Making Your Social Media Summer Ready...

by Melanie Boylan

Did you see my blog post in Irish Tech News a couple of days ago? http://irishtechnews.ie/making-your-social-media-summer-ready/We hear getting your body "Summer Ready" but what about your Social Media? We all need to disengage at times and many business owners would like to ramp down (a little at least) if they can and enjoy some time off. How is this possible though if you still have an audience to reach?

Get a Plan!

Like getting your body "Summer Ready" you need to get a plan in place. Have a look at what is coming up that you can either put off or perhaps get rid off altogether and where possible delegate.

Now you have done that let's look at your time management.

Content Plans come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, some in glorious technicolour and go on for pages and pages. If you only have a couple of platforms to manage however you can cut them down to size.Create Images / Content Curation platforms are very varied. They can suit absolute beginners to highly advanced. Photoshop is the go to platform for some advanced practitioners and Canva for the beginner. I'm starting to play with Affinity Serif as it was recommended to me by a client - I am hoping to use it more fully in the next couple of weeks.Time Management using apps!There are so many! They can be differentiated by mobile device, storage, team size and of course cost. I personally use Asana (FREE) and when I collaborate either with colleagues or with my clients we use this platform to keep us accountable.

Making Your Social Media Summer Ready

Scheduling

This is how you are really get social media "Summer Ready"! Once you have your plan and the above three components in place, this is where you go next.Scheduling means your content is delivered to your platforms for you automatically. The important part of this is to deliver it to your audience when they are watching. Ensure you regularly check your "insights" in each platform as this changes year round. Scheduling also includes scheduling your blog posts to your website and scheduling your content to your email list.It requires a fair level of preparation and a bit of time - but once you sit down for a few hours and get the bones done for the next few weeks/months it just requires an hour or two a week to top up. Remember to change your images semi regularly even if you don't change the wording.

Getting Your Social Media Summer Ready mobile

Respond

This would easily be one of the most important things to do. Even when you want time off - as a business you need to have someone respond. I recently took 10 days off from work - my first holiday with the family in four years where I actually took time off! I have been very lucky to make some wonderful friends who work in my field - people I can trust to manage mine and my clients accounts. They responded for me after I scheduled all content.To ensure your responsiveness I would highly recommend having an Android or iOS phone and adding the free apps of your platforms. Ensure you have all notifications allowed and full access to edit, remove posts/tweets and ban people. If not that then look at investing in having a monitoring platform such as AgoraPulse or Sprout Social manage your notifications.If you are asked to respond at a later time or date, then add the free Google Calendar to your phone / desktop - it will prompt you to get back at the right time.These apps that have been suggested are a drop in the ocean! There are literally thousands so you may find something better equipped for your requirements but they make a good start!If you put in the place the tips above most businesses will find a way of better managing their time over this busy period. If you would like any help with this, then simply pop me over an email and we can chat further melanie@stomp.ie.

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