Social media can be a wonderful way to converse with potential and existing customers, however there are so many networks these days and only a limited amount of time available. What is the most productive use of your ‘social media’ time?
In this article, I answer key concerns for small businesses so you can plan your time efficiently and get the maximum benefit from your posts.
How many networks should I use?
Whilst you don’t want to spread yourself too thinly, once you have the content and messaging organised it makes sense to promote your content across a few plaforms to maximise exposure. Aim to run two to three social media accounts suited to your business well.
Which networks should I choose?
Each network has it’s own merits – here are a list of the main ones available, in order of popularity with businesses:
1. Facebook
Still the network with the most UK users in 2020, it is most useful if your business is B2C as people tend to use it in their spare time. Since it is setup around private circles of friends and groups rather than hashtags there is less capacity to gain exposure to new audiences.
2. Instagram
Instagram is great for visual businesses and the network where audiences are the most interactive. There is a lot of scope to quickly build an audience with hashtagging and tagging other accounts. Stories are also popular here and another way of producing posts.
3. Youtube
This video service is a great way to truly engage with your audience for long periods of time, if you have the time to publish regularly.
4. Twitter
If your business has a lot of newsworthy content, Twitter is the place to share it. It’s trending section is a great source of content ideas, as well as the daily trending hashtags and memes.
5. LinkedIn
The main place to B2B networking and recruitment, this is the ideal place to invest time to target clients selectively.
6. Pinterest
A great place to upload B2C targeted products, especially for projects such as weddings, DIY, Christmas etc.
How regularly should I post?
Once you have selected your chosen networks, plan to create one piece of content to post across your chosen networks at each day.
It sounds like a lot, but this will help you to:
- generate awareness
- start to create a dialog with your audience
- build up content in your feeds
How should I organise my content?
Before you post anything, create a weekly content plan. As well as posting new information about your business, your feeds need to include information drawn from other sources online, which makes things easier in some ways.
Here is an example content plan for a blog on Facebook, Twitter and Instragram (where content is visual):
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
| New website post | Business insight + audience poll | Joke | New website post | Friday fun – something funny trending | Useful post from elsewhere online | Product of the week |
What is the base amount of time I should set aside?
Once you have your content plan, set aside a morning each week to plan content for each day of the upcoming week.
With many social networks there are tools available so you can schedule posts for the week ahead. Then it is just a case of checking any comments each day and uploading any posts on-the-fly.
I hope you have found this information useful, if you need any further guidance please do not hestitate to get in touch.