How to Manage Your Facebook Marketing in 30 Minutes a Day By Jen Phillips April

Your day is packed with appointments, phone calls, emails and actual work, right?  When are you supposed to fit in your social media time?  People ask me this question all the time, and my answer never varies.  How much time do you already spend on marketing?  This is part of your marketing.

That doesn’t mean it needs to take you all day. Let’s break it down.

Successful Facebook Marketing Relies On 3 Things:

1—Interesting content
2—Consistency
3—Engaged audience

The second is the easiest to achieve.  You need to establish consistency if you’re posting haphazardly.

Using a content calendar can help for many people.   Don’t be put off by the term; it’s really just a fancy way of saying you’re planning out your posts.  It can be as simple as this.

Monday	topic
Tuesday	topic

You get the idea.  Now, what to post in that "topic" category?  Something useful and maybe entertaining.

Do you have an event coming up?  What interesting tidbits do you have to share about the upcoming event?  If you have a video, you can share that one day.  Another day, you can share about the number of people coming to your event with a link to the registration and yet, another day you can share three benefits of attending the event (which could be a blog post that you actually link to via post).

See what I’m doing?  I’m breaking your event down into multiple posts, each a little different but they get the point across.

Now, about that content...

Let’s get it scheduled.

Image: Joe Lanman via Flickr

30 Minutes per Day Plan

Monday – Draft seven to ten ideas of interesting tidbits to share.  Here’s a start, what are the top ten questions people always ask you about your product/service?  Skip the price ones; think of the ones where you can share an answer about the problems you solve.

For example, if you’re a web designer, you ensure your clients get a great looking and well-performing website that has the features they want such as newsletter sign up or blog.

You’re also the go between who speaks “Geek” to the developers so your clients get what they want without spending a fortune on “do overs” because they don’t know the questions to ask.   In an essence, you save your client time and money because you DO know the questions to ask of both parties.

What examples can you share about how you saved the day?   I’ll bet you easily have five or six that come to mind.  Write them down.

Now, what are the 10 questions they should ask you?

I have a friend who shoots videos for businesses and people always ask him the cost of a video.  This is the equivalent of asking how much is a car or a meal at a restaurant.  The answer is, it depends.  Do you want the Lamborghini or the Hyundai?  Traveling to exotic locations or including aerial shots or elephants are more costly than a simple “talking head” with some b-roll in your office.

You have to break it down into specifics. You already do this in conversation and proposals, now what can you make a  tip of the day or a helpful hint?

Tuesday—What pictures do you have to illustrate some of your points from Monday?  Can you share screenshots, for examples? What about pictures of your office or grab some stock photos.

People love pictures and they take up to 4X the room in the newsfeed than a simple text update so people are likely to see them.

Now that you’ve got some content ideas and some photos, let’s put it together.

This is for a sample calendar for a fictional travel specialist.

Monday	Happy Monday! Think I’ll take mine as a cappuccino at St. Mark’s. Click “like” if you’d like to join me!	Shot of cappuccino with Italian backdrop.
Tuesday	Just got this fantastic email from a client! “We LOVED the after hours tour of the Vatican you arranged for us!  Thank you so much!”  LOVE getting emails like this!
Wed.	Fill in the blank: When I travel I __________	Picture of beautiful location.
Thursday	Travel & Leisure say 40% of travelers search out a travel specialist to help them get the most of their trip.  Here’s 10 reasons to use a travel expert (link to blog post)

That’s a little sample.  Notice they’re not long, I ask questions, and I ask people to do something.  I don’t include a picture every time, and I do include a link back to the website or blog post on occasion. You try it.

Wednesday—Now, that you’ve created a week’s worth of posts, schedule a link to run on social media using a tool such as Hootsuite or Facebook’s scheduling tool.  Try out different times of day.  Schedule some in the morning, some in the afternoon, and some at night depending on your audience.

If you’re looking to reach stay-at-home moms, between 9-11 AM and 9-11 PM can be good times.  In the morning they’ve dropped the little ones at preschool and at night, they’re unwinding before bedtime.

Thursday—Have you “liked” other pages on Facebook?  Find some and like them now.  They can be a friend’s business page or people who could be possible allies.  When you start looking at social media marketing as a way to connect with people and build on your in-person marketing efforts, it really takes off.

So, “like” those other Pages, plus comment on and “like” their posts.  Join Groups on Facebook.  Many towns have an active local business group page.  If you’re a member of the Chamber or other networking groups connect with them.  Lots of referrals can come your way if you show up.

Friday—Spend a half hour brainstorming and creating interesting posts for the next week or month.  Expand that content calendar and look at what’s coming up in your business.  Are you launching a new service or product?  Do you have an event coming up?  What is your competition doing?  Can you show your staff working?

Do you want to put up a silly cat picture and say TGIF?  That’s okay.  Show your human side.

Facebook is a place where people come to relax.  Make your content useful and entertaining when appropriate.  Above all, remember to make it about your visitor and not about you.

This will help you build your engagement and your audience.

If you haven’t already?  Figure out how to post to your Facebook Page via your smartphone.  This makes it far easier to post on the fly.

When it comes down to it, you need a plan.  So, take the time to plan your strategy.  Review your content on your website, any e-books or presentations you’ve created, and figure out what you can break into Facebook posts.  You can knock this out in an hour or two, or you may need to break it into those 30 minute segments.  The point is to get it done.

What has worked for you?  Love to hear your comments below.