5 Ways to Get More Results with Less Effort: Social Media
So you run some social media accounts because you feel like you should, and it’s a huge pain in your a**. Or you keep pushing the social post to the bottom of the priority list. Let’s talk about how you do more for your social media accounts with less effort.
1. Set your intentions (and know your customers + your metrics)
First and foremost, you’ll need to answer: why are you even on social media? Ok, I know everyone is on social media – but more specifically, who are you targeting through your accounts, what are you asking them to do, and what are you trying to accomplish? You could be on social for brand awareness, for customer engagement, lead generation.
Ask yourself an even deeper question: where does your social media fit into the traditional customer journey?
Education > Research > Justify > Evaluate > Purchase > Adopt > Belong > Advocate
If you’re like most brands, your social media serves to speak with customers on both ends of the customer journey. So, on one hand, you’re educating and helping customers research and learn about your brand through social. On the other hand, you’re creating a space where purchasers feel like they belong.
Whatever your purpose is will help define exactly which metrics will be the most important to track and focus building content around.
Here’s what metrics I would recommend focusing on for each of those two customer bases:
- Education and research stage = growth-based metrics (follower count, views, clicks)
- Belonging stage = engagement-based metrics (likes, comments, reposts, engagement rate)
To summarize, the “get more results with less effort” hack here is to pick which metrics to track and grow based on the reason why you’re on social media with regards to your customer journey.
2. Create a social media upkeep schedule
Seems basic, right? It’s easy to set up a schedule. The hardest part is actually following through. Here’s my recommendation: treat your social media tasks as month-long sprints.
- 1x per month: set your monthly social goals, based on metrics and brainstorm content pillars for the month
- 1x per week: collect your ideas, write and schedule your social posts
- 1x per day: spend 10 mins responding to comments, engaging, etc.
Make your life easier and use a posting and tracking app. There are numerous out there. Some of my favorites: Later and HubSpot.
Another tip: gamify your tasks! For example, try calculating how much time you spend on a certain kind of task or monthly activity, and try to beat your previous results.
3. Collect all your content ideas somewhere
It’s the first day of the month and you need an entire 30 days worth of content. You’ve hit a creativity brick wall or you’ve forgotten everything you’ve been planning to post. I’ve been there. Spend some time every week to collect content ideas. Put on your Google Alerts, scan the news, scroll your feed, look for trending keywords.
Then, write everything down somewhere for safekeeping, so you don’t lose them (I recommend Collect as a nice tool to help).
4. Make sure you’re utilizing the platform tools
It’s well known that social media algorithms typically push content to the top that uses their newest tools.
Make sure to take some time and ensure to review and understand all of a social platform’s tool offerings – and choose the ones that work for you. (i.e. LinkedIn Sales Navigator or Instagram’s DM templates).
5. Avoid the social media black hole
Scrolling, checking likes, commenting, tracking metrics after each post… the social media black hole. It’s a form of “fake work.”
Fake work is work that’s not explicitly aligned with the strategies and goals of what you want to accomplish (aka the metrics you defined in #1). Fake work thrives when needed results are not clearly and thoughtfully articulated, so if you need to go back to tip #1, then go back to tip #1.
Think about the time you spend daily engaging in social media activities. Is it too much or too little? Be honest and challenge the value of your activity. Is the effort you’re putting in outputting some value or creation toward your goals. The key here = honesty with yourself about how you’re spending time.
Have another way you do get results for social media accounts with less effort? Drop us a line!