HOW TO SAVE LOADS OF TIME ON SOCIAL MEDIA WITH A CONTENT LIBRARY

With every piece of content I create, there is an aim.

I want to make things easier for you. I want to make things more manageable for you. I want to help you reach your goals faster.

Which is why I’m sharing this special secret tip with you today.

A lot of you don’t like managing your social media, mainly because you don’t know whether you’re coming or going. Facebook is the biggest platform but it’s got the lowest reach, Instagram doesn’t know what it’s doing, and did Twitter really increase the character limit?

It’s no wonder you feel like social media takes up most of your time.

Well I’m here to help you streamline your social media process so you can manage it in the shortest amount of time possible. There are many different options, including outsourcing. But today, I want to talk to you about creating a social media content library.

I’m going to cover two things: first, what a social media content library actually is and second, how it can save you LOADS of time.

The only tool you’re going to need? A good old-fashioned spreadsheet.

So before we dive into how this is going to save you loads of time, let’s just run through what a social media content library actually is.

A social media content library is essentially a content library that focuses on reusing content from your social media pages.

Sounds simple, right?

So now you know what it is, I’m going to walk you through the steps of how you can effectively create one. This is something I use for myself and my clients and believe me - it works like a charm.

#1 | PUT CONTENT INTO CATEGORIES

Creating categories is the first step you need to take when it comes to creating a social media content library. But what categories should you have? It’s simple.

Take a look back through the types of content you share on social media and put them under different headings. For instance, I’ll just run through my categories and give you an example for each.

Articles

These are simply just posts from other people’s blogs. I usually look through my Bloglovin’ and Twitter feed to find different articles to share.

Inspiration

This content could be anything from quotes, related hashtags (e.g. #TodayImGrateful), words of wisdom, lessons learnt, personal thoughts and so on.

Own Blog Post

Self-explanatory, right? This is all content you can share from your own blog.

Self-Promotion

Bear in mind that this is different to sharing your own blog posts. The self-promotion category allows you to promote things that aren’t your blog posts. So your shop, your Instagram, your mailing list community, your services, a free course, that kind of thing.

Tip

Tips can be used in any industry and work really well on social media. It’s essentially just a simple tip you share with your audience. This is great for building your credibility.

Question

Social media is all about engaging so having a question category is crucial, as this encourages your audience to interact with you. Plus, it’s great for getting feedback and market research!

So now you’ve got your categories, your spreadsheet should look a little something like this.

Notice how I’ve branded it up, too?

This is going to help you keep your content super organised. It’s also really easy for you to update incase you want to remove or change anything.

Plus, by mixing these categories into a schedule, you can make sure you’re sharing different types of content...which is exactly what we’re getting onto now!

#2 | PUT SPECIFIC CATEGORIES INTO YOUR SCHEDULE

This could be quite complicated because we’re doing it manually - but luckily for you, I’ve got a trick up my sleeve.

First off, be sure to get your copy of your free social media posting schedule to accompany this blog post.

Second, let’s get onto timings. So you could just pick and choose when to schedule your social media updates. Or you could use some tools to help you analyse your followers and create a specific posting schedule for when your audience is most active online.

This is something I do for all my clients and they love it.

Here’s a quick tutorial for Twitter (you can head to this blog post for a more indepth one).

Head to followerwonk.com and click the analyse tab in the navigation bar. Your screen will look like this:

In the “Screen Name” box, put your Twitter handle in. For the second box, be sure to choose “analyse their followers”. When you hit “do it” your screen should look like this:

You want to scroll down to the graph that looks like this:

This is a graph of the times when your Twitter followers are most active on the platform. So you could take these times. Or you could pick how many times you want to post tweets, schedule them with your Buffer account and you’ll have a weekly schedule of specific posting times.

Once you’ve done that, download this free checklist and it will tell you exactly what type of content to post from each of your categories and when.

You’re welcome!

#3| FIND WHAT YOUR AUDIENCE LIKES

One of the best tips out there when it comes to content creation (of any kind) is to listen to your audience. It does require a lot of time, effort and analysis but the results will definitely be worth it

Each week, I create analytics reports for myself and my clients which analyses each of their active social media platforms. For each platform, I always make a note of which piece of content is most popular that week. And do you know something? It’s different for each platform.

You might find that inspirational quotes work best on Facebook, outfit shots work best on Facebook and your Inspiration tweets work best on Twitter. But you won’t know that information until you analyse it and find out what your audience likes.

By spending time listening to your community and finding out what content they like to engage with, you can tailor your social media content library accordingly.

#4 | REUSE YOUR MOST HIGH-QUALITY CONTENT

The purpose of a social media content library isn’t to recycle every single piece of content you share to your platforms. It’s about reusing your most high-quality, evergreen content that you know your audience wants to see.

Facebook posts, Instagram posts, tweets, pins, YouTube videos - they don’t last forever. So it’s important that you’re sharing each piece of content more than once. You’re probably going to reach new people and more people too.

That’s the beauty of having a social media content library. You can add links and updates to the relevant categories in your library and reuse them on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis.

One thing’s for sure, you’ll only be doing the hard work once. You can add to it constantly, instead of starting each week thinking, “I’ve got nothing to share on social media this week!” How good would that be?

For me, the best bit about having a social media content library is that not only can I constantly add new posts to my categories, but my previous content will continue to be recycled. Instead of spending time finding my old blog posts, I can just promote them with a simple copy and paste, without having to write a new message.

Social media is a huge part of my job and I’m all about finding ways to make it more manageable. This is one of my favourite methods. A content library saves you loads of time, makes you more strategic and brings the fun back into social media too.

 

Have you ever thought about having a social media content library? Do you have any other questions about how I can help with your social media? Leave a comment below!

Advanced Blogging TipsHolly Suttonsocial media1 Comment