We’ve all heard it. Social media robs you of your day. It’s a terrible thing to drain precious time that should have been spent in running and managing your business (and that includes a clever, strategic approach to social media) only to social media and nothing else.
We do believe social media is critical for your ecommerce business. It’s not to say that you’d spend days managing your social media accounts. There are ways to get what you want out of social media (assuming that you did think about what you want) and still spend proportionately more time managing your business. Here’s what you should do:
The precious 2-hour slot, per day
Make it a point to spend a minimum of two hours a day on social media — nothing less, nothing more. The first one-hour of your time spent on social media should go for scheduling or posting updates. We recommend that you use tools such as Buffer for Business or HootSuite to post and schedule your updates. The second hour (you can do this after the day’s work, perhaps), is for conversations, building your network (one fan or follower at a time), or for playing nice (such as thanking others for their Retweets, shares, comments, etc.).
Further, you can either work the actual 2-hour slot per day for social media or outsource it to smart social media managers who can do it on your behalf. That takes 2 hours off social media allowing you to spend it on your business.
Detach yourself from the “mention syndrome”
Ok, we just made that “mention syndrome” thing up. Checking out your mentions, followers, and likes is much like looking at the mirror. How many times do you look at yourself in the mirror? Most people do it twice, perhaps. On social media, most people develop a tendency to login and check how many followers you racked up, how many of your posts got good traction, and actual mentions, if any.
There are tools, reports, and analytics to help you with that. Your day doesn’t have to be spent on refreshing your social media channels all the time. Further, merely looking for mentions won’t get you business, does it?
Plan updates in advance but account for improvising
If it makes sense, use bulk scheduling or advanced posting to plan out your regular social updates. With social media, however, the constant influx of updates from other accounts you follow make it impossible to plan too far into the week or month. Hence, plan for updates in advance but make allowance to improvise your updates. Within the 2-hour slot mentioned above, find time to quickly share (but schedule them, unless it’s a comment or a response) content.
Focus on conversations, just control your participation
It’s tempting to see what happens when you strike a conversation with particularly popular influencers, companies, other professionals, customers, vendors, and many others who make up your social media networks. As the conversations roll, it almost feels like you should be “tuned in”. You don’t have to. The conversations stay there and you can always get back to them later.
Once you are past your 2-hour slot, no more conversations. Control your participation in any of those numerous conversations you’d start and manage. A delay of 24 hours is fine for most people. So, you can always get back to these conversations in your next 2-hour window.
Time is money. It’s clichéd but we know that it still is money. How do you manage your social presence? Could you share a few tips with us?
Img Credits: Darren TunniCliff on Flickr