We all have 24 hours in the day. It’s not the amount of time you have it’s what you do with it. You make time. Rule your day or your day will rule you.
Heard these or similar before?
Doesn’t make you feel any better when you are running like a headless chook wrangling business, a life, a partner, kids, finances, other appointments…. Let alone do ANYTHING for yourself.
Well, I am here to give you some good…… and bad news.
I will hit you with the bad news first, it is just a nicer thing to do.
I cannot create more time for you, I have no golden egg, no magic wand, no silver bullet to create more time for you to spend on your socials. YOU can be the only one who does that, my friend.
But I CAN give you some super time-saving tips on how to keep as up to date, on top of and rocking the social media scene business style as possible.
It’s kind of like a 10 step process, but take the bits out you need. You may be doing some of this already, actually I HOPE you are doing some of this already. Then adding in what is missing will be like a lovely cherry on top of your social media cream.
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DO YOUR BUSINESS PLAN FIRST
Failure to plan is planning to fail. Your business needs a plan! You cannot even begin to plan your socials without planning your business first. What are your 3, 6 and 12-month goals? What have you got coming up in your business you need to plan for? AKA Holidays, new product or service releases, a regular down season or a regular busy season. Only you can know these answers.
But one thing is for you. If you do not know where your business is headed, what your business plan is and what your business objectives are then you cannot plan your socials. One does not come without the other.
2. THEN PLAN YOUR SOCIAL STRATEGY
Before you plan your content, plan your strategy. This does not need to be a huge technological, intricate strategy. What it does need to be is functional and help you navigate the ebbs and flows of your business.
EG. If you have a time of year (Mothers Day for a product based business OR a month you know you have a full book of clients) then your social strategy may not be for new client acquisition, it may need to be for brand awareness. If you cannot sell or book MORE in that time then you don’t need more leads for right now, but you can be keeping your brand alive to those that already follow you. You can be gathering new prospects/clients for after this period.
EG. You are launching a new product or service on a certain date. Then you know you need to set some space in your content plan to launch that BEFORE the launch date. Build momentum and maximise this.
3. THEN PLAN YOUR CONTENT
I recommend doing a monthly overview of your content. Most people would have a calendar of what is going on in their business for the coming month (if not please refer to Step 1). Each month take some time to plan the month in advance. You don’t need to schedule a months worth of content but plan for what sort of content needs to go out that month. EG. A new release launch sequence. A blog. An educational series of posts. Basically put your big rocks in the social media jar first! (You know the analogy, put your big rocks in first then the smaller rocks will fit around them)
Basically what you are doing here is:
Planning your strategic ‘next steps’ content which is content designed to take people to the next step in doing business with you (reading a blog, heading to an info page, attending a webinar, download a freebie).
You are also planning your structured sales posts designed to lead people to take immediate action to do business with you. (Offers, specials, register for a course, purchase a product)
Once you have your must-do’s based on your business plan and social strategy, THEN add in the other content ‘rocks’. Some personal branding content, some quotes, some add value posts, some entertaining posts…… AKA your engagement content that will attract people.
Doing this means your content will always have a purpose. It is far better to have 5 posts a week with a real strategic purpose than just posting randomly. Again planning to succeed!
4. THEN CREATE YOUR CONTENT
Once you have the framework it is all about creating the content.
Set aside time to write the blogs, source the images (Unsplash is my fave for stock images or make time to take your own), create the images (use apps like Canva), edit the images (Lightroom or Snapseed are good here), write the captions (check out my Conquer Your Captions for help on this!), organise your hashtags (check out my blog on tags HERE), create your events or offers in your social platforms.
I find this is where most people spend there time. On content CREATION. If this is where you are going missing in your time warp then trust me. Take the time to do steps 1-3 and this step will be SOOOO much easier.
Check out my 21 Day Content Queen Challenge for more tips on creating content!
5. SCHEDULE OR BATCH YOUR CONTENT
Now you have your content plan and it’s all created all you have to do is post the damn shit!
You can do this by scheduling your content or batching it (read my blog on this HERE)
If you would rather leave room for spontaneity in your posts then batch your content so it is ready to go.
You can do this simply by creating some folders on your PC with it all ready to go so it’s a matter of cut and paste, then you can push some of it out or bring it forward if you need to. I would advise that you have at least a paper version of a content planner to refer to somewhere! Paper or electronic!
OR if you are using Instagram you can use an app to batch the content just do not schedule to auto-post. This is my personal preference and works particularly well for Gram lovers. It means your content is all ready to go and you can change the date in need. So you would effectively be using a scheduling app but select to NOT auto post so you get a push through notification. (My personal fave is Planoly). Then edit as you need.
This is a little harder for FaceSpace as scheduling apps will direct post. However some platforms will allow a post approval process so content not approved will not get posted, allowing edits. (The likes of Loomly and Buffer will do this) But this means that you need a two-factor authorise to do this.
If you are happy to just schedule away, I would highly recommend setting up some sort of reminder to review your weeks posts before they go out so they are still applicable.
6. CHECK YOUR ANALYTICS
If your content is not working or you feel you could be improving then some of the answers can be found in your analytics. Did you post at the right time of day? What was your engagement rate? How were your captions? Was your imagery on point? Compare your posts and review what works and what doesn’t.
My fave insights for this on Facebook are:
Posts & People Insights. Head to your Insights tab then on the left Posts and People. These will tell you your engagement rate on your recent posts (use the drop-down arrow next to Reactions, Comments & Shares to find this), allows you to follow up to 5 pages so get stalking others who are successful! and a breakdown of your followers, including when they are online.
On Insta:
Head to Insights, Content then See All and it will have your posts in chronologically descending order in terms of the success of that search parameter. Toggle to find engagement and change the setting from 1 year to 30 days.
Some of the questions to ask:
- Am I attracting my dream client?
- What content does my audience like?
- How can I scale that?
- What content could be improved and how?
- What content do I need to ditch?
7. REPURPOSE YOUR CONTENT
This is a big one! Make your content work for you, rather than continue to create more content on every channel.
For eg., You create a blog on a topic, re-purpose that into smaller chunks that can be social media posts, Instagram Stories or Facebook LIVE’s. In each piece of content refer back to your blog. This not only gives you MORE social content but it directs more traffic to your blog/website! Winner winner.
And don’t be afraid to use something from a year ago if it is still valuable. A good old from the vault series can be a MASSIVE time saver.
8. HAVE A FUNNEL THAT WORKS
Where are you sending people once they decide they want to know more or better yet buy from you?
There is always (particularly for service-based business) be an element of you just need to speak to people, network and talk to them before they will book you or enter your funnel.
BUT for those that will happily land in an automated funnel make sure you have one for them!
Whether it be as simple as adding the Send Message button to your social posts so they are prompted to get into a Messenger chat with you. (This is super powerful by the way, messenger is one of the most versatile contact platforms around!)
OR ensuring your buttons on your Facebook page is optimised to the right platform (online store, booking button, website, call now, email)
OR making sure your Instagram link is optimised
OR a more complex funnel with landing pages, email sequences and registration platforms
Doesn’t matter just make it easy to use, easy to navigate and easy to access for your audience. We are a lazy bunch of people these days!
Have your website plastered everywhere, have your landing page links on applicable posts, link your online store to Facebook…… whatever will create an easier system to convert your audience.
BONUS POINTS to setting up automations that take TIME out of your day. But that is another blog for another day!
9. BE LIKE NIKE – JUST DO IT!
I find that alot of the time the biggest block behind lack of content creation mojo is actually personal. Excuses like time are put there because they seem to be a better alternative to saying ‘I don’t want people to hate my stuff’ or ‘What if no-one likes me’ or ‘I’m not as good as this person doing the same thing’
So girl, get out of your own head and into your heart.
Reframe those negative shit speak comments that put yourself down and think of it like this.
Why should you keep your shit to yourself?
Who are you doing a disservice to not produce great content and help your audience?
You are a passionate expert that knows EVERYTHING about what you do, your audience NEED you and you are letting yourself get in the way of helping them.
So what if a post tanks? So what if someone doesn’t like it? So what if it’s not perfect?
The only way to improve is to DO IT and the only way to not care about what others think is to DO IT.
Believe in yourself. As L’Oreal famously said ‘Because Your Worth It’
10. DO MARKET RESEARCH
The best way to have your best foot forward is to know what your audience WANT before you produce it. That way you can give them what they want, this makes converting your audience into clients a crapload easier.
How do you do this?
OMG so many ways. Do a survey and send it to your email list, ask questions inviting people to comment (also good for engagement!), do a Facebook poll, ask questions on your IG Stories, call up 5 people who are in your ideal client profile and ask them.
If you do this regularly and well, then when you go back to step one and repeat this process you will already be on the front foot.
This doesn’t just help socials it also helps you ensure your products, services, offers, sales, content, branding….. EVERYTHING is about what your ideal client wants.
A metric crapload easier than going at it blindly.
So there you have it!
10 ways you can create more time and make your social posting meaningful, purposeful and help you attract, grow and convert your audience to paying clients.
These helpful tricks are what those in The Social Superstar Formula get walked through in MUCH more detail through a structured 12 week one on one coaching programme, PLUS all the extras like Facebook Ads, Giveaways, Email Marketing, SEO, Content Creation, Page Optimisation and so much more.
So if you are still a bit stumped for how to make all this social STUFF work. Check it out! Launches Feb 4th and we still have a couple of spots left.
Get in quick!
Until then
Laters
Stacey out x
![Ok before you shoot the [unpopular] messenger, hear me out.
Working on your mindset, limiting beliefs and trauma are all things you should do, and they WILL make you a better human.
Which in turn is a better version of yourself that can show up for your business.
BUT a business problem, cannot 100% be solved with a mindset solution.
You need BOTH a good mindset and a good strategy.
For example: You're not making enough money in your business.
Yes, you need a good money mindset and positive money behaviours.
But you also need the right skills to determine where the leak is occurring.
❓ Is it a lack of leads? Then you need to look at your acquisition funnel to acquire new leads.
❓ Is it low conversion rates? Then you need to look at your conversion process and find the gap there.
❓ Is it an expenditure problem? Perhaps you didn't need to join those 5 masterminds at 5k a pop.
Or maybe it's something else entirely, your offer, you pricing or your messaging to name a few.
These issues cannot be solved by saying MORE affirmations and listening to MORE podcasts, they require analysis and strategy.
This is [obviously] a very nuanced topic, one I can't delve into in ONE post, so I am going to go deeper on this in next weeks pod.
So you can have your cake 🎂 and eat it too. 😋
[And by cake I mean a thriving business with a killer strategy while still working on your personal growth too]](https://thesocialhubau.com/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)
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