First of all what is the Octopus Effect? Imagine an Octopus trying to juggle 10 different tasks at the same time, this is how many business owners spend every day and now we add managing a social media account or two into the mix.
As a social media manager I know how overwhelming managing accounts can be without any structure in place, and with the constant pressure of posting valuable content, before the competition at appropriate times, whilst always staying within the brands guidelines using the right language around each post, Yes I understand you!
But let’s face it social media is here to stay and it’s not going to help to ignore it but it’s worthwhile to figure out how to do more social media in less time, with less effort. Here are my three favourite tips on how to make your life juggling social media easier and a lot more fun as well!
One of the most important part of Social Media is obviously content, but this is also the hardest and most time consuming part.
Get a good collecting process in place. I personally love using Google Drive or Dropbox to collect photos and suitable graphics that relate to my accounts.
But what about the process of collecting the content to post? You need a collection system. Buffer is a great tool to use to ‘buffer up” content for the next few days, weeks or month ahead. I usually set one day aside each week (I do this religiously) to put all my content into this tool for the next few weeks. This dramatically reduces the level of effort that you put into managing social media accounts, whilst increasing your output!
2. Get your colleagues involved
“The more the merrier” Yes! Get your colleagues involved in finding content for you and get them to queue it or save it for you to check via tools such as Email, Feedly or Evernote.
Let’s be honest we all spend some time during our lunch breaks (yes only lunch breaks) to surf the web, sites such as Bored Panda, Huffington Post or NZ Herald are great for fun or informative content. Let the colleagues do the work, Ha now we talking!
Make sure you explain your objectives clearly to your colleagues beforehand, no point of having the most amazing cheese and bacon recipes saved up for you if you are managing accounts that promote health and wellbeing. Who doesn’t like bacon though right?
Get the team involved, team spirit high, good times!
3. Share it more than once
“Oh-Uh Honey” you heard right, Yes you can share your content more than once. Why? Different people will see your different social media posts, depending on what time of the day you post it.
Not all of your 60k Instagram followers get up at 8 am and check Instagram first thing in the morning (What, there are people that don’t? Outrageous!) So trust me it is ok to share the same thing twice, or even more? There is nothing cheap about “recycling posts”, out of experience I have noticed higher interaction rates, more reach and an even higher chance to go viral after several takes.
Tip: Change it up a little bit each time you post to keep your unique voice. This principal is overall very efficient and traffic-increasing!
Conclusion:
You have one brain and two hands, you are not an octopus. Luckily there are many ways to make the managing of your social media accounts easier and more effective. Social media is here to stay and not a waste of time, if you do it wrong it can be a black hole of time-wasting but if done right and with the right amount of “love” in terms of interactive and informative content it is a great and essential investment in your overall business marketing efforts.
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