We know that there are a few classic mistakes that businesses make on social media due to a lack of time:
- Adhoc posting
- Not enough posts
- Inconsistency across social platforms
- Lack of quality, it’s not always about quantity
- Posting at the wrong time
- No visual interest in posts
There is an easier way
Social media management tools and scheduling can help you to:
- Automate posts
- Plan ahead and schedule the best content and times for posts
- Manage several social networks from one place
- Have more than one person working on social media, teamwork made easy!
- Analyse and measure the outcomes
Getting started
What to post
Content should be:
- 80% engagement / brand image
- 20% promotional / sales content
Don’t fall into the trap of only posting promotional content. It can be an easy mistake to make when scheduling social media posts, when you are focused on sticking to branding guidelines and brand tone. All of a sudden your feed is nothing but a boring sales spiel, which is not going to encourage engagement.
Use the 5-3-2 rule to save time:
- 5 should be content from others (curated content)
- 3 should be content from the business (not all promotional)
- 2 should be personal status updates (or staff / people updates)
This takes the focus off you or your product and puts the audience at the centre of the conversation. This is critical to demonstrate the value that your organisation adds to a community of users or members.
Source: blog.bufferapp.com
When to post
According to Sprout Social the best time to post on Twitter is around midday and around 5pm. Thursday is the best day of the week for Twitter …
How often
Constant Contact recommends the following guide for how often to post:
- Facebook: 3-10 times per week
- Twitter: at least 5 times a day
- LinkedIn: 2-5 times per week
- Google+: 3-10 times per week
- Pinterest: 5-10 times per day
Scheduling Tools
Use a scheduling tool to:
- Save time
- Be consistent
- Target optimal times
- Plan
- Track
The infographic below from Post Planner is one of many that sum up the range of social media scheduling tools now available and their benefits.
business2one have used Buffer, Hootsuite and Sprout Social for various projects. We have found these tools are all relatively easy to use, with positives and negatives for each one.
Setting everything up at the beginning can be a big job. Our clients have benefited from our expertise to get started with social media setup, strategy, scheduling and content. Contact us if we can help you.
