Keep Up With Social Media in an Hour a Day

You can read this and other social media related blog posts written by me at blog.hubbley.com.

Keeping up with social media can be a full-time job for any one person, or it requires an entire team’s attention and collaboration. But most companies don’t have the resources to hire a full team. Here are some tips on how to get most out of your social presence in as little as one hour per day.

First, block off 30 minutes on your calendar for the morning, and again for the afternoon. Seriously. Do it right now. Create a recurring meeting to spend 30 minutes on social media twice a day. Once in the morning, and once in the afternoon. Schedule your morning session early so you can listen to and respond to any correspondence that’s happened since your last log in.

Spend 5–10 of those 30 minutes checking your brand mentions, either through a tool, in the native apps, or through email notifications. Engage people who are already familiar with your brand. Answer questions, ask questions, thank people for sharing tweets or Facebook posts, and share their content in return.

Spend 20 minutes per day finding new content to post, and schedule their postings throughout the day. Post your own content 20% of the time, and others’ content 80% of the time. You can do this all at once, or split it up between your two 30 minute sessions. Subscribe to quality industry blogs to curate great content fast.

Spend 10 minutes a day engaging on social media. This will help bump up your brand mentions. There are many methods of engaging through social media, like joining Twitter Chats, reading through newsfeeds or lists, live postings from webinars, etc. Find the best method for you and make it part of your daily routine.

The remainder of your time should be spent analyzing your efforts. Experiment with the timing of your posts, the type of content you post, and what draws the most attention or engagement. Take the time to understand what’s working, and what’s not. If you’re spending equal amounts of time on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and LinkedIn, but don’t seem to be getting any results through LinkedIn, focus more on your other social networks.

If you feel like you’re running out time, make brand mentions and engagement the priority. Posting content is secondary, and you can always analyze your social presence next week. Remember that being social in social media is the most important.