With only 18 Minute a Day, Manage Social Media for your business

Many small businesses lack the time or resources to handle social media accounts, let alone the financial resources to engage a dedicated social media manager.

However, this does not diminish the need for social media management. People expect to be able to communicate with businesses via social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and even TikTok. Your firm may be forgotten, lose consumers to competitors, or worse, appear careless if you don’t maintain an active presence.

Furthermore, you may be losing out on potential new consumers. Social media is used by more than 40% of internet shoppers to learn about new companies and goods. There are so many benefits to Social Media Management.

We’ve put together an 18-minute strategy for individuals who are short on time. This plan walks you through the social essentials minute by minute, highlighting time-saving tips along the way.

If you have extra free time, take advantage of it. But for those that don’t, here’s how to make the most of every minute.

The 18-minute-a-day social media plan

Here’s a quick rundown of how to remain on top of social media.

Minutes 1-5: Social listening

Begin by devoting five minutes to social listening. What is the definition of social listening? In simple terms, it entails keeping an eye on what others are saying about your business speciality on social media.

This contains your brand’s and competitors’ keywords, hashtags, mentions, and messages. There are applications like Hootsuite that make tracking a lot easier.

You may set up streams in Hootsuite to monitor all of your social channels from a single dashboard. This eliminates the need to manually search each channel for keywords and mentions. It also makes it easier for you to engage in the future.

Each day, there are a few items you should check and note:

• Your brand’s mentions
• Mentions of your service or product
• Hashtags and/or keywords that are specific
• Competitors and collaborators
• News and developments in the industry

Use geo-search to filter for local conversations if your company has a physical site or shop. This will allow you to concentrate on local customers and the issues that they care about.

Minutes 5-10: Analyze and plan

Take another five minutes to think about what you’ve learned. This will aid in the fine-tuning of your social listening and marketing efforts. Here are a few considerations to keep in mind:

Sentiment

A decent place to start is with your feelings. What is being said about your company? How do you think that compares to how they talk about your competitors? It’s fantastic if things are largely positive. Start thinking about how you can shift the conversation in a more positive direction if it’s bad.

Feedback

Do you get specific feedback from your clients regarding your business? Look for repeating patterns and ideas that you can use to improve your business.

If you manage a restaurant, for example, and a lot of people complain about the music being too loud, turn it down. If you sell a product like gym bands and clients indicate an interest in more colour options, you’ve just uncovered a new sales opportunity.

Trends

What are the current fashion trends in your field? Detecting them can assist you in identifying new niches and audiences with which to engage. Maybe they’ll help you come up with ideas for your next marketing effort. Even better, perhaps they’ll help build a new product or service.

Purchase Intent

Listening to current clients on social media is merely one aspect of social media listening. It might also assist you in attracting new customers. Keep track of terms or themes that potential buyers might use when looking for your product.

If your business is in the tourism industry, for example, you might want to keep an eye on terms like “winter blues” and “vacation” in January.

Updates

Have you seen the emergence of a new keyword? Perhaps you’ve observed a common error when your brand is mentioned. Perhaps a new contender has entered the fray. Keep your eyes open for items to add to your social media listening tracking list.

Minutes 10-12: Check your content calendar

Look at your content calendar to see what you have scheduled for the day. Check that the visuals, photographs, and copy are all, in order. Always proofread one more time to catch any last-minute mistakes.

Hopefully, you already have a social media marketing strategy in place, as well as a content calendar. If you don’t already, schedule an hour each month to brainstorm and develop ideas, as well as to fill in your calendar.

Having a good strategy in place makes social media administration that much easier, whether you outsource content generation, use free tools, or handle everything yourself.

Tip: Consider user-generated content, memes, or short and stunning photographs if you don’t have time or money for high-production content.

Minutes 12-13: Schedule

It should only take you about a minute to schedule your posts using the right tools. All you have to do now is upload your content, choose when you want it to go online, and schedule them.

These technologies are especially useful if you want to upload content while on vacation or otherwise unavailable. You may even schedule multiple posts in advance, so you only have to do it once a week (freeing up more time for you to do the next task in this list: Engage).

Schedule your post for when the majority of your audience is online. The ideal time to publish on social media, according to prior data, is between 9 a.m. and 12 a.m. EST. However, this varies from platform to platform. And, of course, depending on the location of your target audience.

Tip: Use analytics to figure out when your audience is most likely to be online. It’s possible that it’s not the same as the global average.

Minutes 13-18: Engage

Take some time to interact with customers before you log off. Answer questions, like comments, and share articles. People are more likely to engage with you if you are more active.

People are more inclined to buy from you and suggest your company if their experience is favourable. More than 70% of consumers who have a favourite social media experience with a brand are likely to recommend it to friends and family.

You can create templates for typical responses to save time. These are especially handy if you routinely share the same information, such as opening hours or return policies.

However, avoid overusing boilerplate responses. People value honesty and want to feel like they’re talking to a real person. Even something as simple as including the initials of the customer support worker in responses enhances consumer trust.

Tip: Once you’ve submitted something, try to engage as soon as possible. If you’ve scheduled it correctly, your audience will be online and engaged at that moment. This will also help you maintain a good reaction time.