• Menu
  • Skip to right header navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary navigation
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Before Header

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

The Social Media Hat

Always On Top Of Social

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Digital Marketing
    • Social Media Articles
      • Facebook
      • Instagram
      • LinkedIn
      • Pinterest
      • Twitter
      • YouTube
    • Social Media Tools
    • Virtual Events
  • Marketing Resources
    • Newsletter
    • The Virtual Event Strategist Podcast
    • Marketing Hyperdrive Podcast
  • GET HELP
    • Virtual Event VIP Strategy Day
    • Social Media Planner
  • About
  • Search
  • Home
  • Articles
    • Digital Marketing
    • Social Media Articles
      • Facebook
      • Instagram
      • LinkedIn
      • Pinterest
      • Twitter
      • YouTube
    • Social Media Tools
    • Virtual Events
  • Marketing Resources
    • Newsletter
    • The Virtual Event Strategist Podcast
    • Marketing Hyperdrive Podcast
  • GET HELP
    • Virtual Event VIP Strategy Day
    • Social Media Planner
  • About
  • Search

Strapped for Time? 4 Quirky Ways You Can Find Time to Leverage Social Media

You are here: Home / Social Media Articles / Strapped for Time? 4 Quirky Ways You Can Find Time to Leverage Social Media

July 16, 2013 //  by Mike Allton

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Joshua Becker of Becoming Minimalist swears by minimalism when it comes to social media and he does have a point. Businesses lose precious time getting lost and wading through the ocean that social media is for apparent reasons. When ROI off social media itself is hard to predict, losing time just adds salt to the wound. Marketers go clueless while businesses wince at the thought of losing billable time to “likes, shares, and mentions.”

An infographic from the Vertical Marketing Blog drives the point straight home (visually). At least 43% of small business owners spend 6 or more hours per week on social media alone and 11% spend a sinful 11-20 hours per week on it. Out of all those business owners, CEOs, partners and proprietors, at least 33% don’t want to spend that kind of time on social media.

More than 55% of small businesses have a blog where 45% of business owners spend at least 1-3 hours on creating a single blog post. 90% of small businesses are on Facebook and nearly 70% of businesses are on Twitter.

This is not to diminish the importance of social media or the amount of time and effort expended on it. Businesses clearly understand the need to go social. They just don’t find enough time to do it. So, how do you find time to leverage the power of social media? Let’s find out.

Setup Social Media Workflow

Before you begin on any social media endeavor it is imperative to make sure you have a fool-proof in-house content creation and marketing strategy in place. No amount of interaction and updates will give you consistent returns if the foundation of your content strategy is shaky.

  1. Once you set up your blog or website, you need to be absolutely sure of its uptime. This probably makes you go “Duh” but it’s one of the most ignored pieces of common web sense—after you spend hundreds of hours on social media driving visitors to your site, one “Internal Server Error” message can hit your credibility for a home run. Find a reliable hosting
    provider by digging into the mountains of reviews at Who Is Hosting This, SitePoint, or CNET. 
  2. Set up an in-house project collaboration tools and software to help your team get organized, plan and get work done quicker and better. Asana, Basecamp, and Podio are some great options.
  3. Finally, after you have your social blitzkrieg map in place, amass the the weapons of mass socialization that will fit your strategy. Social Oomph, Buffer, and Nimble CRM deserve consideration. Apart from these, you can find a host of other tools to help create a social media workflow. By “workflow,” I specially want to emphasize the division of responsibility to update/respond along certain types of social interactions among your team members. It’s important that everyone is on the same page and social media content distribution remains systematic, streamlined, and efficient.

Now, that’s a start. This due diligence is necessary so you won’t snap your string once your kite is in the air.

Find the Optimal Time for Content Distribution 

Once you setup everything, it’s time to find best possible time to go social. There are two aspects to finding this ever-elusive “optimal time.” One aspect is to find time for your own efforts on social media (this post focuses on this aspect, of course) and the other aspect is to find the best time to distribute content on your network (which depends on your target
market and analytics).

If you’re allocating a fixed duration of time such as an hour a day or so to your social media efforts, it pays to sync it with when your target audience comes online! However, since you can’t always do this in the real world, you depend on tools to schedule and plan your social content distribution. The key here is to load these tools with content in advance as much as you can, leaving room for impromptu updates.

Identify Downtime, Socialize As Much As You Like

Up to now, we talked of setup, initiation, and planned updates. Almost everything else you do on social media is impromptu, on the fly, instantaneous, and real-time. That’s where you’ll be most strapped for time and have trouble managing it. “Downtime” is your friend here. Downtime comprises of all those slippery spots in the day when you’re just wafting through the web and can’t seem to get anything productive done. Here are some ideas to harness the information you
come across during these times:

  • Create a magazine on Flipboard—curating content has never been this easy. As and when you come across interesting or relevant stuff while doing something on your tablet or iPhone, all you have to do is “box” it into a “magazine,” straight off your mobile device. Since you can take your mobile devices (phones at least) wherever you go, content curation happens on the road.
  • Milk those Social media apps on your smartphone to their fullest. Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn have their apps ready and preinstalled in most cases for you to use. As you consume and pass on content while traveling, at a party, in a meeting, or anywhere else, share it—or better still—schedule it!
  • Find new ideas on how to share, engage, and re-engage with your social network. Take down your ideas on Evernote. You can even integrate Evernote with Nimble CRM using Zapier.
  • Download the IFTTT app and set up automated redirects to your content distribution using its “triggers” and “actions.”

Social Media on a Break

What do you do when you take a break during the day? Most people actually don’t do much. If you work on a computer all day, you probably step out and take a walk.

When you come back though, don’t plunge into work already. Take 10 minutes and respond to messages on Facebook, shoot out five quick Retweets, see if you can re-pin an informative image, and throw out an endorsement on LinkedIn or respond to an unanswered question on Quora. You could catch up with a long-time pending read and then share it.

That’s all it takes. You don’t have to spend all day on Social media. An hour a day is far more than enough. You can bet that you have more than an hour for productive use when you sweep your downtime.

Putting social media on a to-do list will only be a drain on your time, effort, and resources. Since hiring a full-time social media manager is out of the question for the majority of us, optimizing the time already available is our best bet.

Related

Category: Social Media ArticlesTag: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter

About Mike Allton

Mike Allton is a Content Marketing Practitioner – a title he invented to represent his holistic approach to content marketing that leverages blogging, social media, email marketing and SEO to drive traffic, generate leads, and convert those leads into sales. He is an award-winning Blogger, Speaker, and Author, and Head of Strategic Partnerships at Agorapulse.

Mike is a Virtual Event Consultant and has partnered with Jenn Herman, Stephanie Liu, Amanda Robinson and Eric Butow to write Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing published by Entrepreneur Press.

Free Virtual Event Webinar

10 Benefits of Virtual Events for SaaS Brands
Hosted by  Mike Allton
Most people are hesitant to try virtual events because they don’t understand all the benefits. They think it’s just a webinar or a conference call, but there’s so much more that can be done! 10 Benefits of Virtual Events for SaaS Brands is the answer to your questions. In this webinar, Mike Allton will teach you everything you need to know about virtual events. You’ll learn how to make them work for your company and get everyone on board with the idea.

Join The Community!

17 savvy marketers sign up every day to get the latest social media insights and ideas.


Previous Post: « Does your LinkedIn profile lack curb appeal? Add images and links!
Next Post: HootSuite App Updated with Timesavers »

Primary Sidebar

LISTEN to The Virtual Event Strategist Podcast

Virtual Event VIP Strategy Day

Meet Mike

Mike Allton is a Virtual Event Strategist, and an award-winning blogger, speaker, and author at The Social Media Hat, where he has been educating businesses and organizations on the best use of content marketing for reaching and converting target audiences. He has spearheaded dozens of live shows and virtual events, reaching tens of thousands of potential customers on behalf of represented brands.

Since 2012, Mike has excelled at helping his community understand the nuance and best practices involved in utilizing social platforms, leveraging social media management tools, and creating 10X content. He has established a reputation for being able to explain complex tools or topics in easy to understand ways, all while bringing a necessary sense of overall brand strategy and business purpose.

Featured Posts

Virtual Event Ideas

6 Powerful Virtual Event Ideas for SaaS Brands

April 24, 2022 //  by Mike Allton

Reading Time: 8 minutes There are many virtual event ideas that brands can explore, from large to small, and with varying goals and objectives.

Virtual Summit Event

10 Benefits of Virtual Events for SaaS Brands

April 23, 2022 //  by Mike Allton

Reading Time: 16 minutes Understand all the benefits of virtual events, including leads, sales and more.

Why And How To Start Leveraging Virtual Events In Your 2022 Marketing Mix

January 22, 2022 //  by Hazel Raoult

Reading Time: 7 minutes Virtual events have become an essential component of an effective digital marketing strategy.

More Like This

  • Steal This Virtual Event Plan For A Flawless Event
  • Virtual Event Strategy: How To Narrow Focus To Achieve Broader Goals
  • Virtual Event Strategy: Your Why is Why You’re Unfocused

Footer

Recent Posts

  • Virtual Event Planner Options You Need To Consider Today
  • Virtual Event Strategy: Getting Started With Elephantine Events
  • Virtual Events As Powerful Customer Discovery Tools
  • Steal This Virtual Event Plan For A Flawless Event
  • Virtual Event Strategy: How To Narrow Focus To Achieve Broader Goals
  • Virtual Event Strategy: Your Why is Why You’re Unfocused
  • Introducing The Virtual Event Strategist Podcast by Mike Allton
  • 6 Powerful Virtual Event Ideas for SaaS Brands

Key Topics

Agorapulse Bing Blab Blogging Buffer Business Canva Content Marketing Easil Email Marketing Evernote Facebook Google+ Holidays Hootsuite Influencer Marketing Infograph Instagram Klout LinkedIn Live Video Marketing Meerkat Mobile MySpace Pinterest Podcast ROI SEO SnapChat Social Media Marketing Social Pulse Summit Strategy Tailwind Triberr Twitter Video Vine Virtual Event Virtual Event Planning Virtual Event Speakers Virtual Event Strategy Yahoo Yelp YouTube
  • Home
  • Virtual Event Strategy
  • Subscribe
  • About The Social Media Hat
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclosure

Site Footer

The Virtual Event Strategist Podcast

  • Listen on Apple
  • Listen on Spotify
  • Listen on Amazon
  • Listen on Stitcher
  • Social Media Articles
  • Digital Marketing Articles
  • Social Media Tools & Resources
  • Virtual Events Articles
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2022 The Social Media Hat · All Rights Reserved