One of the biggest challenges I hear from small business owners is getting overwhelmed by all the social media options and how to stay consistent with social media marketing.   It is important to understand that social media is a function of your overall marketing.  Social media should amplify your business objectives, so being clear on your business objectives and having a marketing strategy is key to staying focused on what to post on social media.  I think this is why people are overwhelmed – no plan and thus you throw up your hands saying you don’t have time or it doesn’t work.

Here are 3 steps to be more focused and productive with social media marketing

1.  Only choose 1-3 social media platforms and stick with them until you are really good.
Don’t get sucked into being on every social media platform!  Start with the 1-3 that you know from doing some research are where your ideal clients are spending their time.  People often ask well how do I know where my clients are spending their time?  Easy – ask them.  Do a free poll using a platform such as Survey Monkey and write a couple of probing questions such as;

 – What social media platforms do you frequent most
    (then write out the options and tell them to select all that apply)
–  What time of day do you most often access social media
    7-9am, 12-1pm, 5pm, or 7pm and later
– Do you access your social media sites via mobile?
   yes or no

These 3 simple questions will tell you the what, when and how people use social media.

2. Stay consistent and relevant with your content.
This includes any original content you produce such as a blog as well as any content you curate from other sources.
(for more info on sharing content, check out 7 Great Tools For Finding Relevant Content to Share)

Always be asking yourself, what do people most want to learn from me?  This is the content you share.
Showing up with consistency is the real key to getting people to notice and I don’t mean in a spammy way. If you don’t show up daily people will forget – that is simply the noisy world in which we live.  Also remember that the news feed on all sites move and so if you post something at 9am on a Monday people who log on in the evening are not likely to see your post unless they are specifically looking for you.

3.  Engagement is critical

No longer can you sit by the sidelines and lurk.  If you want to be noticed, build your credibility and exposure than you need to make the effort to actually write comments that are meaningful to a post.  Simply clicking a LIKE button is not enough anymore.  A more strategic play would be to focus on following and engaging with 10 people who you most want to increase your awareness with and comment on their posts, ask them questions and bottom line engage just as you would if you were in person.  Social media is SOCIAL so get out and socialize!

Last word…

When you are focused on your business objectives then posting and engaging on social media becomes hyper-focused and thus takes less time than if you are throwing all kinds of jibber jabber out online hoping someone is listening and might give you a thumbs up.

–>> You might be interested in reading article 1 of this productivity series:
3 Steps to Being More Productive with Marketing