First things first, I will come clean, this is my job!
I am a freelance social media manager for businesses, so my life, genuinely is, completely taken over by creating awesome social media content. Just ask my husband, when he is tutting and tapping his watch in my general direction, as I decide I want to bash out a blog for a client, 5 minutes before our toddler’s swimming lesson is due to start. Whoops…
Anyway, I digress. When I started out to write this blog, I wondered whether it was a good idea to share all my hard earned secrets, that my clients pay me a lot of money for. But I’m feeling in a generous mood so before I change my mind, read on.
1. Why are you doing this?
Before you embark on any social media activity for your business, I urge you to answer this question.
Try to choose no more than 3 reasons. The most common objectives I am tasked with by clients are to:
A: direct traffic to our website
B: grow our followers, likes, fans on our social media pages
C: build awareness of our brand
2. Use key dates to inspire ideas for content
You can find a free calendar here with lots of upcoming key dates, which you can use to help you create content.
For example, as I am writing this the Eurovision song content is coming up. I guarantee this will be a subject that will be trending on Twitter, so you need to get involved.
If you are in the hospitality trade, you could create a promotion/guide — Eurovision in 50 drinks (featuring drinks from the competing countries).
If you are in fashion, pull together a blog looking at the best and worst of Eurovision fashion over the years,
3. Follow the news and trends
Lots of social media updates are reactions to things which are happening there and then. This is great but it’s also the reason why social media can end up taking over your life. When and where possible, I try to guess what people might be talking about in advance so I can create and schedule content ahead of time.
One example would be weather. Especially in the UK, the weather is always a hot, or cold, topic depending on the outlook.
As I am writing this, a heatwave is predicted in the UK this weekend. I am currently creating lots of content for my clients relating to soaring temperatures.
For example, if you are a bar, or restaurant, use it as an excuse to advertise your best selling Summer drinks or meals.
If you are in fashion, post some images of your latest Summer range.
If you are in professional services, roll out a blog about how much money businesses will lose from staff pulling sickies to enjoy the sun.
I could keep going but I think you get the message!
4. Use tools to make your life easier
There are so many tools but these are my favourites at the moment.
Canva — I use this every day to create simple, professional looking graphics. My top tip is to keep it simple and use their templates rather than trying to create your own.
Buzzsumo — I use this to find the most popular content to inspire me. Simply type in a topic and Buzzsumo will show you the most popular content relating to it with details about how many times it has been shared on social media and through which channels. You can also use it to find the top influencers you need to be connecting with on Twitter.
Edgar — I’ve used many scheduling tools but this is my current favourite (see below)
5. Schedule in advance
If you want to save your sanity and some time, then scheduling your social media in advance is the answer.
There are lots of tools out there but my current favourites is definitely Edgar. All the content you upload is saved into an online library, which is recycled. So, if your, current batch of updates run out, the Edgar elves will simply go into your library and pick out some content you haven’t used recently and repeat it until you upload something new.
Don’t be nervous about using content more than once as social media updates are so fleeting that the majority of your fans will not see it unless you repeat it enough.
If all this, still sounds like too much hard work, then get in touch and I’ll do it for you instead!
