Social Media Made Easy
Are you doing it all wrong?
Do you feel that social media is the one thing that you hate?
You spend so much time on it you get nothing else done?
You don’t get much engagement or activity from it?
It is the one thing that feels like it is holding you back from moving forward?
If you answer yes to any of the above then you need to re-think how you are doing it!
Take yourself off to a quiet corner with your notebook and have a serious think before answering these questions.
How much time do you spend on social media per day?
Do you get lost scrolling and watching silly videos?
Do you spend time comparing yourself to others, looking at their likes, shares and friends numbers?
Are you frustrated trying to think of new content and posting for the sake of posting.
STOP!!!!!!!
The first thing you need to do is take a step back and take a deep breath.
Take that note book and find another quiet space and really think about what you want from your social media.
What platforms are you using?
What is your objective?
Work out when you want to post and where.
There are other ways you can prepare and help you maximise your time and efforts and bring you back results…..
If you don’t have any kind of strategy in place you are never going to get anywhere……trust me, I have been there!
Once you know what you want to talk about for the coming week, month, year…..okay you don’t need to dive that far ahead, but, why not!
Start by taking next week as your starting point.
Think about what you want to talk about that week.
Set out a daily plan.
If you write blogs, write a blog post on your weekly chosen subject. Then from that blog post you have so much content ready to go!
Better still, do a live and take your content and repurpose it from there!
Now personally, I am not one for scheduling to certain platforms as the algorithms don’t like it.
However, do count me in for sharing the same content to different platforms.
Repurpose all the way!
Now before we go any further let me go deeper with that one!
Yes share the same content over all the platforms (if you use them, obvs.) BUT DO NOT simply schedule one post does all kind of post! What works on Instagram will not work of Facebook and will definitely not work on Twitter ~ you get the picture.
You need to give each platform the personality it deserves. It really does not take as long as you think.
For example, Facebook and Linkedin do not like you using a third party software to schedule posts and penalise you for doing so, just like they hate you adding a link into the main body of your post, so you add it into the comments and this will get you better results in terms of being seen and getting engagement.
However, on Twitter, you can schedule and add links and all is good.
Once you have focused on your content for the week you only need to be on social for a short amount of time each day.
The key to getting yourself noticed and getting the interaction is to be engaging on all the platforms that you use — that after all is the whole idea of being on ‘social media’.
If you continue to post and don’t interact with your followers they will soon realise this and fall away.
It might sound like too much but trust me, once you get this under control you will be amazed how much more time you have on your hands.
HOW TO GET ORGANISED
Now, it is easy to write down how to do something but the magic happens when you actually implement the strategy.
Where do you begin?
I would suggest beginning with cleaning up your Facebook profile, by that I mean get rid of all the groups and pages that don’t work for you. Just unfollow, delete or simply leave. Don’t worry about offending anybody, the truth is, they probably won’t even notice!
If they are not serving you in any way get rid! Gone.
That takes away the wasted time of their content showing up in your feed and you will be amazed and what happens to what you see on a daily basis now you have eliminated the stuff you don’t need.
After all, you want the good stuff in your feed, don’t you!
Next, it is time to cleanse your friend’s list! Yup! You can do it.
You don’t have to unfriend everyone, what you can do is click that unfollow button, you are still connected, it is simply that their stuff won’t clog up your feed. Again that frees up your profile to show you the good bits.
However, if there are people who trigger you in any way, competitors, coaches, whoever, simply delete them! DO IT! That saves you the time on reading their posts and then you spending time getting annoyed with them.
Can you see how already you are saving so much time!
Do this then rinse and repeat with your other social media platforms.
Now you are all cleaned up let’s get down to the nitty-gritty stuff.
GET TO KNOW YOUR PLATFORMS PERSONALITY
What I mean by this is…….. each social media platform works in a different way and what you need to remember is that they all have different audiences and will serve you differently.
Facebook: You have your personal profile, business page, groups etc and you need to decide where you want to be seen and operate from the most. Think about what is working for you — you do not need to have them all.
Instagram: You have your images and videos, reels and that platform takes on a whole new performance and look. You grow your audience but have to post is a different way.
Twitter: Well, for those of you who know me, this is the one! ;) Twitter is your 24/7 worldwide live audience at your fingertips. You can schedule, add links, tweets come from your content already created or spur of the moment. The beauty of this platform, that many don’t realise, you have that live audience with you at all times. You can post pics, memes, video, voice tweets, it is easy to share outside content and so easy to keep an eye on our favourites when you know how. You can get direct access to influencers and PR….okay, I will stop now! I am a little bias with this one!
You get the picture with what I am saying, yeah?
If you write blogs, just think, you have your blog — it is published — you then break that blog down into many pieces of content for posting on the other platforms — this is where you social media strategy comes into play. Copy and paste parts of it into a FB post — remember although FB does penalise you for using a third part to schedule, they have their own inbuilt schedule tool! #justsaying
You can schedule your tweets into Twitter and attach it to the relevant hashtag.
You post your pics to Instagram and again copy and paste the block of content you want to use not forgetting the Insta hashtags.
So long a you are adding drops of your personality to the posts you will fly.
Don’t forget you can also transfer your blog post into an article on LinkedIn etc., just remember to say where the original post was put up so Google will look kindly at you.
You can even translate your blog into an email for your list!
Not everyone who follows you is with you on every platform…..remember to look at the bigger picture and remember there will be others watching you all over, who might not follow you yet but will be watching.
The best way to do this is to schedule time in our weekly diary for ‘social media’ focus and don’t get distracted.
The biggest piece of advice I can give you is be consistent and remember to engage!
Schedule time for you to be on social for that very purpose. Allow yourself some scrolling time — STICK TO IT and time yourself!
Once you have practised this, over time it will become second nature and it becomes a habit.
If you have a few days where you don’t post, nobody will die and I hate to tell you, but, nobody will notice! :)
The secret really is ditch the crap and concentrate. Focus and engage.
I will be taking more about how to plan out the perfect week later and that includes the social media aspect too.
If you would like to hear more from me then please do sign up here to my regular emails (no too regular, promise.) and as a thank you, you will receive my 5 Days of Twitter Tips direct to your inbox.
It has taken me less than an hour to write this blog post and it has given me a ton of content to post across social media.
This is just the tip of the iceberg here with regards to your soical media.
Pick a platform and really get to understand it then move on to the next.
I am not one for telling you to put all your eggs into one basket. It is so easy to lose your audience overnight through no fault of your own! Make sure you are covered in case of that scenario.
Spread your audience so you are safe.
I will be developing some ideas for you to help posting and make your social strategy easier for you, I would love you to follow me (social links below) to find out more.
Have a great day folks.
Keep enjoying what you do.
Chat soon.
Keep safe.
Gwen 😁💜🤪
I would love you to join me on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram & LinkedIn
