Social Media & Time Management: How To Strike A Balance

The social media landscape has changed dramatically over the last few years, but one thing remains certain – if your brand or business doesn’t have a social media presence, you’re trailing behind your competitors.

Searching for companies and products through sites like Facebook and Twitter is becoming increasingly common, so you need to make sure your business is in the mix, while still maintaining a high level of face-to-face contact throughout the rest of your business. Surprisingly, small businesses are still lagging behind with their social media profiles, with only 40% actively engaging online.

The key to social media success within business is to balance your time accordingly. To help you determine how frequently you should be posting, pinning and tweeting, use the following tried-and-tested tactics.

Analyse Your Customers

If you have yet to dip your toe in the world of social media, your first step should be to assess and understand what networks and platforms your customer is using. Age, location and gender all have an impact on how people use social media, and it’s important to cater to the needs of your target audience and valued customers.

For example, if your business is aimed at retired pensioners in their 70s, there is no point using specialist, single-media networking sites if your customers have only just wrapped their heads around Facebook and Google.

Maintaining social accounts takes a lot of time so it’s important to only use the tools that are right for your business. Start with a Twitter account and a Facebook page and only add to this if your business and industry sector warrants it.

Interaction

Interacting with your customers is the most important aspect of social media within business. Promotion is obviously high up on the list too, but to help your business grow, it’s vital that you respond to customer queries and treat people online the same way as you would if they were making a complaint or compliment to you in person.

Spreading yourself too thin on the social media front leaves you open to missing an important tweet or a complaint that could damage your reputation in the short term, and lose you money in the long term. Make interacting and engaging with your customers a top priority when working on social media and dedicate 60% of your time spent online engaging with customers.

Watch That Clock

Be careful not to get carried away with multiple social media platforms that won’t benefit your business. Sure, it can be fun to spend ten minutes pinning on Pinterest, but if you’re not careful, time could lapse and you’ll find yourself with a very pretty board but no new followers and, crucially, no new sales. Timetable social media into your calendar in the same way as you would for an important meeting or phone call, and limit your activity to around 30 to 60 minutes a day

Outsource

If you have the financial resources, you should consider hiring a dedicated Social Media Coordinator. If you can’t afford to pay someone full time, consider offering the role as a part time work experience position. Students and graduates could implement the skills they’ve learned to help to build your social media network, and in return you can offer them valuable experience and references. SocialMotus employes this technique successfully.

What tips and techniques do you use to monitor your time spent on social media sites?