The Biggest Social Media Time Wasters and How to Get Rid of Them

Managing your social media so that you get results takes a great deal of time. But, there are many distractions that whittle it away on activities that produce zero results. Don’t get sucked in when you’ve got other, more pressing priorities.

Here are the biggest time wasters on social media and how you can avoid them.

4 Biggest Social Media Time Wasters to Avoid

Long Content

Long and involved content does have a place in digital marketing but it’s not necessary for all the content you produce.

First, it takes you a long time to read or watch it. Just think of an hour-long documentary you’re thinking of sharing with your audience. Not a great use of your time.

But the other problem with long-form content is that it doesn’t perform as well on social media generally speaking. People prefer small, “bite-sized” content instead. A study conducted by Hubspot recently uncovered that attention spans decline after 1-minute. They recommended the following length of time for these channels: Instagram, 30-seconds; Twitter, 45-seconds, Facebook, 1-minute; YouTube, 2-minutes.

One way to avoid getting sucked into long content is to set a specific guideline for maximum length, and then evaluate each piece of content you might share.

RELATED: Five Tips For Social Video Optimization

Unfocused Content

For each piece of content that you create or share, ask yourself what particular use it is for your audience. Many businesses simply share things they find interesting or amusing, and this is fine as long as your audience thinks so too. But a better approach is to start by asking yourself, “How can my audience use this?”

To better understand what value you can bring to an audience consider getting to know them a bit better. You may enjoy this post: What is a Buyer Persona and How Do I Use it for My Small Business?

Checking Randomly

Many of us check our social media profiles throughout the day when we have downtime. This is fine for personal use, but you want your business social media time to be more focused. After all, you want to get things done, and the more efficiently the better.

This is why it’s best to set aside specific times each day to check in on your channels, rather than checking or posting randomly throughout the day. Set aside this time and create a routine for what you do during this time to make the most of it.  When you’re checking social media throughout the day, however, you can save things to share later or save ideas that you like.

Creating a content calendar is key to minimizing your daily social media time and maximizing your efforts.

RELATED: Considering Marketing Automation? Start With Social Media

Failing to Use Features

Finally, you could be wasting a great deal of time by failing to use the features that social media platforms offer for controlling your feed.

If you’re using the same profile for personal and business, you’ll be seeing posts from old high school friends alongside the content of influencers in your niche. Try segmenting your newsfeed into business-related and personal.

A good way to discover your own personal time-wasters is to log your social media time. Write down the times and what you’re doing during those times. By tracking, it’s easy to see where you’re wasting time.

It can be easy to get sucked into wasting time on social media, in fact, they are designed to keep you there! But, you have a business to run, so having a plan and sticking to it is going to be your best bet for success. Let me help you navigate social media successfully. Reach out for a free consult!

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