Social Media and Time Management

Janet Barclay

Janet Barclay

A former professional organizer, I now eliminate stress for my clients by hosting, monitoring, and maintaining their WordPress sites so they don’t have to worry about security, downtime or performance issues. When I’m away from my desk, I enjoy reading, photography, watching movies, and cooking.

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What are the best ways to manage time on social media?

I know professional organizers who don’t use social media at all, seeing it as nothing more than a time suck. Since they coach clients on making the best use of their time and space, they feel it would be counter-productive or even hypocritical for them to maintain a social media presence.

I don’t dispute that social media can be time-consuming, but with the right tools and a good plan, the results you can generate will be well worth it.

Question #4: What is your best tip or tool for time management and social media?

“At best, you should spend a minimum amount of time on social media each day – just enough to keep your army of followers engaged and growing.”

Kevin J. Donaldson

  1. Use tools such as HootSuite, Buffer, or the Facebook scheduler to post content throughout the day, even when you’re busy with clients.
  2. Don’t try to be active on too many social media sites. Be selective.
  3. Notice who is doing social media well, and learn what you can from them.
  4. Outsource some or all of your social media tasks.
  5. If you schedule social media posts in advance, be alert to events that might render any of them inappropriate, and reschedule them or remove them from the queue.
  6. Create an editorial calendar so you can plan your social media posts in advance rather than flying by the seat of your pants.
  7. Check in regularly so you can engage with other users. This is especially important if you use a separate tool to schedule your posts.

This is the fourth in a mini-series featuring discussion highlights from Professional Organizers in Canada’s Halton-Peel Chapter Professional Development Day for 2016. Previous posts covered these questions:

Tomorrow we will wrap up the Social Media Mini-Series with things to avoid when using social media.

Photo © vilman – Fotolia.com

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9 Comments

  1. Avatar Sabrina Quairoli on April 21, 2016 at 11:20 am

    Great tips, Janet! It is time consuming but I agree, using a scheduler helps immensely. I would also suggest Viraltag and Boardbuster for scheduling Pinterest and Instagram posts if POs want to post there as well. Thanks for sharing.

    • Avatar Janet Barclay on April 21, 2016 at 2:57 pm

      Thanks for the suggestions, Sabrina! I’ve never tried either of those tools.

  2. Avatar Beth Hughes on April 22, 2016 at 4:50 am

    “Create an editorial calendar so you can plan your social media posts in advance rather than flying by the seat of your pants.” Could you recommend any such calendar desktop app?

    • Avatar Janet Barclay on April 22, 2016 at 9:15 am

      I don’t know of a specific app, but you can do it in Excel or another spreadsheet. Curata has recently published a comprehensive list of content marketing editorial calendar templates that you may find helpful.

      • Avatar Beth Hughes on April 23, 2016 at 10:12 am

        Thank you for your quick reaction and great advice. Cheers 🙂

  3. Avatar Tiffany on April 25, 2016 at 6:50 pm

    Loving this mini series on social media! Now I’ve got a new list of things to get to work on. Here’s to a great work week!

  4. Avatar Seana Turner on May 26, 2016 at 4:04 pm

    I do a mixture of posting content, and then trying to be “present” to respond, read, and interact. I don’t like it when it seems like there is no one on the other end of the conversation, yet I understand that it isn’t even healthy to sit at a screen all day. Tools like Buffer and Hootsuite are a nice option for providing flexibility.

    • Avatar Janet Barclay on May 26, 2016 at 4:10 pm

      It also works best for me if I separate scheduling posts and engaging as different activities. I don’t mind if someone takes a while to respond to one of my comments – unless I’m contacting my cable provider for tech support!

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