Social Media: It's not just for kids: How To Deal With Social Media Overwhelm

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Retweets, Hashtags, Content Creation, SEO, Video Marketing… is the fast-paced world of Social Media completely baffling your brain?! Not sure which platforms your business should be using so you’re trying to dabble in them all, sucking up precious time and seeing little results?
We are all well aware that advances in technology and changes in the online world happen at the speed of light and it’s literally impossible to stay on top of it all 100 per cent of the time.

STOP.RIGHT.HERE.
Let’s go back to basics.

I’ve whipped up our top tips to help you clear some brain space, avoid overwhelm and get you on the road to becoming a social media superhero for your business.

DETERMINE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

Put a plan together with a goal to work towards. Often people feel overwhelmed because they’re not sure why they are even using social media and don’t know what the success indicators are.

What are you hoping to achieve from using social media? To create sales? Raise awareness? Or encourage brand loyalty and create a community around it? What’s the best way to go about it?

Knowing what you want to achieve and how you want to do it, will help you to determine whether or not you’re on the right track. For example, if you’re trying to create awareness for your brand, check your Google Analytics on a REGULAR basis. Make a date with yourself once a month to sit down with a cappuccino and really look at what drives traffic to your website, and whether your social media efforts are really working.

SET ASIDE A FEW MINUTES EVERY WEEK TO PLAN AHEAD

Not having a plan of action can sometimes cause you to feel overwhelmed and to spend more time on social media than you feel you ought to. Wildly posting everywhere you can without really having a set plan.

Focus on creating a daily plan where you check in to your social networks 2 – 3 times a day to provide useful updates, answer questions, post questions, share photos and posts and just generally be a human. People buy from people – remember that.

AUTOMATION AND SEMI-AUTOMATION

Automation: Automation tools like Buffer and Hootsuite are a fantastic way to share your social media posts across different platforms. They also have brilliant built-in Analytics tools which easily show you which posts are popular and which ones could do with a little more thought and planning.

Semi-automation: How many times have you written something and thought “I’ve written this a hundred times before – WHY haven’t I saved this as a template!” Spend an hour filling up a Word Doc or spreadsheet with correspondence text that you can use and reuse in new contexts or applications that you can copy and paste into your social media platforms. This is especially useful if you are using social media for customer service.

LESS IS MORE

Yes, social media is fast-moving and your head may be spinning at all the things you ‘should’ be doing. However, you don’t need to be on every platform, you need to choose what works for your business and EXCEL on those specific platforms.

Which platform does your audience love? Start small and you can always expand. Pick your favourite platforms (2 -3) and stick with the ones that have the most engagement, interaction and that drives most traffic to your website (again… have that coffee date with yourself and check your Google Analytics)

How do you deal with Social Media overwhelm?

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