Q. What’s the best use of your time when using social media for business?
This question comes up frequently because time is of the essence. No one wants to waste time, it is a precious commodity and the very thing you wish you had more of.
One of the top objections I hear from business owners when asked about using social media for their business is that they do not have time to be online 24/7. Honestly, I don’t either and it’s where I do business every day, but that does not require me to sitting at my desk or on my mobile device around the clock. There are plenty of tools you can use to build your brand awareness and a thriving online community while giving you the freedom to live your life. The key is to use your time online with intention and that takes planning. Planning provides clarity and direction which will move toward marked results for your efforts.
Best Practices for 20 Minutes
A. If I only had twenty minutes to use social media per day strictly for business, I would do the following:
6 minutes: Browsing and engaging. Much like you do for personal use, put on your business hat and start browsing. What’s interesting, what’s new, what catches your eye. Take time to comment and share as your business. This is part of building your brand awareness and online presence.
5 minutes: Monitoring. Don’t get caught up on the terminology here, it simply means to use a tool to listen to what is being said across the internet. One of my favorite “listening” tools is HootSuite because you can use it behind the scenes without any bells and whistles alerting others that you are online. You can add a stream, select a keyword(s) and the account you want to monitor; from here you can see what is being said about the keyword on the platform you selected. This great for keeping a pulse on a trending topic or things of interest around a specific product or service you offer.
3 minutes: Posting live. This is a great opportunity to share posts from others or draw from your own content pool. Post while you are actually online. No tools required, just posts the content right from your computer or mobile device.
3 minutes: Analyzing data. Three minutes is not a lot of time so use it wisely. Make note of simple things like a specific post that you notice has more engagement than usual. If you see something that is working well, do more of that. Based on your objective, you could analyze your number of fans, a percentage of increase, engagement figures, or check on competitors.
3 minutes: Scheduling posts. You don’t have a lot of time, but when you know your audience, your topic or theme, and your overall objective, you can post with intention giving your audience what they want and need from you.
What is the Best Use of Your Time on Social Media?
The best use of your time will vary from person to person and the way you manage your business will change as your business grows. You may discover one day the time has come for you to hire someone for your social media business needs. My question for you today is as a business owner if you had just twenty minutes a day to devote to social media, what would you do?
