Ever found yourself sitting down to spend a quick half hour on your social media accounts, only to still be sat there two hours later?

We’ve all been there. The fact is that social media has grown exponentially in its relatively short lifespan, and with such high volumes of constant content and activity, managing a social media marketing strategy can often seem like an uphill struggle.

But it doesn’t have to be. With these top tips and tricks up your sleeve, you’ll soon be spending far less time on social media, but reaping far greater rewards.

Schedule everything

Constantly swapping between several social media accounts and trying to manage each one effectively is a highly stressful and time-consuming task. Instead, schedule yourself some time, either at the start or end of the week, to plan and schedule your posts for the coming week. That way you’ll hit the ground running and be able to focus on other pressing things.

Hootsuite is a great example of an online platform that can help with this.

Prioritise

Sometimes when it comes to the number of platforms you’re active on, less is more. If your audience mostly uses Twitter and Instagram, then why waste time and energy on Facebook? It makes sense to focus your resources on the channels that are going to provide the biggest return. So, analyze which platforms drive the best results and make these a priority.

Batch it up

Once you’ve decided which platforms you’ll be focusing on, set yourself a dedicated ‘batch’ of time for each one, either daily or weekly – whichever works best for you. Rather than working for the odd ten minutes here and there on a social media account, be strict and set aside a longer, allocated period of time in which to focus on any tasks.

While it may not reduce the overall time you spend on social media, you’ll find the time you do spend on it will be far more productive, focused, and easier to track.

Repurpose your content

Repurposing used content is a huge time saver and can help you squeeze all the juice out of a great piece of content that you worked so hard on. While duplicating content is bad, repurposing content can be incredibly useful.

Here are some ways you can do it:

  • Turn your blog post into an informative podcast
  • Use the results of a poll or quiz on social to create an engaging blog post
  • Create images using individual stats from a longer piece of research and post with a link back to your original work
  • Turn some research you’ve done into a short video for social media to drive traffic

Repurposing allows you to really think outside the box when coming up with creative ideas, and enables you to breathe longevity into your content.

User-generated content

People love to see real-life examples of other customers using and, most importantly, enjoying your product, which is why user-generated content is such a hit on social media.

Encourage your audience to interact with your brand and generate their own content by tapping into people’s competitive nature:

  • Run a Facebook competition where customers need to share their photos or experiences on social media for the chance to win a prize or free product
  • If you are launching a new product or attending an event, create a hashtag specific to your brand and incentivise people to use it when sharing their pictures and event experience on social media

Be ready to respond

Setting aside specific time and scheduling social content is great for getting your latest messaging out, but always be ready to respond when you’re not fully focused on your social media account.

Set up alerts or notifications that you can receive whatever the time is to make sure you’re ready to pick up on any urgent messages on social (whether it be a problem with one of your products, an escalating brand crisis, or just someone looking for help as they approach purchase).

You don’t need to be on the lookout for every like and retweet, but make sure you’re ready when it counts.