Do you feel like you spend too much time on social media marketing for your blog?
You know you start early in the morning and before you know it it’s noontime and then 7 pm. Before you know it’s bedtime.
You from one thing to another. From posting to commenting, to planning and then scheduling.
How many minutes a day are you spending on your social media marketing management? I find on days I’m not producing content it’s a LOT of TIME in hours and not minutes.
However, that’s changed since I began using various tools to help with these tedious social media tasks. Here are the ways to help you save time as well:
Table of Contents
Learn 8 Ways to Save Time
There are great tools out there to help you like Agorapulse, Buffer, MissingerLttr, or Hootsuite. These tools can help you save time but how about keeping yourself better organized, too?
Social media marketing is complex today. Not only do we need to schedule social shares but also produce content, do research, and do analytics for ourselves and clients.
Here’s a great quote I got from Robert Caruso of the former Bundle Post:
You have to have enough relevant, valuable, curated content in your streams every day. You can spend hours a day doing that one post at a time using readers, browser plugins and other clunky tools, or you can spend your time on the things that actually get results like engagement. BundlePost helps you easily manage 3-5 days of social media scheduling curated and marketing message content, hashtags them all in seconds and lets you focus on getting real results.” – Definitely one for my to do list!
The 8 Ways to Save You Time Managing Social Media Include:
1. Responding to mentions and questions.
How often do you check and respond to these? I used to check notifications as they came. Now I try to only check-in at certain times of the day. Of course, it depends on what business you are in. Some businesses need to have a full-time person or an online bot to answer questions asap.
Oftentimes, you will interrupt other activities you have going on and quickly get off track. This is NOT an easy one to do.
However, engagement is a key factor today for social media marketing. Engagement can help your content be seen higher in most of the social media algorithms out there.
2. Sharing from third-party apps.
How many shares do you do from third-party apps? Hence, you could set a certain amount of them that you will do.
Otherwise, you could spend hours doing this depending on which tools you are using.
It may also make you less productive overall as you go from one thing to another and not stay focused on your social media marketing. Been there and done that for years!
3. Commenting on Blogs.
How many comments do you leave on blog posts? Therefore, you should set a goal for how many to do per day and a limit as well.
You could get lost going from blog to blog leaving comments. Been there and done that!
Not only that but you will want to respond to comments on your own blogs as well. Readers have taken the time to leave them so you should respond in a timely manner to them.
Even my dear blogging friend Ryan from Blogging from Paradise recently opened his comments back up on the blog. Interacting with your readers is important to know what they are consuming and what questions they may have. It will help YOU produce more relevant content.
4. Following new folks.
How many people do you follow each week? This is something you could check out once per week. Find new people in your niche to start following and engaging with.
This will expand your network and they may follow YOU back. You can use a tool like Tweetsmart for Twitter or Agorapulse for your other social media accounts (and Twitter as well if you want to keep it simple!)
5. Producing new content.
This one is the most important. It is not easy to stick to a schedule either as life can get in the way and boy has it for me this year!
It’s also good to try to have a couple of posts in the “bank” for when needed. An evergreen type of post would be perfect for that time when you haven’t anything to publish. Now, you can use a tool like Jasper AI to help you create content quicker than ever before.
However, if your blog content is getting old, refreshing old content will do wonders for your SEO efforts on the website. Not only that but it will give readers newer, fresh content to consume and link to.
6. Check your analytics for social media marketing.
Checking results via your analytics – You must know how everything is working for you. This will help you to post at optimal times on social networks.
The only way is to check your stats and how folks are coming to you is to check your Google analytics, stats, your social media network analytics, etc. Otherwise, it is like you are working in the dark!
Recently Agorapulse added more reporting tools so you can do these social media management tasks right from their dashboard. You can even send your clients a white-glove social media management report with your logo on it.
7. Trim and prune your followers on various social networks.
Why continue to follow folks who unfollowed you on Twitter X? I like using Fedica to see who is following on Twitter or not. You can also see who are your ambassadors on the network.
It is easy to go in for 5 minutes per week and check who does not follow you. Of course, you can always use your Twitter X lists – my favorite timesaver!
8. Research For Content.
Last but not least, research for new content, ideas, etc. You can’t produce new social media promotional content if you are not doing your research! I love using Quora or Answer the Public for this. And then enter ideas into Jasper AI to get started.
Furthermore, this research could include gathering info on new topics and finding graphics for your posts. You could also make a YouTube video or SlideShare, etc. for using Jasper AI to write faster and better content.
In Conclusion
How many of these suggestions do you use now to save time on doing your social media promotional management tasks?
Do you have more suggestions to save time on your social media marketing management?
I’d love to know more from YOU in the comments below.
She has 30+ years of experience in marketing/advertising with 11 years of experience in content marketing, social media, blogging, and SEO.
You can purchase her eBook about Twitter on Amazon.
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Saving time for promotion on social media platform, boost up our business and maintain good relationships all over the globe. Well, I prefer Social Pilot as its rates are quite feasible when compared to other tools..
hi lisa, i use to spend a lot of time on social media. I do brand promotion over it, so it takes me a lot of time. Half of my day goes on social media. These tips are really very helpful, thanks for writing these and helping me….
Hi Shashank, welcome to Inspire to Thrive. You are most welcome. Which of these tips did you like the best? Social media can sure be time consuming. Thanks for coming by and have a great day.
Very well written post, Lisa. I love the way you elaborated on each point. The one that hit me the most was replying to comments on your posts. What a great idea. Thank you for taking the time to pen these tips down. Regards
Thanks for posting this blog! I really have been trying implement social media into my business and been really overwhelmed of when i should respond to questions and post.
Hi Yasin, welcome to Inspire to Thrive. Oh yes, you really do need to respond to questions and comments. I try to within 24-48 hours. Thanks for coming by and have a nice weekend.
Hello! Lisa. I am totally switching things up social wise and commenting wise. Each day will be a different task for me. 1 day, blog commenting, 1 day, social, 1 day, writing articles for certain clients and I’ll spend 1 day – and some of a few others – publishing my mega long, insightful blog post of the week. By the way great post. I really enjoyed to read them. Thank you so much.
Hi James, welcome to Inspire to Thrive. that’s a nice schedule and you certainly won’t get bored and probably not overwhelmed that way too. Thanks for coming by and have a great day!
Awesome writeup. I love sharing my content on all social networks via buffer or social pilot, it really helps in saving time and efforts. Also, I write the social media descriptions separately instead of just copy pasting the link, it helps in gaining the attention of users.
Anyways, nice post.
Hi Rachit, thank you. I haven’t heard of Social Pilot, is that a new one? I love the Buffer but sometimes the images may not appear. Very good – using descriptions instead of just the links – it certainly does help and increases engagement along the way. Thanks for coming by and have a great rest of the week Rachit.
Hi Lisa,
Time is an important factor in social media marketing. We tend to spend a lot of time on social media and forget to do the other important tasks.
Hi Imran, welcome to Inspire to Thrive. Time surely is a major factor unless you are willing to spend a lot of money for someone else to manage it. I know it often distracts me from creating new content 🙁 Thanks for coming by and have a great rest of the week Imran!
It sounds so easy, but I’m still too lazy to do anything of these steps. I mean not lazy, I just prefer to do other more fun things related to my blog. But after reading this awesome post and even cooler infographic, I’ll certainly try to invest more time in social marketing. Keep it up!
Cheers, Nicholas
Hi Nicholas, LOL, sometimes we do pick the things we like to do first. I’m the opposite, I like to get done the things I least like to do first. Then move on the fun things. I hope this one helped you and welcome to Inspire to Thrive Nicholas.
Hi Lisa, great reply and motivation words. It’s not easy to change your habits right away, but I’m trying every day to do the important things first and the fun ones later. And that feeling when you’re already done with important is awesome and totaly worth the effort :).
Cheers, Nicholas
I’m glad to hear to Nicholas 🙂 I hope you have a great weekend.
I must say infographic is the best option for this. Infographics are easy to understand for readers and telling about your brand too.
Hi David, yes, once an infographic is done it is an easy way to save time. It’s a great way to make a point about something to one’s readers. Thanks for coming by and welcome to Inspire to Thrive. Have a great weekend!
Hi Lisa,
I use Hootsuite to manage my social media accounts but sometimes, I feel that I still have too much left to do and too little time to get everything done. There are even times when I think that I’m in the brink of a burnout. So, thanks for sharing these tips. I think I’ll even print this infographic and post it where I can see it all the time!
Hi Tammy, I’m sure you are not alone in those thoughts. I occasionally have them and find it helpful to disconnect on weekends or at least one day of the weekend. Nothing like a little break to help you along the way! Thanks for coming by Tammy.
The points mention above could be very helpful in saving our time on Social Media marketing because if i go into my personal experience i always tend to waste my time on social media’s longer then i expect it and following so basic rules during Social Media Marketing can save a huge amount of our time.
Thank You for sharing with us
cheers
Hey Dear, Great Post. Extremely well written. It helped me. SO, I would like to thank you for this. And I hope it will help many others.Hope you will be sharing these types of valuable articles regularly. Have a nice weekend.
Hi Lisa,
I don’t use Hootesuite. I sometime use Buffer but not much lately. The only one that really works for me so far is Friends+Me. And you know it gets harder each week to post something of value in your blog. With the things going with me, increasing clients, people asking me to guest post for them, trying to finish a book, trying to create a course, I have no idea…how in the world am I going to stretch my time.
And so I slowed down on my posting from 4x a week to 2-4x a week. I don’t want to post just for the sake of posting. This November seems pretty crazy for me. I have a project due in Friday…plus 2 guest posts…I might have to change these deadlines and will try to extend it or something. Anyway, I try to limit my time on social nowadays too.
Glad to see you back. I know life can be hectic and it usually doesn’t go the way we want it to. Take care of yourself and I will see you around. Wishing you a great week.
Angela
Hi Lisa,
Great advice! I had to shave down many social sites I was on when marketing took the front seat. I realized I couldn’t be everywhere. So I stay pin focused on two major social sites where I get great activity: Facebook and Google+ It was a tough call, because I enjoyed Pinterest, but I had to be where most of my peeps were.
I love this infographic. I like the way it shows how to “chunk” time. I also have put this into place, but can do it almost 90 percent of the time. I had to be disciplined, so I created my own DMO and also a weekly schedule and a monthly schedule in order to be more productive.
Gone I “check in” a few times a day, but that is all the time I have. Time is so valuable! We all need to follow our own “tasks of the day” in order to get anything done.
Thanks so much for this Lisa! I will share it with my friends right now!
-Donna
Hi Donna, that is hard to do! I do stay mostly on Twitter and Facebook and the other networks when I have time during the week like Pinterest, Google+, Instagram and a few networks. I am going to try a weekkly schedule to start, monthly would be too hard for me at this point and I’m afraid of losing creativity being so scheduled out. You are so disciplined – I truly admire that Donna! Thanks for taking the time to come by and comment. I hope you have a great and productive rest of the week!
Hi Lisa,
I’m totally switching things up social wise and commenting wise. Each day will be a different task for me. 1 day, blog commenting, 1 day, social, 1 day, writing articles for certain clients and I’ll spend 1 day – and some of a few others – publishing my mega long, insightful blog post of the week. I had that sneaking feeling that to get things done I was rushing from 1 task to the next instead of giving each task its fair time.
I may tweak as I go along – and will always check my email daily – but publishing blog posts, or at least a really in depth one – and commenting on blogs are most important actions to me so I’ll likely do 2 days of networking. I also firmly believe I need to take 1-2 days off on the weekends. Time to enjoy paradise a bit more, and time to detach from work to work even more effectively when I sit behind my laptop.
I vibe with your tips. Working off a schedule is a cool way to add order to your mind as it detaches you from outcomes, and from checking updates as they flow in, as I’ve done the same thing in the past and it leads in a bad direction. Thanks for sharing.
Ryan
Hi Ryan, I like that and it makes one not get bored too 🙂 That’s how I feel most days Ryan, that I am rushing to get things done to get to the other things that need to be done, ironic isn’t it? I hope to use this schedule as a guide going forward.
I think we all need a day or two to take off and recharge our batteries. It makes us think, produce much better and creatively.
Thanks for coming by Ryan and sharing your insights. I really appreciate it. I hope you have a great rest of the week there!
Hi Lisa,
Great post and infographic.
It’s funny, as I was reading that list of 8, I was thinking to myself, I spend alot of time on commenting … and sure enough, that was one of the reasons.
My problem with comments is that I try to leave alot of good comments on blogs I frequent quite often and then I also want to try to build new relationships with other influencers. SO I find that takes up alot of my time.
Producing content is a major one as you said, but I have a couple of posts in the “bank” as you said, plus I have a large amount of drafts there.
Really great post here again, Lisa.
Hope you have an awesome weekend.
– Andrew
Hi Andrew, interesting I tend to use social more than commenting – not that’s it rights, but sometimes a little easier when you have little bites of time to do it. That’s a good reason that you do though Andrew. I have got to do posts in little bites too or it will be another 2 weeks in between. I really like to post at least 1x per week if not twice. I hope your weekend is going well and mine has been. Thanks for coming by!
Hey Lisa,
So if I cut back on the time I spend on social media as described here then I might never get anything done. Connecting with others is how I get their attention and stay on their radar. Does it work? Well of course it does or I wouldn’t be doing it. LOL!!!
When I read this I was thinking of wasting time like hanging around and chatting with everyone instead of working. Work to me still consists of making those connections, sharing our content and others, commenting on other blogs, writing our posts, etc. I think we need to schedule our time accordingly and only do the tasks that benefit us. If they don’t then stop doing them.
We do need tools to help with this and things can be automated to help us “save time” but in that way at least.
Hope you’re doing well girl, we’ve missed you. Enjoy your week and make it a great one.
~Adrienne
Hey Lisa,
This was a great post. I was on the Time Management frenzy for a couple of weeks. Why? Because i don’t have a lot of time myself LOL… but i figured out how to squeeze in some time to do what’s necessary to create great content, check analytics, reply to post, etc… But I do have to “squeeze” in those time.
There are so many tools I want to try out to leverage time and get more out of marketing that i haven’t put in a lot of time to put them to the test. Now I want to try Bundle Post LOL… Well Tuesday I have off besides the weekend and this will give me some time to check out the tools and put them into good use!
Thanks for sharing this Time Management Infograph! I can definitely use some of the ideas as well as many others! Take Care Lisa!
Hi Lisa,
I don’t think that unfollowing the people who don’t follow you on Twitter saves you time 😉 Not saying not to do it, I do it, but this activity shouldn’t be mentioned as a saving time one.
On the other hand, saving time for the sake of saving time isn’t a real business goal. Stop any activity and you’ll save time. This isn’t a solution, is it?
In my opinion, the right way to save time isn’t by diminishing the time you spend on activities A or B (for example, following only 2 or x people per day). That’s a wrong approach. Here’s my solution to saving time:
1) Stop for the moment any activity
2) Analyze what works for you and what doesn’t work
3) If something works, don’t try to save the time you spend with it. The time allocated for that activity should be increased, not decreased.
4) If something doesn’t work, stop it or change something. Diminish the time you spend on activities that don’t work until you make them work. (To make them work, change something!)
5) Use the time you saved on 4 above and increase the time you spend on activities that work.
Adrian
P.S. The figures from the infographic are both funny and pointless. Share 2 articles on Facebook, bla bla. Really? Exactly 2 articles is the magic number? I thought it’s three and a half 😉 What if Facebook doesn’t work anymore for me? Shall I keep sharing 2 articles per day like an idiot? (“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – AE) Or what if FB works better and better? Shall I keep sharing 2 articles because sharing more will get me more and that’s bad? 🙂
Hi Lisa,
I love this post! You’re right. I get so lost blog hopping that other things on my to-do list get pushed back and before you know it I’m working late into the evening. I don’t mind but I could use that time for other things. One thing I wrestle with is how many blogs to comment in a day. Not sure what is a good number. I have a huge list and don’t make it to everyone in a day. Especially when I start running around. What’s your number?
I remember Robert Caruso and Bundle Post. I haven’t engaged with him since I was tweeting from WFHConcepts. I was just getting started when I found out about BP. Now I think it might come in handy :).
I like the schedule in this infographic. It looks like what is done in a week’s time here I’m doing on a daily basis, except for checking Google analytics. 😉 I do that at the end of the week. If I could do this, I could see myself having extra time for other things.
Thanks for sharing this with us LIsa! As always you shared some great stuff here! Hope you’re having a great day and week!
See you in the socialverse :).
Hi Corina, thanks for coming by! My number has changed over time, I’d like to say 5-10 but lately it’s been 0-2. (sad…) It really depends too on what your schedule allows, if you are blogging full time or if you work full time and blog part time. If I don’t have time to comment I at least share posts along the way. Robert is awesome and I can’t wait to try Bundle Post and write more on it. It sounds like a great program he has there for saving time with social media marketing. I hope you don’t work too late tonight Corina. I’m enjoying life more outside the computer 🙂 See you back there in the socialverse today …
Great post Lisa and glad to see back in the game!
I use Bufferapp and Hootsuite to help share and manage my content along with others. Lately, I’ve also been prescheduling posts on my FB fan pages. It really does help a lot. I like to reply to my comments as I get them but that doesn’t always work so I strive to reply in the same day. I think if you let it go longer than a day, your commenter may scratch you off their map.
Gladly passing this one along! Happy Voters Day!
Thanks Brenda, it’s been a few weeks with my sciatica making it hard to sit for long and type at all. I would agree with you on letting replies go more than 1 day. It’s such an instant society now, people want answers NOW or yesterday! I can’t wait to try BundlePost, I’ve heard so much about it. Will keep you posted. I hope the election went the way you wanted. Not great here in my state 🙁 Have a wonderful Wednesday my friend. (Where did your image go?)