Running a marketing campaign online means blood, sweat, tears. And time.

One of the toughest things to figure out when organizing such a social media-bound marketing campaign, in particular, would be- the schedule. More precisely, how much content you want to put out and when to do it.

Even though using social media as a marketing platform does actually save you a load of time in comparison to some other marketing undertakings, you can still make it even more efficient.

In this article, we’ll list 5 different things you can do in order to make your social media marketing campaign more time efficient.

1. Come up With a Schedule

A disorderly manner of executing a task can make it seem 5 times bigger and more difficult than it actually is.

Not to mention the vile act of postponing- God knows how many otherwise ambitious marketing campaigns have fallen victim to a clumsy marketing manager who can’t keep a steady schedule alive and well.

Long story short- timing does matter. Especially in social media marketing. The easiest way of keeping your posting output regular is to organize a schedule.

 It doesn’t need to be too strict and you should definitely leave some room for changes along the way. What it absolutely does need to be is consistent.

Having a plan of action at all times can save you plenty of time in the long run. Just think about it. If there’s nothing too obvious to post about (for example, a major upcoming event that everyone’s talking about), you will have your own itinerary of posts you can simply flip out and fill in the gap!

 2. Create Your Own Templates

This one has mostly to do with writers.

When it comes to writing a social media post, there are a couple of things to consider. In contrast to blog posts, for example, where you can go into detail on a specific topic, a social media post typically needs to be short, concise, and more energetic than its long-winded counterparts!

Also, the structures of Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn posts tend to differ substantially. This is where templates come in!

As a social media manager, coming up with a unique template for your social media posts can save your writers (and by extension yourself) a lot of time, indeed. Imagine having to think up a new structure every time you sit down to write an announcement or a product pitch.

If you do decide to come up with a structure, here’s a piece of advice: create separate sheets for different types of posts. For example, you can make several templates for announcements, tip posts, sharing someone else’s content (with links included, of course), or commenting a viral event. Also, you can schedule posts according to an order of your choice- one day it’s news, the other day it’s tips for making pancakes, you name it!

 3. Involve Your Team 

Even though the maxim ‘If you want something done well, do it yourself.’ is true to an extent, if you occupy the position of a project manager, you should think differently.

Trying to be the Jack of all trades can backfire quite badly and it’s pretty much impossible to pull off, as well, if we’re honest. What you want to do instead, is to involve your team members in the work process, so that their skills are put to good use!

No matter what work organization we’re talking about, spreading the workload evenly so that it involves many people rather than just a few will do wonders for productivity. (This especially goes for small businesses.)

4. Organize a Content Library

As your social media marketing campaign progresses, keeping track of all the articles you wrote, posted or possibly scrapped along the way can become a proper pain in the neck after a while.

In order to retain the control over all of your social media accounts and their corresponding ‘assets’ (meaning posts, news feeds, etc.), organizing a content library might be a good idea.

This goes for all digital marketers, really. The idea is to gather all of your social networks or social channels-related output and organize it neatly in a single spot.

Once it’s all been gathered, you can proceed to classify and categorize it further for easier searching and future reference.

5. Keep All Your Images in One Place

Similarly to the point four above, your images and other visual content also deserves special treatment.

If you tend to pair up your social media posts with some images, creating a separate folder for those in your content library will help you find them easier later on.

All in all, a tidy digital workplace will definitely make your life easier, especially in the long run. Being able to access your files in real time and reference them quickly can save you a lot of time indeed. More importantly, this can make your social media management effort much more efficient and effective.

If you feel you can use some help in this field, you might want to consider getting a social media management tool or obtaining help from a Social Media Management Company.  Hope the tips above helped you get some ideas about how to save time. Good luck with your management!