Since there are so many social media platforms to choose from these days, it is easy to feel overwhelmed when it comes to having a presence online. It can make you feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day to be active on social media, run a business and have a personal life all at the same time. So in this article I’m going to share how you can make the most of your time when it comes to social media with three basic principles: Create, Share, Repurpose.
(1) Create
The foundation to all social media is the content. Without the content, you have nothing. The great news is that there is content all around you. If you’re a person who struggles with knowing what to share on social media, I want you to start breaking down your content into categories such as orders, feedback, and stories.
When it comes to orders, capture footage or images of projects that are directly related to a customer order. This can be projects that you’re currently working on or projects that you’ve worked on in the past. My one recommendation is that you only use projects of which you want to create more. If you’re not interested in creating cake pops or decorated cookies, don’t share those projects because future customers will request what you share. Therefore, you should only share what you want to make.
As it relates to feedback, capture images or videos of what customers are saying about your products or services. This can be comments that have been left on other social media platforms or feedback shared on review sites. I recommend that you take this user generated content and format it to match your brand before you share it on your social media.
Finally, as it relates to stories, who doesn’t love to hear a story? Use your social media to share a bit about your background, your motivation, and your business’ origin. If you’re ever looking for content to share, reflect on these categories to help find inspiration. Even if this is content that you’ve share before, remember that you probably have new followers who haven’t heard or read any of this content and share it anyway. It will be new to them!
(2) Share
Once you’ve identified or created content, share it on your main social media platform. This platform will be the one where you get the most engagement. This could be Instagram, Facebook or any of the other popular apps.
The hardest parts of social media is finding the content and being consistent. Once you get over those hurdles it’s all downhill from there. I just offered three content categories, but there are so many more. You could also share the customer stories behind the projects, answers to frequently asked questions, future project concepts, etc. As I said before, content is all around you. You just need to keep an eye out for it.
(3) Repurpose
Once you’ve shared on your favorite platform, don’t stop there! Take that one piece of content. Make a few minor changes to fit another social media platform, and share it there too. In fact, get creative and find a way to reuse that same content on various other platforms.
It could mean editing the photo or video to better fit another platform’s layout. It could mean pulling images together to create a video slideshow. It might mean tweaking the caption a bit, but don’t just share to one place and move on to the next business task on your to-do list. If you want to make the best of your time on social media, you have to learn how to repurpose your content for multiple platforms.
As you are creating content for your favorite platform take an additional 10 minutes or so to figure out how you can reuse that content somewhere else. The great part about repurposing is that you don’t have the pressure of creating something new from scratch, but you can reap the benefits of sharing content that is new to a totally separate platform.
When it comes to social media, I don’t recommend that you show up everywhere. However, it is important that you remain active everywhere that your customers are active. Only you know where those places are, and if you’re already feeling overwhelmed or short staffed, I say to try to stay active on 2-3 popular sites and do your best to repurpose the content you’ve already created.
If you have a small business, no one is expecting you to be on all of the sites all of the time. However, they are expecting you to have a presence in the places where they are the most active.
I mentioned it earlier, but it’s worth reiterating....
Don’t forget that repurposing content may mean digging through old pictures and videos that you haven’t shared on your account in years. I know artists/creatives have a hard time sharing content that is old to them, but realize that your old content is new to others. If you’re ever at a loss of what to share online and you don’t have a ton of time, go back through your album on your phone or on social media and share images or videos of your previous (yet relevant work). Who knows, it might inspire someone to want to connect with you to make a similar design. We are all inspired in different ways!
Cyd N. Mitchell
Business Blogger, Retail Bakers of America
Cydni N. Mitchell (aka Cyd) is a Bakery Consultant and the Sweet Business Coach behind Sweet Fest®. Based in Atlanta, GA, Sweet Fest® is an online company that supports the business needs of the Sweet Community in the areas of professional development, marketing, branding and web design.
By trade, Cyd is an accountant & financial analyst with a Masters from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the Founder of the Sugar Coin Academy, an online business academy for business owners in the baking and sweets industry, and she is also the organizer of The Ultimate Sugar Show, Georgia’s Largest Annual Baking and Sweets Expo in Atlanta. She is also the Business Blogger for the Retail Bakers of America.