How to schedule social updates without “phoning it in”

Once you make the step of regularly engaging on a few social networks, the thought of keeping your activity up DAILY can be daunting. There are a few things you can do immediately to increase your involvement without greatly increasing the effort needed to do so.

We’ll cover sharing articles, scheduling updates, and touch on listening and responding to customer conversations and feedback. These are critical components to utilizing social media for business; because the only way you’ll break through to true engagement with your audience is by keeping your activity up, and by being relevant to the market that you’re trying to reach.

First, to review from previous discussions here on the Influential Blog, whether posting from a business page or a personal account, consider your content strategy. Next, make sure that you have done the work to tighten up your privacy settings, so that the various groups of personal and professional contacts get the most relevant posts as possible.

Sharing Articles

It may sound obvious, but one of the first things you should do to keep your social networking activity up is to share some of what you are reading (that “share” button on websites and blogs is your friend). You can also simply copy links and update your social networks of choice. If your organization has a Facebook Page, re-share posts to your personal profile from time to time so that your friends get a glimpse of what you do.

Add your own analysis where possible, and test the waters by sharing content on different social networks throughout the week (popular networks for sharing include: Facebook, Twitter, Buzz, Linkedin and Stumble Upon. Occasionally share items as you’re reading, but don’t overdo it or you may turn people off with high-frequency updates, more on scheduling in a minute.

Pro tip: Start using Google Reader (Alternative: Feedly or StumbleUpon, and other RSS readers here) to subscribe to all the news and blog sources you keep tabs on. Make a habit of utilizing your reader every day. Add new sources when you encounter new and interesting content. Star or bookmark the best content to revisit, schedule to share, or share immediately. Your Reader becomes a customized portal with all of the content you need right in one place.

As a big iPhone user, myself, I recommend reading and sharing articles on your mobile device. Most news outlets offer great free apps to read and share articles. I also recommend trying Feedly and Pulse, these free apps access a wide variety of customizable content and offer ways to share and save articles to read later.

Scheduling Updates

Scheduling posts on social networks is not new, but it’s admittedly not quite mainstream yet. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t join the fray; just as bloggers build up content to queue and share later, posts on social networks can be put into queue. This will help ease the burden of being constantly plugged in.

Pick your weapon of mass scheduling

Buffer

For Twitter scheduling I recommend trying out Buffer. The concept is simple: Create timeslots, fill up your “buffer” with tweets, and the updates are published in order (with links, your commentary etc.). There’s a browser extension that helps you fill up your buffer while surfing with just one click (an extension is small software that lives in your browser toolbar).

TweetDeck

Don’t let the maximalist interface scare you, TweetDeck offers some great features for keeping on top of all of your social networks. First add your accounts (Facebook, Facebook Pages, Twitter, Linkedin, Foursquare and more). Now you can stay on top of all of your social feeds in one place. The real power comes when you schedule updates. Spend just 20 minutes a week to schedule updates throughout the week and ‘leave it to the cloud.’

Listening and Responding to Social Media Activity

Finally, social media is not just a one-way street. This is especially important for businesses and organizations’ to understand. Every moment of the day, someone or some group is participating in a conversation that touches on your organization. It is vital to get a handle on what is being said.

Beyond that, have fun and speak from a place of understanding. When people take the time to “talk” to businesses, brands, and public figures online, their view of the brand may be colored by the interaction. Treat all interactions as you would a face-to-face conversation. Use the opportunity to surprise and delight people with a personal touch, and leave them with a good impression of your brand or organization.