Most people wing it, but managing social media profiles the right way is a challenge that requires a bit of organization. If you are struggling to get the results you want – greater visibility, more engagement, higher conversions – it may be time for a survival plan.
You need to take back control of your schedule for social media tasks by creating a daily action plan! Drive your social media; don’t let it drive you.
A few short years ago, the average person had five social media accounts and spent around 1 hour 40 minutes browsing these networks every day. This accounted for 28% of the total time spent on the internet according to the Global Web Index report.
Other reports suggest that marketers spend even more time on social media posting, engaging, and researching.
When you have a daily survival plan of exactly how to spend this time, you can be much more productive instead of wondering where the time went. Outlining the tasks that need to be done each day will help you organize in a much more intentional way so you get back more time to serve your customers, spend time with family, or sleep.
Create the plan for those activities you need to ensure get accomplished regularly, whether they’re spread out in a week or done all in one day.
Use the following tips to help you design your daily and weekly action plans. Don’t worry – this isn’t cookie cutter. Take the ideas then spin to make it your own, according to your personal calendar.
A Little Survival Plan Pre-Work…Are You On the Right Platforms?
For best results, some experts will tell you to sign up for every social media platform you can. When a new site like Snapchat comes along, they say you should be the first of your friends to sign up. The only problem is that each social media platform requires your presence daily if you want to see results.
So the first step to creating your plan is to evaluate if you’re on the right platforms. If you manage more than 1-2, your organized schedule is going to be even more critical.
Keep this in mind as you sign up for any new social networks. You should evaluate whether or not your target audience plays in that space and ask yourself – does it fit your business brand, personality, or goals. If not, stay away. Focus on the sites you already are connected to and plan for those.
Step 1 – Post Daily
When it comes to posting and updating your status on social media, consistency is key. The more you post, the more your customers and potential customers see you. When you update regularly, they come to expect it and they look out for you.
Decide how often you’d like to post and work it into your daily schedule. If you cater to followers who have 9-to-5 jobs, remember they may be more likely to interact in their off time such as early morning, lunch and after work. However, if your following consists more of stay-at-home moms, they may be busier during the day with kids and activities.
You’ll have to experiment with this and find tools to help you measure when you’re getting the most interaction with your social media posts.
Again, keep in mind that it’s the consistency that matters, not how many updates you make. In fact, sharing posts too frequently can lose you followers on some platforms. While a network like Twitter requires frequent updates so that you’re seen in the stream of posts, LinkedIn users might find all those updates annoying.
Buffer wrote a great blog on social media post frequency and shared a handy infographic. Their tips suggest the following:
- Twitter – 3 times per day, or more
- Facebook – 2 times per day, at most
- LinkedIn – 1 time per day
- Google+ – 3 times per day, at most
- Pinterest – 5x per day, or more
- Instagram – 1.5 times per day, or more
Step 2 – Reply to Your Comments
Replying to comments and questions from your followers should be priority. Never drop out of a conversation. Stay engaged with your audience and keep the interaction going every day.
This doesn’t mean you have to comment on every single reply with a lengthy paragraph. You can keep it brief and put thought into your response. When you don’t reply to people, it can look strange or too automated.
The last thing you want to do is disappear or offend someone because they think you’re ignoring them.
Step 3 – Grow Your Following
Once you have a steady fan base, you’ll need a strategy for continually getting new followers.
Work daily actions into your schedule that help you do this with intention and purpose. Set a goal for how many new followers you want to get per day or week. Then strategically look for awesome people to follow each day.
For example, my plan includes scanning Instagram for people using certain keywords and we follow at least 5 new people a day. As you follow more people, others follow you. This is fairly standard approach for all the major social networks including Twitter and LinkedIn.
Step 4 – Analyze Your Results
Monitoring of your social profiles should be done regularly. You don’t have to do this every day, but at least choose 1-2 days a week you will review your metrics.
This means not only checking your statistics to see if you’re reaching your goals, but also setting alerts so that you can see what people are saying about you. If negative comments appear, they need to be dealt with as soon as possible.
Survive and Thrive!
Social media isn’t something you set on autopilot and forget about. It takes daily maintenance to keep things going. But we all know things do happen that can occupy your day unexpectedly.
With your daily survival plan in place, you’ll know exactly what to get done when life gets in the way. A daily plan will help you stay visible, avoid binge posting (which can lose you followers fast), reduce your stress level and serve as a helpful guide when you need to hire or delegate to social media to someone else.
Take time to map your survival plan for social media so you can thrive and grow your business every day!
What daily social media survival plan activity is hardest for you to keep up with?
