As social media continues to grow at an exhilarating pace, it can become challenging for marketers to balance the time-consuming demands of today’s social media marketing landscape with their career’s core focus. Whether you’re a full-time social media marketer whose main responsibility is to manage social media campaigns, a brand-side marketer who dabbles in social media throughout the day, or a consultant who networks with others in the industry, it’s important to streamline your social media initiatives as much as possible, in order to save time & stay focused. Here are 5 musts for boosting the efficiency of social media marketing in the workplace.
1. Check in at increments
“Check in” at periodic increments throughout the day, but don’t let it consume your day. It’s easy for a one minute check-in to become 10 minutes of reading Tweets & links. If you’re not a full-time social marketer, schedule time in the morning, at lunch, and at the end of the day to “check in” on your favorite social networks. And if you are a full-time social marketer, check in at hourly increments. When you need to knock out a larger scale project, tune out the social chatter – except for any key, “emergency-scale” tweets. Those other tweets & updates can wait. Really.
2. Schedule tweets in advance
If you’re sharing content that’s not time-sensitive – i.e. articles, ideas, or commentary, schedule your Tweets in advance with a tool like SocialOomph. You can schedule Tweets once a day (or once a week), and then check in at a few increments throughout the day to engage with your following.
3. Focus on the most important tweets
If you’re a brand-side or full-time social media marketer, stay on top the most important & relevant Tweets by monitoring key phrases with RSS feeds. Tools like NewsFire can notify you in real time when someone Tweets about your brand. Obviously, if you’re @Starbucks, you’ll want to refine brand Tweets even further, or use an online reputation tool like Trackur.
4. Segment your social media universe
Thought leaders, real-life friends, and colleagues: there are many ways to segment your Twitter universe. By segmenting your list into different relationships, you can follow work or industry-related Twitter friends during working hours, and more “fun” Tweeps, like @aplusk & @theonion after hours. Twitter’s own list functionality & apps like Tweetdeck make it really easy to sort your relationships, and focus on the right ones at the right time.
5. Multi-task when you can, but don’t repeat updates
There are a lot of tools out there that can pull your Tweets and launch them to other networks. While those seem helpful on the surface, you have to remember your audience & the type of content & frequency that works on each network. While short, quick 140-character updates are welcome on Twitter, your Facebook fans can grow tired of those updates quickly, and would prefer less frequent updates of rich content, such as videos, contests, and photos. So instead of repeating the same exact updates on your different social networks, use a tool like HootSuite to launch network-specific updates from one master account.
While all the growth & potential surrounding social media marketing is certainly exciting, it can become a bottomless pit of wasted time. But by staying focused on the right audience and streamlining as much as possible, you can be sure ALL of your marketing initiatives get the love they deserve.
Megan Leap is Marketing Manager at ion interactive, a leading provider of advanced landing page software. As Marketing Manager, Megan manages search, email, webinar, and social media campaigns. She has extensive experience in conversion rate optimization and social media marketing, and when not championing high-ROI online marketing strategies, can be found running marathons across the U.S. She is also a frequent contributor to the Post-Click Marketing Blog. Follow Megan on Twitter: @MeganLeap.
