Good morning!

Although social media is only one of the many hats that we need to wear as solo business owners, it can often be one of the most time consuming and is a black hole that seems to take over everything.

Last night was our monthly Sevenoaks Mums in Business Network meet-up, and as part of it Gemma Lloyd of Social Mums came along to share her expertise with us about how to be more time efficient with our social media. A while back I asked our members what they’d like her talk to focus and this subject was the hands-down winner – so it is at least reassuring that we’re all in the same boat I guess.

Here are Gemma’s top 10 tips…

Tip 1 – Focus on the platforms that matter

You don’t need to be everywhere and you can’t do all of them well. It’s better to do 1 really well than more not-so-well.

So focus on the 1-3 platforms that your target audience are using and do it/them as well as possible.

By keeping an eye on your insights, you might be able to whittle that down further as you find our which platform is generating the most leads/engagement/business.

Tip 2 – Have a social media strategy or plan in place

I’m a bit rubbish at this and tend to wing it, which makes it very erratic. However Gemma emphasised that it doesn’t matter how small your business is, have a social media strategy and set goals to make sure that the time and effort you put into social media has a point and purpose. And post regularly. Your goal might be as simple as to drive people to your website or increase sales of a particular product or service – just being clear on what that goal is will help you focus.

Tip 3 – Use a content calendar

A content calendar helps you work out what you intend to publish and when. You won’t forget important dates and it helps you to post consistently. It also means you can be time efficient and batch prepare content (I’m a firm believer in batching rather than multitasking).

If you sign up to receive Social Mums’ emails via her website, then Gemma will send you out a planner each month for free. Alternatively you could use something as simple as an Excel spreadsheet or one of those family calendars that has a column for each person (I get a really cheap one every year from The Works, £2 last time!).

Tip 4 – Use a scheduling tool

Consistency is key with social media, so a scheduling tool helps you do this as time-efficiently as possible. Gemma recommended spending some time on a Sunday evening scheduling for the week ahead. She then uses her time during the week to respond to comments that her posts generated instead of posting.

The tools you use depend on the platform (and whether you want to spend any money!). Gemma recommended the following:

Facebook – schedule within Facebook itself as it’s easier to know exactly what your posts will look like. Other scheduling tools can affect the formatting

Instagram – Gemma’s favourite is Planoly, and she also likes Later. Planoly is free for up to 30 posts per month and relatively cheap if you schedule more than that. It also allows you to preview how each post will appear on your wall and gives insights.

Twitter – Hootsuite or Buffer as you can’t schedule within Twitter itself.

Pinterest – Tailwind

Tip 5 – Be strict with your time

It’s SO easy to just check your phone quickly and then fall into the trap and spend hours on social media. Set a timer and be strict – try just spending two blocks of focused 15 minutes a day responding to comments and engaging with people.

You might want to make an exception for messages (I find people buy more if I respond very quickly to messages). You could also try Facebook’s “messagebot” to suggest common questions and provide automatic answers tailored to reply based on certain keywords.

Tip 6 – Make use of design tools

Design tools help you a) come across as professional because your imagery is high quality and b) post images that are cohesive and consistent with your brand.

Gemma recommended the app Wordswag which is very simple to use and allows you to overlay text onto your images or backgrounds easily (great for quotes), and also add your logo as a watermark. It’s a paid for app but worth it (I agree).

Also Canva (both desktop and app) is excellent – more flexible than Wordswag, if not a little more complex to use, but it’s definitely worth the time to familiarise yourself with it.

Tip 7 – Use curated content

Content falls into two categories:

1. Created content – your own stuff
2. Curated content – created by someone else that you can share or link to in your own posting. That could be blogs, articles, visuals, quotes etc.

Using curated content has a number of benefits:

• It saves time because you’re not having to create it in the first place
• It adds value to your target audience
• It helps you share content that is not promotional
• It helps you build relationships by supporting the original creator

How to find curated content:

• Set up Google Alerts (free) based on specific keywords and phrases you are interested in. A lot of the results will be irrelevant but you’ll be able to find some real gems in there too.
• Use Twitter lists
• Use an aggregation tool like Feedly (app and PC) which pulls in content from lots of places
• Use a content discovery tool like Buzzsumo (there’s a free and paid for version) that pulls together both content relating to your keywords and also articles that have been popular and highly-shared.
• One of our members Nikki Young recommended If This Then That (IFTTT) as being another brilliant way to find content.

Tip 8 – Repurpose content

When you write a blog, you’ve spent time thinking, planning and researching the content. So while it’s still fresh in your mind, make a video about it to post on Facebook and youtube. And make a shorter video about it to post on Instagram or InstaTV.

You can also edit videos into shorter-bite-sized lengths for different platforms. Gemma recommended the Videoshop app for this, which is also great for adding captions and royalty free music. Ripl is another good one.

One of our members Marie Brown of Beyond the Kitchen Table has recently also used www.rev.com to add captions. They charge $1 per minute of video and quickly send it back to you with a caption file. You can then join up to your video using Kapwing (free if you don’t mind their small watermark).

Also make use of your evergreen content (content that stays relevant) by resharing it from time to time, perhaps with a different image to keep it fresh.

Tip 9 – Use your insights

All of the platforms provide behind-the-scenes insights to help you see what works (and what doesn’t). By looking at these you can see what worked best, and do more of that. FYI – Facebook provides more insights on your desktop than on the app, as does Twitter. To get Twitter insights you need to activiate them. To get Instagram insights you need to have a business account (as opposed to a personal one).

Tip 10 – Don’t be a perfectionist

Done is better than perfect! Just get on and plan and create some content and get it out there now rather than waiting for it to be perfect before you post. Social media is an opportunity to show the person behind the business, so it doesn’t need to be as slick as you think.

Useful links

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