How to automate your business & save your soul
As if life isn’t busy enough, being an entrepreneur creates 101 more jobs to your plate. I quickly found out that I didn’t have enough arms, legs, and toes to complete each project myself.
Listen, when you have a glass of wine in one hand, a cat in the other and … well … you get it … there’s nothing left. After contemplating my success and longevity in this big business world, I looked to how I could efficiently do the tasks needed to be a six figure company without physically doing them.
Genius … right?!
Ever wonder how you can be in more than one place at the same time? Do you find it hard to run a business when there are other things happening around you such as family, children and even full time jobs?
Of course you do!
The solution? Simple. Automation!
Best thing I ever did for my business was to understand that if I’m not talking, then no one is listening. If no one is listening, then I am absent from my audience, which makes me irrelevant to them or their needs.
Same is true for you!
How did I fix this and allow myself the free time to take vacations, family time and quite honestly keep my sanity? Automating my social media freed me from my office chair.
Here is how:
Make A Plan
So what do you automate? Biggest tip and please listen closely because social media is commonly overused for selling, make sure you are posting things that matter & help your target audience. Great rule I learned a long time ago – 80/20. That means 80% of your posts should be engaging, helpful, sharing – nothing about your product & then 20% is marketing your brand and your product. Simple but how do you balance that? You make a schedule.
The easiest way to do this is by creating what one week will look like and repeating that over and over. It just doesn’t have to be more complicated than this. Getting nervous about being too consistent? Let’s be honest, Facebook timelines go so fast that no one is going to remember that you did an engagement post at the same time last week. Another helpful tip: Schedule things just before or just after the hour. People are usually scrolling Facebook when they are waiting around. Meetings generally start and stop on the hour so this will truly help you get in front of your audience who may be checking social media before or after their meetings.
My favorite way to make my social media schedule is my using The Briefcase – A Planner for Entrepreneurs which has a monthly page for your weekly social schedule. Here you will write down your important categories such as engagement posts, personality/funny posts, tips, my blog posts, outside blog posts, product ads and the times you should push them out.
For instance:
Monday’s: 9:05am (Engagement), 2:55pm (Tips), 7:05pm (Product Ad)
Tuesday’s: 11:55am (My Blog Post), 11pm (Personality/Funny)
Social media doesn’t have to suck. By scheduling out your posts ahead of time, you’ll become the Beyoncé of Facebook posts. (Not to mention Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+.) You need to have a well-laid plan before barging on to the social scene, and this section has got you more than covered.
Apps to Automate
And now we get to the fun of automating this perfect schedule. There are really great apps online that will help you push your important messages to your target audience quickly. Here are a few of my absolute favorites.
This online app is the bomb! You will kiss me for suggesting it! Otherwise known as If This Then That is created on rules such as “IF” I post an image to Instagram “Then” post it to “Flickr”. Genius, Right?! The great thing about IFTTT is they allow almost any platform you can think of.
Buffer is the olive in my martini. Honestly! Buffer is what changed my life and freed me. Buffer is a social media scheduler. It allows you to automate your posts on multiple platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Google + and LinkedIn. It has amazing analytics allowing you to check stats, find your most popular posts, and even repost.
Yep, if I wasn’t your best friend before, I will be now. I feel like the best feature Sendible offers is the ability to “repeat” posts via a rotation of X amount of days, Weeks, Months or other. The plus? It allows you to do this for Pinterest which is HUGE! And a little bonus secret … it lets you schedule your Facebook Timeline Covers.
OMG!
To think that I no longer have to worry about rotating my Facebook Timeline Cover makes me kick up my heels and do the running man. Bam!
Now go forth, automate and free yourself up to grow faster than you could ever imagine!
