltwater Buzz to uncover industry conversations that are taking place and inserting Meltwater into the conversation, offering helpful tips and advice, sharing my personal experience, and offering product information when appropriate. There are many other ways to engage, though, including joining Twitter Chats, reading through social media newsfeeds or lists, live social posting from webinars, etc – so find the way that’s best for you to engage and make it a part of your daily routine. Also make sure to follow/circle/like the people and brands you engage with.

Analyze everything

Spend the next 15 minutes of each day analyzing your social media efforts. You should be experimenting with what time you post, what kinds of content you post, and what gets you the most engagement – so make sure you take the time to understand what’s working, and what isn’t. Make sure that you’re getting a return on your time investment: if you spend equal amounts of time on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google Plus, but don’t see results from Twitter and Google Plus, focus more of your time on the networks where it really matters.
There you have it: social media in an hour a day. If you find that you have less time, make sure you don’t skimp on checking your brand mentions and engaging. Posting content is secondary, you can always analyze your social presence next week – it’s much more important to keep the social in social media!