Summer’s Almost Over – Get Ready for Fall Now!

“It’s the most wonderful time, of the year…” I can almost hear the Staples commercial now! Kids go back to school, days get shorter and cooler (hopefully not too much!) and our excuses for our social media, blogging, newsletters, etc being sporadic go out the window! Thought I’d share a couple tips for staying on top of things and getting organized before what can be a crazy busy time of year really starts off.

  1. Schedule some Social Media Posts.
    There are so many great tools out there to manage your Social Media – be that Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, whatever. We’ve talked about Social Media Management Tools in the past, and we re-iterate here briefly – get one, figure it out, and start using it! Social Media is such a great way to connect with your customers, business contacts, etc, and it’s FREE, so why not? Our tool of choice is HootSuite, and if you’re going to be out of town but want to stay active on your social media you can schedule a few quotes to go out, articles to highlight, etc. But don’t forget to monitor it! No point sending out the tweets/updates/etc if you’re not going to interact with anyone that comments on it!
  2. Get a Social Media App for your Smartphone.
    This flows nicely from the previous point. If you’re going to be away from your computer, it’s a great way to stay connected. Stuck in line waiting to pick up or drop off your kid from school? Why not check on some tweets? A good Social Media App can let you stay connected on the go. If you use Hoot Suite for example, you can keep any of the customizations, lists, etc, and be able to access them anywhere by using Hoot Suite’s mobile app.  Other services have apps too. It can be a great way to take advantage of any of those times where you’re stuck in a long line or just waiting for something – instead of getting frustrated that it’s taking a while why not pull out your smartphone and interact with some people? Saves you frustration and keeps you engaged!
  3. Schedule your Blogs and Newsletters.
    Much like scheduling your social media posts you can do that with your blogging or newsletters too.  Why not take advantage of the little bit of lull that’s left?  If you’re expecting to be busy come the fall take advantage of your quieter times to focus on yourself/your company and get as many things pre-written as possible. You can adjust the content, times they post, etc, if you want to if you decide to add additional posts or adjust posts to add current content or items related to current events, the posts are not set in stone once you schedule them.
  4. Write Yourself a Social Media, Blog, overall interaction calendar.
    One of the best ways to stay organized and on top of your Blogging for sure and other interactions as well, is to write yourself a calendar. Pick what day of the week you want to write and come up with topics, titles, whatever will get you thinking about it enough, and write them all in. Saves the “darn, what am I going to write about this week? Oh well, I’ll think of it tomorrow…” problem. The more organized you are the more time you’ll save!

Overall just remember, Social Media is most effective if it has a plan. I’m not saying you have to schedule everything, far from it. But if you have a plan for how you want to run your Social Media it will be more effective, just like any marketing. Not sure how to start or use Social Media? We’d love to connect you with some great people that specialize in it, just contact us and we’ll connect you!

If you have some great tips or tricks for staying on top of your social media please feel free to share!

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This entry was posted by Anna Kouwenberg on Thursday, August 30th, 2012 at 1:47 pm and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.