Social media is an essential part of everyday business life now, but creating that content can be a real drain on your available time. It’s therefore, so important to have a strategy in place to make that creation more efficient and streamlined. Here’s 7 tips to save time when creating content for your social media.
Set aside dedicated time for social media content creation
If you want your social media content to be both relevant and engaging, you’re going to need to set aside time to create it. The good news is, if you follow the remaining tips, you’ll know how to make the best use of that dedicated time!
Plan your content in advance
If you want to get super-organised with your social media, plant your content in advance. Look to have specific themes for each month and break down that down into content for your weekly blogs and social media.
Batch write your content
Whether we’re talking about blogs of social media posts, it pays to batch the content creation side together. Set aside a day a month to write and create your content for the month ahead. Not only will this help you work faster, it also helps keep the creativity sparking. For example, when you’re creating your blog posts, have a notepad document open, so you can copy snippets from those posts, for your social media content.
Use scheduling software
The beauty of batching and writing your content in blocks, is you then have plenty of content created in advance. Buffer, Hootsuite, Meet Edgar, Post Planner and Facebook’s own page scheduler; it doesn’t matter which scheduling software you use, just make sure you’re familiar with the one you’re using. Set aside time to learn how to effectively use it, so you can save masses of time, further down the line.
Reuse content
Another way you can save time is to reuse existing content. Turn a tweet into a meme, reword old posts, use them as a starting prompt for new content, share old blog post links – these are all ways you can effectively reuse content you’ve already created. If you already have content created, making full use of it will save you the time it takes to create new content.
Save interesting content
Find something interesting on Facebook? Use the ‘Save for later’ option, so you don’t lose it. Browsing Instagram? Have your Repost app open at the same time, so you can copy the URLs or interesting content, ready to save for later. Set up Google Alerts for keywords in your niche, so you get a steady stream of interesting articles and links. Save interesting online finds to Evernote – there’s so many ways you can find interesting content – just make sure you have a strategy in place for saving it for later use.
Set up templates
Content on social media is more likely to be shared and interacted with, if it has visual appeal. This is where your time can disappear, if you’re not careful. Therefore, it’s a great idea to create a series of social media graphics templates in Get Stencil or Canva. Set yourself up a few different templates – such as a meme layout, a plain background for quotes, half image, half text etc – that you can just create a copy and type over, when you want to create new graphics.
Creating content for your social media channels can be time consuming – but only if you let it. By following the above 7 tips, you’ll not only be giving it the attention it deserves, but will also be creating content that’s both relevant and engaging for your target audience.
What’s your strategy for social media content creation? Have any tips or advice that you could share with other VAs? Why not share them in the comments section below!