How can you handle social media without stress? In today’s world, no business can thrive without having a strong social media presence. However, managing your business’s social media page can be tough, especially when you’re doing it all by yourself.
Managing social media for your business doesn’t have to be stressful. Here are 5 useful tips for managing a stress-free and effective social media page:
1. Plan Ahead: The biggest mistake you can make with your brand’s social media page is to just dive in and start posting. You need to plan ahead. One way to do this is by creating a social media calendar. Sometimes, the toughest part about handling your business’s online presence isn’t the posting – it’s thinking of what to post. Every business should have a one-month content calendar ahead of posts. This way, you don’t have to stress yourself thinking of new ideas. You can just go to your social media calendar and pick the day’s post.
2. Use Post-Scheduling Tools: You don’t have to sit by your phone all day, waiting for the set time to post. It can be stressful, with the many factors that could affect your regular posting. Phones can die, leaving you with no way to post; you can get carried away and forget to post at the set time; network services can slow you down. When you use post-scheduling tools, you don’t have to worry when unforeseen circumstances make it hard for you to post when you want to post. Post-scheduling platforms like Buffer, Hootsuite, and Sprout Social can help you schedule many posts across multiple social media platforms, all at the same time. These easy-to-use tools make it possible to manage your business’s social media page without stress.
3. Use Chatbots where possible: Handling social media isn’t just about making posts. It’s also about answering inquiries, managing complaints, and sometimes taking orders (depending on the type of business). It can be tough to stay online all the time, especially since customers expect speedy replies to their messages. Instead of having to respond to every single message that comes in, you can use a chatbot to respond to certain basic messages. For example, you can program automated responses to price inquiries. Of course, chatbots cannot beat the human touch added when a real person handles social media, so you can take over from the chatbot when queries are too advanced. Some chatbots you can use include MobileMonkey, Chatfuel, Manychat, etc.
4. Identify your audience: You can waste a lot of time pandering to an audience that is not your target audience. One thing that makes social media managers burn out fast is trying to play to all audiences. Even the most generic brands have specific target audiences for social media posts. Playing to all audiences is like trying to please everyone – it’s tiring and often not effective. Sometimes, your audience isn’t even on the social media platform you spend the most time on. Your business doesn’t even have to be on all social media platforms. Do some research beforehand and figure out who your audience is, what social media platforms they use, and what times they frequent them. Otherwise, you will burn yourself out trying to put your business on platforms your target audience does not frequent
5. Pay attention to social media metrics: Social media metrics exist, not just to check your progress, but to make social media management easier. When you pay attention to social media metrics, you see the kind of content that does well, and the kind that doesn’t. Social media is all about playing to your audience. You can’t keep making motivational posts when your audience reacts better to the entertaining ones, and vice versa. It might not seem like much, but it is much easier to manage social media pages when you’re providing the right content that your audience wants.
Bonus Tip #6: Take a break sometimes. You’re not a machine. Check your workload to make sure you’re not doing too much. If you’re running your business and handling its social media at the same time, consider outsourcing your social media management to someone else. You can’t run an effective page if you’re tired all the time.
Social media management isn’t hard when you know what to do. These 5 simple tips can make all the difference for your business’s social media page, and unburden you of a load of stress. Managing a social media page shouldn’t be a difficult job – you just need to know what to do
