LISTEN NOW: APPLE PODCASTS – SPOTIFY – iHEART – OTHER

Feel like you’re stuck spending hours on social media for your business? Looking to simplify your current social media planning process? Well, if that’s you, then you’re in for a treat!

I’ve got five strategies I want to share with you that’ll save you, literally, hours of time when it comes to managing social media for your business. 

From streamlining content creation to harnessing the power of automation, batch work, delegation, and repurposing content, each strategy is packed with actionable tips to make showing up online more efficient and more elevated. Let’s get you working smarter, not harder, friend.

Streamline your process

For a moment, pause and think about all the steps you go through to create and publish your social media posts. Every single step, from writing captains to replying to comments and questions after a post has gone live. 

Now, out of all those steps in the process, start to pinpoint the steps eating up most of your time. Or even better, think about if there’s a smarter, more efficient way of accomplishing those specific tasks.

Oftentimes we get stuck in our routines without questioning how to make things quicker and easier for ourselves. But hey, this is your business, afterall. You get to make the rules and change things up when you need to! Here are a few ways I’ve changed things up and streamlined in my own business:

Keyboard Shortcuts

Replying to common questions with a pre-written template saved as a keyboard shortcut is a great time saver! When people ask me common questions, like how to tune into my podcast, I don’t go searching for the link every single time. 

Instead, I’ve got a keyword shortcut set up on my phone. That way, whenever I type “podcast” a message with the podcast link pops up in seconds. 

It used to take me 3 minutes to manually find and reply with my podcast link every time someone asked for it. If I did that same task 10 times in a week, that’s 30 minutes lost! But now, with this streamlined shortcut, it only takes me 30 seconds. So over a week, I’m saving a solid 25 minutes. See how tiny time-savers like this can add up? 

You can also use this shortcut not just for answering questions or sharing links, but also for sharing common replies to comments on Instagram. Efficiency is key! 

Social Media Graphics + Templates — Tonic

Another example of streamlining is having premade graphics for Instagram carousels, Pinterest pins, Instagram stories, and even email graphics. 

I used to spend 30 minutes looking for a template I liked in Canva to customize to my brand — no wonder it used to take me hours to create  graphics for social media!

That’s why I eventually spent an entire afternoon creating my own templates in Canva, both to save me time, and to make my visual branding more memorable online. 

Speaking of templates, if you’re looking for professionally designed templates, I highly recommend checking out Tonic. It’s where all my graphic templates are from! I use their graphics for carousels, stories, podcasts, emails — literally, everything you’ve seen visually from my brand is pretty much from Tonic.

I also invested in a website template from them because they’re templates aren’t just pretty, they’re built to convert. It’s like hiring a custom designer at a fraction of the cost. Not to mention their support team is amazing. If you’re looking for professionally designed templates to stand out online, use code MICHAELA 15 to save 15% on your purchase! 

Hashtag Research — Flick

Another way I’ve also streamlined my social media planning process is by streamlining my hashtag research. Manually researching hashtags can be a real time suck. So naturally, when I heard about Flick, a hashtag research tool, I was interested and immediately hooked.

I like to create hashtag groups for different types of posts, save them in the app, and copy-paste them when I’m ready to make a post. You can try Flick for free through their 7-day trial. Once you give it a go, let me know what you think!

Use Your Computer Instead of Your Phone

Finally, I’ve streamlined social media by using a computer more often instead of relying on my phone. Trust me, when you’re replying to dozens of comments, doing research, or crafting captions, using a keyboard and a bigger screen makes all those tasks a lot more efficient. Plus, at least for me, I’ve found using my computer for social media to be way less distracting too.

Before we move on to the next point, here’s a little homework for you: think about how you can streamline your social media tasks. Maybe it’s organizing your media files, creating templates, or even just using keyboard shortcuts. Whatever it is, I’d love to hear what you’ve come up with and how it’s saving you time! 

Automate

What’s automation, you ask? It’s using tools and software to make certain online tasks happen, well, automatically, without you having to lift a finger. Here’s a neat example that has changed the game when it comes to saving time on social media:

Automated Replies — Many Chat

You know how you usually have to tell your followers to check out the “link in bio”, or constantly share specific product & website links with them? Instead of doing that manually, every single time, you can set up automated campaigns using a tool like Manychat to send followers a link, even when you’re not on the platform.

Let me tell you about a campaign I ran a while back on sharing tripods I use to record content. In the caption of my post, I told my followers to comment “TRIPOD” if they wanted a direct link to the tripods I use. When they commented, Manychat automatically sent them a message with a menu and pictures of me with those tripods.

It felt super interactive and personal, but more importantly, it saved me hours of manually sending those messages! That automation is still running on its own to this day.

Scroll through my most recent Instagram posts and you’ll notice I use this automation feature quite a bit. It just makes sense. It takes me out of the equation once the post is live, my followers get the links they’re looking for, and it makes it super easy for them to purchase without having to search long and hard for the right link. I especially love setting these up on Fridays because it means my most recent post is working for my business while I’m enjoying the weekend with family.

So, if you want to give this a try, check out Manychat and test out their free trial here. 

Batchwork

There are a lot of contrasting opinions out there about batch working. Some social media creators are against it, while others are for it. As for me, I’m firmly on “Team Batch Work”, and let me tell you why.  

If it wasn’t for batchworking, I wouldn’t be able to stay consistent on social media, period. Plus, I find last-minute posts to feel both forced and super stressful. On the other hand, batchworking saves me time and gives me much more freedom to step away from social media when I need to!

When I batchwork my social media, I do similar social media-related tasks all at once during dedicated time slots. Instead of creating one post from start to finish, I break down each step of the process. Here’s how it can work for you:

For example, you might schedule one hour in the morning to brainstorm post ideas you want to share for an upcoming promotion. Then, in the afternoon, you dedicate an hour to researching those ideas. On another day, you take an hour to write captions, and in the afternoon, you record all your content. 

Ongoing Lists & Workflows — Notion

I will say, having an ongoing list and workflow of content really helps with this process. I personally keep an organized list and workflow inside Notion. 

I categorize posts by the stage of content production they’re in. That way, I often have post drafts ready up to two months ahead of time, so I can slowly finish them during my dedicated time blocks and schedule them for posting when they’re ready. 
I don’t just use Notion for social media but for the entirety of my business. So if you want to try Notion for free, you can check it out here. 

Delegate

Delegating is crucial when it comes to running a successful business that extends way beyond just managing your social media. As a small business owner, you’re probably wearing more hats than you can count. Trying to do it all yourself can be overwhelming, and will only limit your growth. Because let’s face it, we all only have 24 hours in a day to get things done. So it’s best to use them wisely.

Outsource to Freelancers + Contractors — Fiverr

Back when I ran my product business, I had an assistant to help with packing orders, local help for batch-making some products, and I even outsourced production for certain items. All of this support I found through a platform called Fiverr. 

Now that I run the Small Biz Babes Community full-time, I delegate help for customer support, technical support, content repurposing — you name it! 

There will always be a list of tasks in your business waiting to be delegated.The more we can free up our schedules from time-consuming tasks, the more we can focus on tasks that grow businesses, or simply give us more time to enjoy life outside of business.

Not sure what you can delegate when it comes to social media? I’ve got a few examples for you. You can delegate…

1. Free content idea creation with a tool like ChatGPT 
2. Editing content captions, videos, or graphics, to someone on Fiverr if you’re not the speediest editor 
3. To a virtual assistant to help you repurpose content and make it work even harder
4. Graphic design if you want your visuals to appear even more professional 

Basically, any part of your social media content creation process that doesn’t absolutely require your personal touch can be delegated. Now I get it, this all depends on your financial resources. But as a reminder, your time is expensive. When you’re stuck doing time-consuming tasks, it takes away from time you could spend on moving your business forward.

So pay attention, figure out where you’re spending most of your time, pinpoint tasks that could use some extra hands, and seek out support when you’re able to. I’ll save you hours of precious time and allow you to focus on what truly matters.

Repurpose

If you’re not already repurposing content, you’re probably making content creation way harder than it needs to be.

Repurposing basically means taking content you’ve already created — like a reel, a carousel, a blog post, or even a newsletter — and giving it new life in different formats or on different platforms.

But you don’t have to just repurpose old content, you can also simply repost older content exactly the way it is. 

Personally, I repurpose and repost older pieces every single week. Just recently, I reposted two posts I shared 8 months ago, and guess what? They both went viral with over 300,000 views within 7 days! Your followers won’t remember you already shared it, and your new followers likely won’t scroll that far back to see that it was an old post, trust me. 

There are countless ways to repurpose. You can turn a reel into a carousel or vice versa. You can transform a caption into a reel or story post. The possibilities are endless!

And let me tell you, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with repurposing content. The social media creators I follow do it all the time. I’ve been doing it for years! In fact, I grew my TikTok account for the Small Biz Babes Community just by repurposing content I’d already posted. Please, do yourself the favor and repost & repurpose your old posts regularly. You’ll thank yourself in the long run.

Save more time on social media content creation with the right processes & tools

Alright, let’s break down exactly what that looks like one more time. First: streamline your work. Take a close look at your social media creation process. Identify time-consuming tasks and ask yourself, “Can I do this more efficiently?” 

Then look for tools that will make tasks easier and faster. From there, think about automating (with a tool like Manychat!) certain links and messages to your followers. It’ll create a smooth experience for your audience and boost conversions from social media.

Next up is batchworking. Group similar social media tasks together during dedicated time blocks. Then, break down your process into manageable steps to make content creation more enjoyable and efficient.

When you’ve streamlined, automated, and batchworked as much as you can, that’s when you can start to consider delegating. Recognize where you’re spending most of your time and pinpoint tasks that could benefit from extra help. And finally, repurpose your content. Take existing content and adapt it to different formats and platforms. Or simply repost older content on the same platform to reach new followers and save yourself from constantly creating something new.

Remember, you’re the boss. Your time is precious. You make the rules. You might as well make them in a way that saves you the most amount of time — especially on social media! 

If you want to learn more about how to save time with social media in your business, tune in to today’s podcast episode here 🎧. 

Talk soon,

Michaela