“How Long Should I Be Spending On Social Media Each Week?”
It’s a question we’re often asked during social media training and we’re going to try out best to give you some ballpark figures
It’s worth saying however that most business owners and individuals grossly underestimate how much time they need to spend on social media
And whilst these are figures based on 10+ years of running a social media marketing company and 20+ years of marketing I have no doubt you’ll have
– Seen articles that claim you can manage social media in 10 minutes a day (Note: You honestly can’t)
and
– People who spend 4x the amount of time I’m suggesting
It’s also worth mentioned as well that these figures are based around the average person who manages social media as part of their role rather than someone employed for 40 hours a week purely to handle social media
It’s also looks purely at day to day social media rather than higher thinking / overarching strategy
WHAT WE’LL BE LOOKING AT BELOW
* Content production
* Posting / Scheduling
* Engaging / Real Time Posts
* Audience building
* Analytics / Reports
CONTENT PRODUCTION
BLOGGING
Naturally this depends on how easy you find it to write, whether it’s a blog you need to research or do from the heart / head and whether images are readily available
* Researching Blogs – 1-2 hours
* Writing Blogs – 1 hour
* Editing Blogs . Sourcing Images for blogs – 0.5 hours
Total 2.5-3.5 hours
VIDEO / PHOTO / GRAPHIC DESIGN PRODUCTION
Where possible we’d recommend you use specialists for these fields
A photographer is not a social media marketer … and social media marketer is not a photographer
A graphic designer is a not a social media marketer … and a social media marketer is not a graphic designer
A videographer is not a social media marketer … and a social media marketer is not a videographer
But at times due to budget restraints and sadly that fact that companies don’t respect experts and expect social media marketers to be jacks of all trade
You might want to set aside 4 hours a week for extra content production such as photos / videos / graphics or meetings with said specialists
Total 4 hours
POSTING / SCHEDULING
Writing memorable copy for social media post is an artform
It’s not just “Hello Monday” / “Happy Humpday” / “Are you excited it’s Friday” Ad infinitum
You’re adding value and insight and something different and that takes time rather than 10 seconds to bang out something each day to please the boss
Each platform is different and will have nuances and different posts – but as a rough estimate allow 25 mins for each platform
LinkedIn – 25 mins
Facebook – 25 mins
Instagram – 25 mins
Facebook – 25 mins
Twitter – 25 mins
Note: You might not use all of these platforms – but if you did the total is
Total: 2 Hours
ENGAGING
Everybody is different on this – but the key thing on social media is you need to be social
You can’t just post and go
You can’t post something on social media and ignore the responses
You can’t treat social media as distribution only
To put this in context in how varied engagement can be on social media I know
* People who only market via LinkedIn and spend 2 hours a day Monday – Friday engaging on the newsfeed and on messages (yes – 10 hours a week)
* People who only market via Instagram and spend 1 hour a day 7 days a week engaging on the platform (feed / stories / messages – yes, 7 hours a week)
Personally we spend around 40 mins on Twitter / 40 mins on LinkedIn / 15 mins on Instagram / 5 mins on Facebook ( 1 hour 40 a day)
Put your total down now for engagement
AUDIENCE BUILDING
What do I mean by audience building?
– Finding new people to follow on Twitter
– Connecting with the right people on LinkedIn
– Reaching out to influencers / customers on Instagram
Great content will build an audience, but it also takes some time yourself to profile the right people, target the right people and do this organically rather than flicking the on button for pretty lame automation software than can get you banned from the platform
Set aside an hour a week for this
ANALYTICS / REPORTS
What are you measuring against and how are you measuring the success of your social media?
Every social media platform has inbuilt analytics tools which enable you to measure the success of your campaigns
Facebook Insights, Instagram Insights, Twitter Analytics, LinkedIn Analytics
Read the data
Record the data / changes
Implement changes
Spend 1 hour per week doing this
TOTALS
Blogging – 2.5 hours
Other Content Production – 4 hours
Posting / Scheduling – 2 hours
Engagement – 7.5 hours
Audience Building – 1 hour
Analytics / Reports – 1 hour
Total = 18 hours
AND HERE COMES COMPROMISE …
A lot of smaller businesses / organisations are going to have to compromise on the above
They simply don’t have the staff resources for 18 spare hours a week for social media
They simply don’t the budget to outsource 18 hours a week to a social media company
But they can do 4-8 hours a week and Social Media Training can help identify where to spend their time
And if 4-8 hours really is not possible due to time constraints then outsourcing some / all of social media is a really cost-effective option
Get the most out of the time you have
NEED HELP WITH YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA?
Chat to us about Social Media Marketing for YOUR organisation , so we can better understand YOU and what will grow your organisation
We can only find out what is unique to your business by chatting with you
Look at our Social Media Training and Social Media Management services
We offer Social Media Training on
* Twitter
* Facebook
* LinkedIn
* Instagram
* Blogging
We can do this
* 121
* Corporate Workshops
* Group Workshops
* Face to Face or Via Skype
Please call Alex on 07806774279 or email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk
