Social Media is Drowning You

By Julia Bramble

So you’ve got a couple of social media profiles going – you’re growing an audience, you’re committed to making this work, to attracting the right people and growing a community and all those good things …

But when the rubber hits the road and your social media goals meet the cold light of day…

You may suddenly realise that the social media machine can gobble up content faster than a 15-year-old boy can make a pile of toast disappear!

If you’re not careful, you can end up spending all your time feeding the insatiable appetite of the social media content machine, leaving no time for all the other stu that needs you!

Eeek!

How can you sort this without reducing your social media activity to zilch?

Here are some real-life solutions that really do work:

1. Plan

It sounds very grand, but if you’ve thought ahead about what you want to share when (even if it’s only headline themes to start o with) then you’ll only have to do that thinking once – not every week when you’re wondering what on earth to say that Monday morning. And we all know that mental capacity is a nite source – just like time and energy!

2. Make the most of what you’ve already got

All businesses have masses more content than they realise. Doing a quick audit can reveal stacks of stu just waiting to be shared without you (or anyone else) having to create anything new. From reports to training presentations, marketing materials to website copy – it’s all reusable stuff.

And while you’re at it – why not get a bit creative and think out of the box? How about asking sta for their stories – or at least for 2 or 3 fun facts, or get the low-down from some of your suppliers. People love hearing about people!

3. Get your customers to do the hard work

While we’re at it, let’s think about asking customers to help out too! Asking them to send in photos or videos – either just for a mention or for a contest, will supply you with a mountain of goodness to share down the line. (In posh marketing circles this is known as UGC (user- generated-content) by the way.)

And how about a quick interview (on paper or video), testimonial, or success story related to what you sell? That’s got to be some of the most powerful marketing matter know to mankind!

Don’t forget that any conversations you (or your staff) have with prospective customers – and the questions they ask – can also be a goldmine. This is the stu that real people want real answers to!

4. Recycle

Yes, the green revolution hit social media too!

But it’s not just a trend – it makes so much sense! Write a blog then break it down into quotes – share them as they are or make image quotes. Create a video around the blog and share on YouTube and Facebook. Create a livestream from the blog and share on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or YouTube.

Create a presentation from the blog and share to Slideshare. Create images from the slides and share to twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.

You get the drift! Create once – do the thinking and work once, then simply cut up, tweak and re-purpose rather than have to create something new all over again.

5. Schedule

Using software to schedule sharing takes a lot of the headache out of content creation because, when used with a bit of planning, it allows you to think and get it sorted ahead of time. No more last-minute panic attacks as you have no idea what to say on social media!

(Just please remember to go in and engage as well.)

There a gazillion different scheduling tools but popular ones include Buffer, Agorapulse, Hootsuite, Edgar and Sprout Social.

Oh and don’t forget that much of your content can be used several times over on Twitter – tweets go past so quickly it’s rare that anyone would see the same one go by twice!

So – over to you!

How will you keep your social media beast’s ravenous appetite for content topped up?