Managing a brand’s social media is a fast-paced, dynamic and multi-skilled remit so efficient time management is an important skill. Creativity, strategic planning and quick thinking are essential in this role. As is the ability to switch between content creation, community engagement and data analysis from one minute to the next. We should know, we’ve spent over a decade perfecting the craft of effective social media management for our clients.
If, like us, you juggle multiple brands and platforms daily, you’ll know that efficient time management is vital. Not to mention the importance of staying one step ahead of feature updates, emerging channels and shifting user behaviours.
Luckily, we’ve developed plenty of savvy tricks to help streamline workflows and save precious time. Dive in for our top time management tips to help your social networks grow and thrive.
The social media manager’s work week at a glance:
Copywriting
Creating graphics and videos or sourcing imagery
Scheduling your posts
Engaging with your community
Finding your people
Delving into analytics
Keeping an ear to the ground for opportunities
Efficient time management tips below…
Copywriting
Writing all your social media content for the upcoming week in advance saves you from a stressful last-minute rush for ideas and helps to keep your presence consistent. Pick a time of the week when you’re usually feeling energised and inspired to dedicate to forming a consistent copywriting routine. That way, you can begin each new week prepared with everything ready to go.
When generating ideas, think about what’s ahead – events you’re attending, important awareness days, industry trends – these topics will spark valuable conversation relevant to your audience and enhance your engagement.
Using an AI platform such as Hoppy Copy will support your process of generating and refining social media copy that is personalised to your brand voice and style.
Patch Tip
Be sure to craft a varied mix of content. This could include strategic promotional messages, educational insights that will benefit your target markets, people-focused spotlights and engagement messages (e.g. responses to industry news, articles or communicating with prospects). Striking the right balance with tailored content pillars will help bring your brand to life, build trust and keep your audience interested in what you have to say.
Creating graphics and videos or sourcing imagery
Visual storytelling has the power to captivate your audience and connect with them emotionally. Allocate some time to creating a rich mix of photography, animations, infographics, GIFs and reels. Canva lets you create branded graphics for free and has tonnes of templates to choose from. Lead with people! The human connection is authentic, so try to use real life photos of your people and the office environment for a more personal touch.
Patch Tip
Always be on the lookout for opportunities to capture fresh content. From client visits or attending events to celebrating employee birthdays or work anniversaries – take lots of photos and videos to build a content library. The more diverse range of social media assets you have access to, the merrier.
Scheduling your posts
Automation is every social media manager’s friend! There are many different platforms you can utilise for bulk scheduling your content in advance, saving valuable time and removing any risk of forgetting to post. This will help you maintain a reliably consistent presence and maximise visibility and reach by scheduling posts to go out at the optimal times for each channel – talk about efficient time management!
Find out more about our favourite automatic posting, scheduling and analytics platform and other useful social media management resources in ‘Our Top 5 AI Tools for Social Media Marketers’ blog.
Patch Tip
Re-invest the time you’ll save by not posting manually to focus on audience engagement. On that note…
Engaging with your community
Keep your finger on the industry’s pulse with a daily check-in on the latest news, trending topics and what your competitors, customers and prospects are up to. Spend 10-15 minutes each day liking, commenting, starting conversations and sharing curated content and useful resources to build trust and credibility.
Patch Tip
This is going to be some of the most important time you spend on your socials throughout the week. Taking the time to engage with and support your community will lay the foundations for forming meaningful relationships.
Finding your people
Remember that your social media profiles are like shop fronts that are always open to showcase your brand. Once you’re happy with the range of content on your channels, you can start looking for and connecting with people who are likely to find it useful. Researching who is engaging with relevant hashtags and your competitors’ content, will help you identify new target customers and understand what appeals to them.
Don’t be spammy or bombard your new connections with messages, remember that the goal is to build relationships, which can take time, the right approach and patience.
Delving into analytics
Spending some time each week monitoring which posts have performed well and which haven’t will help you to understand what types of content resonate best with your audience. Each social media platform has free, in-built analytics for businesses to review recent performance or you might like to find a premium analytics platform like Metricool for a deeper dive.
This data will inform the best focus areas for future posts, and you can use learnings to adapt your approach if needed and create more successful content week by week. For more on this, our ‘How to analyse a social media campaign’ blog is full of insights about how to understand social media data, reach vs impressions and more.
Keeping an ear to the ground for opportunities
Search for relevant tags, create lists, bookmark useful sources of ideas, inspiration and discussions and follow important media outlets and influencers. You can also set up Google Alerts to monitor mentions of your brand or any others you’re connected to so you can comment or re-share in real-time.
Set notifications to go to a chosen inbox or phone and spend just a few minutes per day checking for updates. By doing this, your brand could be the first to talk about breaking news, to congratulate your clients on important announcements, or to participate in important conversations, boosting your reach.
If you have ambitious plans for your brand’s social media presence, get in touch to find out more about our social media marketing services at Patch.
