How Much Time is Enough or Too Much for Social Media?
20 Ways To Grow Your Business Through Social Media – Day 12
As a business owner, you wear many hats. Advertising is one of those hats. Social media falls under this category primarily. It is an important aspect of establishing your brand, your voice and your presence in the business world, online and off. But, how does it fit within your daily business schedule?
Social media takes a lot of work and that includes time, but mostly at the beginning. There are steps that need to be taken to begin this foray on the right foot. We’ve already discussed developing a social media strategy. Choosing the proper platform to showcase your business depends on a couple of things:
Where your audience frequents socially
Where your business can gain the best exposure
Usually, these two things work hand in hand. If your target audience is on Twitter, then that is a good place to start even if you feel that Pinterest would help out just as much. Get to know the ins and outs of the primary platform you are going to use and then add others later. There could be a learning curve especially if you are not familiar with the platform in question but it’s worth it if your goal is exposure, cultivating relationships and effective free advertising.
Pay or Play
If you’ve ever been on a social media site, then you know how addictive it can be. As a business owner, your time is already valuable and distractions would only put you farther behind in your daily routine.
Learn all you can about the platform you are using. Add to it your social media plan. Craft your profile and begin to flesh out your page. Once the page is up and running, most of your time will be spent adding content and staying on top of comments and posts by viewers.
Where is the line between working and playing? If you are having fun and losing track of time, you are probably spending more than enough time on any given platform. Setting up a schedule to post to your social media page can cut down on the amount of time spent each day on each site. Set reminders on your phone or laptop to alert you when someone has commented on a post. Choose specific times each day to check in and answer any comments you find.
Social media won’t work all by itself but you can minimize the amount of time it takes to manage it.
