Social media sites are always hungry for content. It’s easy to look at some companies in your various feeds and wonder if they do anything other than creating posts for social media all day, every day. While this may be true, the chances are they either have a dedicated team or have a clear strategy on how to get the most out of their content (more on that in a moment).
Many businesses, especially smaller businesses, do not have the budget to outsource their social media tasks, so it often falls on the head of someone (usually the business owner themselves) to create and manage social media posts, all while they are trying to run, or do other jobs within the business.
Here are a couple of quick fixes for both creating and managing your content, which should take some of the strain from keeping up with everybody else on social media:
#1 Upcycle your content (both new and existing)
Whether you realized it or not, you have a huge amount of content at your fingertips already, especially if you’ve been on social media for a while. How many old blog posts do you have that you could film yourself reading out to create a YouTube video? A 500-word blog post creates a 2-minute video that would also work well on Instagram.
If you look back through your old Facebook posts, how many could you recycle for Instagram or turn into 3 or 4 TikTok videos? If the content is still relevant, it’s still of value to your audience, most of whom will have not seen it before.
#2 Use a tool to manage your contributors
Of course, you may have a deal with an individual to act as a brand ambassador, by which they create content promoting your brand, either for a fee or more preferably on commission. These individuals will usually have their own profile to promote, so managing the content they create and the relationship you have with them can be difficult.
Companies like Greenfly have emerged to facilitate this relationship and have created the technology to manage your entire relationship with them. In practical terms, this means you can create a situation where the content they generate is ready on tap when it’s right for your posting schedule, rather than having to tie it in with the ambassador’s agenda.
#3 Get more exposure from fewer posts
One final tactic is to go for quality rather than quantity. The more a post aligns with each social media platform’s rules or algorithm, the greater the percentage of your followers or subscribers who will see it. So, one post that fits the criteria will be seen by as many people as five or ten efforts that don’t.
A post that just says ‘posted a photo on my website’ with a link to your site will get less exposure than a post containing the photo itself and a ‘story’ length post. This is because the second post offers more content, and most importantly, keeps the viewer on the site instead of taking them elsewhere.
Final thoughts
While this is in no way a complete list to cover your social media woes, it can offer a few pointers at areas where you can save a bit of time and, as a consequence, spend more time running your business.
