Social Media for Small Businesses in 15 Minutes a Day

​You’re busy so sometimes running your social media accounts takes a backseat to all your other to dos. But it doesn’t have to! That’s great news. Right? So how do you do that? With a little bit of planning up front, you can take control of your social media once and for all in just 15 minutes a day.

• Build your strategy. A strategy? Admittedly this step will take a little longer than the 15 minutes a day you’ve allotted. But it’s the most important so set aside a couple of hours this month to develop a basic strategy. A social media strategy will help you guide what type of content you post, how often it’s posted and where and when you post it.

• Create content. Hah!  Fifteen minutes a day? How can you plan and post your content in fifteen minutes a day? Think back to your strategy. What are your goals for social media? What types of content will help you reach your goals? Post about what’s happening within your business, feature your employees, talk about a product launch, share answers to frequently asked questions, provide discounts to your fans. Ask your employees to be on the lookout for great ideas to share on Facebook. Often those on the frontlines see and hear what the customer—i.e. your fans!—is really looking for. The possibilities are endless, but are driven by the purpose of your page.

• Curate content from reputable sources. Let’s face it; you don’t have time to do everything so why recreate what’s already out there! It’s okay to share content written by someone else as long as you attribute it to that source. You may even be able to reach new fans by doing so. While you can work finding content into your daily to-do list, you’re probably already doing this without even realizing it.  If you aren’t here’s a few places to start. Save articles when you read industry news or come across a resource on your Facebook newsfeed. Subscribe to RSS feeds or sign up for Google Alerts for keywords or phrases related to your business. Create an idea or resource file in a word document or collect content for future use in Evernote.

• Schedule your content. You don’t have to log in to your accounts every day to schedule content. Don’t get me wrong, you want to post content frequently—refer to that social strategy to see how often—but that doesn’t mean you have to schedule it day by day. You can work ahead and schedule a week at a time if you work in a scheduler like Hootsuite or Facebook Scheduler.

• Engage with fans. Take a few minutes to see what your fans are saying. Like their comments. Respond to questions. Let them know you hear them!  Social media is designed to be….well, social!  Use your social sites as a platform to connect with your fans one on one.

 
At the end of the month, evaluate and adjust. Review your social media stats to see what’s working and engaging your fans and do more of that. If something’s not working, think about why it’s not and what you can do differently.
 
Just like everything else in life, it can take awhile to get into the swing of running an effective social media effort online. Good luck!

Download a free daily social media checklist from Impressions to help you get started.