5 Time Saving Tip For Social Media.

Whether you’ve just started a personal blog or you’re using social media to promote your business or brand, we all know that in 2017, social media is important. The online world is fast and it’s 24/7 so it can be hard to keep up, but, you don’t need to spend every hour of everyday on your phone…

Here are 5 social media hacks that will help you to save time.

1. Plan ahead / Schedule / Timing
Repeat after me… SAVE TO DRAFTS!
Next time you’re sitting on a train for twenty minutes, instead of scrolling through Instagram or Twitter and consuming other peoples content, plan and schedule some of your own.

After you’ve edited your Instagram photo, add the caption, add some emojis, add the hashtags etc, then tap the arrow in the top left corner, you’ll get the option to discard or save to draft. It saves the whole post and caption. Once you’ve saved the image, you can then upload it later. The same goes for Twitter and Facebook too. Don’t post at a random time mid morning just because you have a few mins to spare. Post content at a time when you think that your audience is most likely to see it and also at a time when you can engage with people, answer questions and reply to comments etc. If I write a question on someones post, I’m interest in hearing what they have to say. If they don’t reply until the next day, the moment it gone and I might of lost interest in the conversation. Timing is important.

2. Go LIVE!
In complete contrast to my last point about scheduling, not all content works in the same way. Live content is a great time saver because you don’t need to edit it at all. When it comes to events like live sport or music shows, it could be far better to share a five minute live video on Instagram or Facebook, than sharing a few photos the next day. When people watch a video that is being streamed live in real time, it’s fun and it offers them something a bit different, that they might not usually see. It’s cool to see the world though another persons perspective too, that’s why Instagram stories are so addictive. If you’re questioning whether or not your life would be interesting enough for other people to wanna see a video of what you’re up to, the answer is YES! You have a unique perspective, live social media is the new reality TV.

3. Repost / Retweet
Okay so honestly, I don’t do a lot of reposting of other peoples content and that is mostly because my content is based around my personal brand/ life / blog etc. I think that reposting works better for brands and small businesses. So for example, if you’re selling your own T-shirts and someone buys one and they post a photo of themselves wearing it, then that is the perfect kind of content to repost. You can add your own comment to the original post to put it into context. Reposting someone else’s content is an easy way to save time.
(You should ask them for permission to repost via DM or a comment and also make sure that you tag them and mention them in the post too.)

4. Hashtags
If you regularly post about the same topics, then you can probably use a lot of the same hashtags. Figure out which hashtags you use the most, then write them in a list on your phone. (You can save the list in notes) Each time you post something, you can then just copy & paste the list straight into your post. I would pick your ten most relevant hashtags and then maybe add one or two that are very specific to that post.

5. See what’s trending?
Be strategic about trends and universal calendar events. For example, if you created a blog post or a Youtube video last year about a Christmas pudding recipe, you could share that content again this year. Or if you spot a question on Twitter and you have a piece of content that is relevant and useful, jump in, join the conversation and send them a link to your article/ video. As long as the context is clear and you’re not just spamming people with links to your site, this kind of engagement is very effective and it’s another way of re-sharing when you don’t have time to create new content.

So that’s it. It goes without saying that these hacks will only really work, if your content is good. It’s okay to take shortcuts sometimes but it has to a balance between putting in the work when it’s necessary and being smart about your time.
If you like this post and you found it useful, feel free to share it / repost it. See hack 3 😉 and if we’re not already connected on social, you can find me @adrienne_ldn