Everyone is on social media these days, from my younger cousins to my Grandma, it’s rare for someone to not be on at least one social media platform. Time has progressed from the days of MySpace and Facebook. People are using Twitter on a daily basis, for socialising, not just for work. As well as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, there is Byte, TikTok, Snap Chat, Pinterest, YouTube and LinkedIn for people to be thinking about. As a virtual assistant, I manage these channels for various clients so it’s important for me to know that I have got everything going on the channels, when it should be.
Schedule social media
The easiest way to organise your social media is to schedule in advance. There are various tools you can use to schedule content including Tailwind for Pinterest and Instagram, Buffer and Hootsuite for Facebook and Twitter. I have just come across new social media marketing tools that I haven’t seen before called ContentCal. This looks very smart, it isn’t just for creating your social media calendar. With the use of Custom Planning Channels, it can also be used to plan for other marketing content from emails and blogs, to events and press. If you work in a team, it can keep your entire team aligned on all marketing activities from one centralised space. It also has the majority of social media platforms covered, so no longer needing to go on one site for Pinterest and another for Facebook! ContentCal integrates with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Using their Zapier integration, they can also publish to other locations such as Pinterest, Google Spreadsheets, Airtable, and more. It sounds incredible and they also over a free 2 week trial so I will have to give it a try.
How to manage social media without a scheduler
If you don’t want to sign up to a scheduler, make a list of the social media outlets that you need to post on and what days something needs to go on. Using a planner or diary, look at when it would fit in around your other commitments and either block off 10 minutes here and there for each platform or block off an hour or two, to post on all platforms. Remember, when you are on, it is best to interact with other people on the platform too so if you post on Instagram, spend 5 minutes, going through the hashtags you used and liking some of the recent posts. You may also want to research the best instagram growth service or other social media services to help.
How to stop social media taking over
I know this post is about managing your social media but that is an important part, manage it and don’t let it manage you. It’s too easy to get sucked in on Facebook and before you know it you have lost an hour scrolling through where you didn’t need to and could have used that time more productively. If you have the apps on your phone, unless you absolutely need them, turn off the push through notifications so you can just check them when you go in and are ready for them. If you are on your desktop, don’t have them open on another tab. Just go in when you need or want to so they don’t distract or tempt you in.
