We found out in our research that people spend around 30 minutes on a social platform when scheduling their content. If you are spending around 30 minutes on each social platform to schedule posts you are probably spending around 3 hours a day, which ends up being around 15 hours a week. Can you believe that? In two weeks that is almost 30 hours. I want to share with you social media best practices that'll save you time. Know Where Your Time Is Going? (30 minutes) 1. What all do you do throughout the day? Throughout the day write down what you do below. If you want to be exact, time yourself. 2. How much time did you spend doing different projects throughout the day? 8 am: 9 am: 10 am: 11 am: 12 pm: 1 pm: 2 pm: 3 pm:
4 pm: 5 pm: 6 pm: 3. Where can you cut back and where can you better use that time? Schedule In Bulk (1 hour) 1. What time would work best for you to schedule your social media? (Pick a time in the AM or PM that works best for you.) 2. Which social media platforms do you want to schedule? 3. Sit down for an hour and schedule your social media out for 2 weeks. (Whether that is in Buzzsumo, Hootsuite, or in CoSchedule) Start by scheduling your most recent posts. Then schedule out your top performing posts. You can find this out in Google Analytics or inside CoSchedule. To Find Out Your Top Posts In Google Analytics: Go to the left hand bar and scroll down, click on "Behavior". Then click "Site Content" and then finally "All Pages". Then you will see your best-performing blog posts. Schedule and share those. Using CoSchedule to find your top posts: Click on the "top posts" symbol on the orange sidebar on the left. Those are your top posts. Click on the post to schedule them. Don't Overdo Yourself With Social. (30 minutes) Choose two social media platforms to focus on: 1. Where is your audience the most?
2. What is your goal for that social platform? Bonus tip: If you are on more than 2 social platforms, also schedule consistent posts on the other platforms, just so engagement doesn't die on those platforms. Create A Grab File Of Evergreen Ideas (30 minutes or whenever you find inspiration.) 1. What kinds of things do you want to put in your grab file? 2. Which hashtags do you use the most? (Also, write down hashtags that you want to use when you find them.) Great places to find hashtags: Hashtagify, Trendsmap, and if you use Instagram, check out the Instagram blog for the Weekend Hashtag Project and also for hints on what's hot.
3. Write out a ton of social media posts and save them in your grab file. Play around with different messaging. How To Make Your Own Grab File For Best Social Media Practices: 1. Create a new Google Doc file, or Evernote Note, or stand-alone content in your CoSchedule calendar. 2. Put graphics that you want to share in there along with text for new social messages. 3. Capture hashtags and @ signs that you want to remember to share at a later time. Do These Things To Automatically Improve Your Credibility On Social Media (15 Minutes) When scheduling your social media for the week, make sure that you do things that will automatically improve your credibility with your audience. You don't want to share things or do things that make you seem less professional. Because people take things so seriously, so you want to make sure you do your best to show the right image of your brand or company. 1. Use grammar and spelling that meets your standard of professionalism - Especially if you are a company. What Is Your Standard Of Professionalism? Get together with your team and discuss these questions: What is our voice? Is it okay to use colloquialisms? Can we use smiley faces and exclamation marks? What else meets our standard of professionalism when it comes to spelling and grammar? After you've discussed this with your team, you'll know what the standard is. Or if you have an editor, speak with them and ask them. Any step that you take to make the user experience better for your readers will only make them love you more. 2. Stay away from Negativity and Accidently Insulting Your Audience - The thing about social is that it will always be around. Dan Zarrella said, "Negative remarks include things like sadness, aggression, negative emotions and feelings, and morbid comments." and then he also said, "If you want more followers, cheer up!" Ways to stay away from Negativity: Highlight a desirable behavior. Share kind messages that lead to happy outcomes. 3. Say No To Spam - Don't share posts continually. The Number 1 Step To Not Spamming People: Figure out your optimal posting frequency. (For us that is: 15 Tweets per day, 1 Facebook post a day (2 posts per day if your audience is more than 10,000 friends), 2 Google+ posts every weekday, and 4 LinkedIn posts a week, and 9 Pinterest pins a day! That is what works best for us.)
Know When Your Followers Are On And What They Like (1 hour) Find Out When Your Social Media Audience Is On I performed a test on our CoSchedule Facebook page. I chose four different things I wanted to test across a four week period. I only tested one thing a week. And if it performed well, I continued doing it. If it didn't perform well, I dropped it. Now, I did this on Facebook, but you can also do this on the other social media platforms. Here is an example of what I did: Week 1: (Message times) Week 2: (Message lengths) Week 3: (Type of messages) Week 4: (Share influencers) Now... it's your turn. Pick out the tests you want to try... Only focus on testing one thing a week. If it performs well, continue doing it. If not, drop it. Week 1: Week 2: Week 3: Week 4: Pro Tip: One thing I found from the Facebook Optimization testing was that posting one hour before our peak time was more successful than posting at the peak time. Think About This While Posting To Social Media (15 minutes) Be Human What can you do to show the humanity behind your business or blog?
Curate Content Like A Pro (30 mins or whenever) What do you want to curate? There are many different ways to find good content to curate on social. Here are a few that I've found to be quite helpful: 1. Pocket If you have trouble finding things to share on social media spend a little time every day looking for more content like when you read blogs at night. Use pocket to save them for later. Then just hop in there and schedule them. 2. ContentGems This is a great content discovery website. You can put in what topics interest you and then you'll get email updates with blog posts and information regarding those interests and topics. 3. Bloglovin Bloglovin is a great app that will send you notifications when your favorite blogs publish new content. It does half the work for you. You'll always have fresh, new content coming your way. 4. CoSchedule Chrome Extension The CoChedule Chrome Extension works so that you can press it and schedule to share anything that you find that your audience might enjoy right on the spot. 5. Evernote Clipper The Evernote clipper is another great way to store your ideas or posts that you find that you might like to share later. Works great as a grab file. Share Your Content With Compelling Messaging (15 mins) Why not kill two birds with one stone. Besides, even though you don't want to spend all your extra time on social media, it still helps to share a call to action or a landing page. Tell your audience what to do. Especially if there is a benefit for them doing it. How To Write A Strong CTA: 1. What kind of messages do you usually click on when you are on social media? 2. Why do you click on them? Is there something too good to pass? 3. How can you do this too?
Your Social Media Best Practices Are 4.5 hours in 2 weeks spent on social media best practices. That means that you've saved around 25.5 hours in two weeks. When you are ready to use your social media best practices and write amazing blog posts sign up for your 14-day free trail of CoSchedule.
The marketing calendar for everything. CoSchedule is the easiest-to-use editorial calendar around, and includes a robust layer of social sharing functionality that makes it a no-brainer for me and my team. Jay Bear, Founder of Convince and Convert Michael Hyatt Author Jay Bear Convince & Convert Nathan Alder RiverScene Latest Features Introducing the New Headline Analyzer! NEW Feature! The Headline Analyzer is now built right into your CoSchedule calendar! Reach more of your audience, increase social shares, and influence clickthroughs with the new Headline Analyzer. CoSchedule loves integrations... Learn more at coschedule.com