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The following is a guest post by Anurag Gupta. Anurag Gupta is a budding entrepreneur with stakes in WeblinkIndia.net, an acclaimed Web Designing & Development Company, headquartered in India. He also happens to be a keen writer, sharing insights, tips, and tutorials on subjects related to the ever evolving landscape of Web Designing and Development.

I may sound a wee bit dystopian but the truth is – social media marketing is a tough nut to crack. If you have been trying to grab eyeballs for your business via social media platforms, you must be familiar with that sickening feeling of a blackout, when your mind is totally baffled with recurrent postings and endless chat sessions.

While some of us find charting the infinite social media landscape a daunting task, others are so addicted to the barrage of content that they hardly realize a waste of precious hours with no results to count at the end of the day.

This social media overwhelm is not only unproductive but counterproductive as it engages valuable human resources and turns them from active marketers to virtually passive ducks with no clear direction, strategy or means to hit their target. This can be and must be avoided!

How? Here’s the answer!

1. Define Your Social Media Goals & Strategy

Marketers find themselves drained out on social media when they lack a clear understanding of why they are using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or else.

The gloom sets in when hours of toiling yields nothing worth showing on spreadsheets.

Image Source: Iwon.my

The remedy is to know whether you want to boost your sales, create awareness or build a loyal base of connected customers. Accordingly, chalk out a strategy that drives you closer to your target. When you adopt this approach, you will know the metrics that count and will be able to track them, say on Google Analytics.

This would mean you are not taking blind shots but calculated measures that would keep you pumped through the ebbs and flows.

2. Plan a Week’s Postings In Advance

Not having a set plan is a recipe to wasting time on social media. Sit with a Google Calendar, take note of the important event if any in the week ahead and outline what you would post and where you would post in coherence with your social media strategy.

Image Source: Fundivo

To quantify, just 30 to 40 minutes spent in planning the content “in one go” can save you the frustration of beginning from scratch every time you log into your social media accounts. This systematic, proactive approach doesn’t let the social media overwhelm grip you at any stage as you are in control of your stuff.

3. Set a Strict Time Limit For Your Social Media Session

Social media marketing calls for a disciplined approach from the user. Even if you get slightly off-track, checking that intriguing video or commenting on those compelling social issues, you may fail to notice that an hour has passed. That’s the addictive nature of these platforms.

Image Source: EY

So, before you log in, demarcate a time boundary and make sure you stick to it. A constant awareness of deadline helps you to utilize your time more efficiently and also, you don’t compromise on your regular work.

You may start with a 30-minute session daily and expand or shrink the duration later as per your marketing requirement.

4. Use Scheduling Tools to Avoid Logging In Multiple Times

With the help of automation tools like Hootsuite and Buffer, you can load up a piece of content and schedule its sharing across different social media platforms at preferred times. These tools not only save you the hassle of logging in and out multiple times through the day but also provide useful analytics to track your social media performance.

You can see which posts brought the maximum traffic and tailor your future content accordingly. If your social media accounts are a customer service interface, it’s advisable to save common answers as templates so you can just pull them out, copy and paste when need be. Don’t waste your valuable time typing the same text hundreds of time.

Try these simple hacks and you will see the difference in your productivity.

5. Pick the Platforms Where Your Target Audience Is

Unlike a majority of social media marketers, don’t be driven by FOMO – the Fear of Missing Out. There’s no point in being a social media nomad hopping every platform and randomly bombarding everyone with your content. Instead, be selective and pick the platforms where your target market is most likely to be.

Image Source: volusion

You can start with two or three platforms and can scale up later if need be. Rather than spending your time and effort on posting on a dozen of platforms, emphasize sharing engaging stuff on select ones. This is also helpful because you will struggle to maintain pace with fast-changing trends and tools on all platforms. Less allows you to focus better without being overwhelmed.

So, focus on less but give them all your best shot.

6. Find Influencers and Sharable Content through targeted searches

A major chunk of time on social goes in finding interesting content and people who are influencers in their domains. Randomly sifting through pages and profiles may eat up a lot of time and sap your energy without giving you the desired results.

A better way is to use targeted searches. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social platforms offer powerful search tools letting you find people and relevant content by just entering related keywords.

You can also save time on social media monitoring with the help of tools such as Social Mention and Sprout Social.

The above-mentioned tips could come in handy if you feel gripped by social media fatigue. Also, don’t let the frenzied social race rob you of short breaks. Make sure, you get off your social accounts for a week, once in a quarter, and use this time to analyze what you achieved and where you fell short. Such breaks rid you of prolonged exertion and recharge your batteries for fresh starts.

Now, going back to my opening remark that social media is a tough nut to crack I say these actionable guidelines will drive you through the process. To take full Advantage of Social Media Marketing, you must go prepared to tackle the burnout that awaits you on these platforms.

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