I get questions all the time from people asking me how long they should spend on their social media each day and also how long I spend on my own social media. You would probably be surprised that I don’t actually spend as long as you might think each day.
Yes, I have put time into researching how social media can work for my business and I spend time writing about that and sharing my findings with other pet business owners, but social media for my Pet Sitting business is not a full time job.
How Long Should You Spend on Social Media?
There are few things to consider when you look at how long you need to spend on social media.
Which Platforms Are You Going To Use?
I don’t think you need to be on every social media platform. Firstly that’s a lot of hours in the day to keep them all updated and engage with people. Also, can you really be good at everything? I think 2-3 platforms where your ideal customers are hanging out is just fine.
You should grab your company name on new platforms in case you do decide to use them in the future and fill out the profiles, but in terms of being there every day to interact then I don’t think you need to try and be everything to everyone.
Pick a platform where your ideal customers are to start you off and then once you have mastered that gradually add another 1-2 platforms.
For me Facebook is my number one traffic referral and it is where I spend most of my time.
What Is Your Daily Schedule?
If you work in your business every day then you need to make sure you can work on your social media throughout your working day. The last thing you want to be doing is coming home from a 10 hour day to think about how you can promote your business.
If you take a lot of really high quality photos during then day then a visual social media platform, like instagram, might be perfect for you. Instagram doesn’t require many posts per day, just high quality posts. This is something you can do as you do your jobs during the day.
Maybe you enjoy chatting with people and therefore Twitter might be good for you. Meet new people on the platform, get to know them and talk to then about what you do. This is something you can just do in 5 minute blocks throughout the day.
Find platforms that fit in with your daily schedule and that way social media will never feel like a chore.
Master Your Skills
If you are going to spend time on social media then make sure you learn the skills you need to get the most return out of your efforts. Your primary aim for social media is to get people onto your website and to contact you for your services.
The best way to do that is to learn how to use the platform correctly, master the skills that you need, put them in to practice and keep testing things.
The only reason I have been able to get so many fans on my Facebook page is that I keep trying out new things, and when I find something that works I do more of that.
Schedule Your Social Media
I am a huge fan of scheduling your social media posts so that you can spend time engaging with people. It’s far more important that you create a relationship with your followers than it is to spend hours a day posting on social media and then ignore any comments people make.
Find something that works for you. I use Edgar for scheduling my social media, but there are cheaper options out there. The key though with scheduling is to make sure you are scheduling a variety of content and not just putting the same content out all the time.
Also, make sure that you are putting out content that your ideal customers love. Don’t make everything about you and the promotion of your business.
