How to Simplify Your Social Media Marketing Strategy
Entrepreneurs and small businesses can find that the content creation and preparation effort takes as much of their time and energy as it does to create the products and services that they are marketing.
In this article, we’ve collected the top advice from experienced social marketers about how to simplify your marketing strategy.
Table of Contents
- #1 Target Your Audience
- #2 Amplify Trending Topics
- #3 Recycle Content That Worked
- #4 Delegate Content Creation
- #5 Schedule Regular Social Media Posts
- #6 Automate Sharing Content to Social Media
- #7 Engage Your Audience Selectively
- #8 Focus on Evergreen Content
- #9 Outsource Your Social Media Campaigns
- #10 Find The Best Way to Brainstorm Content
- In Summary
#1 Target Your Audience
If you find that trying to coordinate social media posts with your website or blog content on a dozen platforms is time-consuming, maybe you don’t need to post to all of them.
Sit down and analyze the ROI you’re getting from each platform.
Maybe the time you spend posting to Instagram isn’t paying off compared to Facebook or Twitter. Reducing your social media presence to the platforms that have responsive audiences for your products will simplify your marketing operation.
#2 Amplify Trending Topics
Another way to reduce the time spent on social media content is to focus on what is already getting traction with your audience. When a topic is trending across social media that dovetails with your own brand, repackage it as your own content.
This strategy has a couple of advantages. It’s more likely that your audience will respond to trends they recognize. It’ll also reduce the time you spend brainstorming unique content.
Let other marketers do the brainstorming for you when the opportunity presents itself.
#3 Recycle Content That Worked
By the same token, you can reduce the length of your brainstorming and writing sessions by recycling website content and social media posts that connected with your audience in the past.
Because most of your audience sees social media posts in isolation, repeating the same content periodically doesn’t look as repetitive as it would be on a website. You can mix in repeat posts proven to engage with your audience.
#4 Delegate Content Creation
If you’re responsible for all the social marketing program for your small- or medium-sized business, it’s time to bring in more team players.
Your company culture will help you a lot here – if your employees feel like part of the team, they will work well together and have a much easier time creating relevant content.
Reduce the complexity of a large social media campaign with the right team setup. A team of writers and illustrators could create basic post templates that other team members then customize to fit for each social platform.
Or you could divide each social platform presence between team members and let them craft content tailored to each audience.
Either way, delegating your responsibilities will make your life simpler.
#5 Schedule Regular Social Media Posts
If you are a solopreneur or marketing specialist that creates posts for multiple social media platforms daily, your day can quickly become hectic if you have just a single writer’s block.
Suddenly, you find that you have no idea what witty comment to write for your post and everything comes to a standstill.
Instead of relying on posting in real time, schedule your posts to go live on their own. All social platforms have this option, especially for business accounts.
You can dedicate a large block of time once or twice a week to creating a batch of posts, and then you just queue them for posting while you attend to other duties.
#6 Automate Sharing Content to Social Media
Automation can be a godsend when you have to manage multiple websites and a dozen social media marketing profiles. There are tools available that can take the pain out of pushing content out to your social media channels when it’s published on your websites.
You can augment the basic automation tools that come with WordPress and other CMS platforms with marketing services like MailChimp.
If you’re feeling overloaded, this option can be a way to reduce the time you spend on managing accounts.
#7 Engage Your Audience Selectively
Posting content is only half the battle on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. You also need to engage with your audience when they comment or message your social profiles.
This aspect of social marketing can feel as falling into a black hole if you do it by manually checking your pages and scrolling through comments and mentions. There are better ways.
For example, you can set up automatic notifications with third-party services like Mention.com or Google Alerts.
#8 Focus on Evergreen Content
To make your content re-usable, it needs to remain relevant no matter how much time has passed.
Timely content is great for capitalizing on current trends, but it will not recycle well once the events it references are distant memories to your audience. Thus, it’s a good idea to create evergreen content that doesn’t mention specific dates or events.
Evergreen content theoretically can be shared for years, which means you won’t have to write as much new content.
#9 Outsource Your Social Media Campaigns
If you have a steady pipeline delivering content and product information on a company website or blog, another option is to outsource your social media marketing.
Consultants and marketing firms who are already savvy about social media campaigns from experience working with a variety of clients can be more effective than in-house marketers.
You’ll get the social media exposure you need without dedicating your own resources to creating content and analyzing the results.
#10 Find The Best Way to Brainstorm Content
The creative process is fickle, as any artist or writer will admit. Everyone has certain times of the day or settings that work best for getting the creative process flowing.
If you spend time on brainstorming with little success, change your process until you find the one that works for you.
Maybe you need another person to bounce ideas off of, or you may have ideas come to you away from your desk.
Carry a notebook or tablet to record ideas that come to you, or ask coworkers to join in your brainstorming sessions.
You’ll save time that would otherwise be spent feeling stumped.
In Summary
Social media marketing can quickly turn into a time-consuming struggle because of all the social platforms and require you to dish out content continuously.
Instead of trying to use all of them, focus on those that bring you the best ROI.
Most platforms have tools that can help you take the load off with automation options and scheduling, while your employees can help you with brainstorming sessions and content creation.
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Co-Authored With
Jen McKenzie is an independent business consultant from New York. She writes extensively on business, education and human resource topics. When Jennifer is not at her desk working, you can usually find her hiking or taking a road trip with her two dogs. You can reach Jennifer @jenmcknzie