Can social media marketing provide small business owners a significant return on their investment? You’d better believe it can—assuming, of course, that you’re investing wisely. One of the biggest investments you will make in social media marketing is the investment of your time—and if you waste too much time, it’ll blow your profit margins and make the whole enterprise, well, a waste.
In other words, to make social media marketing meaningful and effective, you have to ensure that you’re approaching it judiciously and efficiently.
Choose Your Platforms Wisely
One component of this is being picky about the social media platforms you choose. The risk in adopting all social media platforms, from Facebook and Twitter down to Instagram and SnapChat, is that it makes it all too easy to fall into spotty postings and inconsistent updates. And in social media, inconsistency is death.
So don’t bite off more than you can chew, and don’t dilute the effect of your social media presence by spreading it too thin over too many platforms. Choose two or three platforms that you can reasonably commit to maintaining—one or two posts a week, at the bare minimum. Make sure they make sense for your brand: Fashion or design companies can’t afford to skip image-centric platforms like Pinterest and Instagram, for instance, while these networks make less sense for, say, an attorney or an accountant.
Time Your Posts for Maximum Impact
Another tip is to post during peak times—the times when your followers are actually using social media and are most likely to see your posts. This means not posting Facebook updates at 4:00 in the morning, unless you somehow know that your targeted consumers tend to be up and on Facebook at that hour.
Note that Twitter traffic tends to be higher on weekends; Facebook, on Thursday and Friday afternoons; and Instagram, for whatever reason, on Monday through Wednesday. Keep all this in mind and schedule posts to make the biggest possible impact—especially if you only have time to post a couple times each week.
Automate and Outsource
Automating your posts is one huge way to save time. Spend an hour each week writing and scheduling the next batch of posts, using something like Hootsuite or Buffer to prep your content for posting. This is usually the most efficient way to handle your social media activity.
And of course, given how time-intensive social media marketing can be—and how precious your time as a business owner truly is—you may reach a point where it’s best to outsource your content altogether. Researching social media marketing firms is a big time commitment on the front end that can yield big savings over time.
Remember that social media marketing can be very much worth your time—but you’ll want to ensure you’re using that time wisely.