“I’m so busy running my business. I can’t spend time on social media all day.”
I get it. But the truth is, if you want to be successful in today’s world, you have to either make the time to do it (and do it consistently) or pay to outsource the task to someone else.
If you absolutely hate social media, I read a great story recently about a small farm pulling in six figures using email marketing. But the same rule about consistency applies. And you absolutely MUST have a website. But those are topics for another post.
So how can you market your business on social media without spending all of your precious working hours on your phone or computer? Here are my three favorite ways:
1. Batch content creation
You don’t actually have to figure out things to post on social media every day.
Did you know you can go on Canva Pro and, using AI, bulk create a ton of posts at once? This tutorial will show you how to do it. (I had to watch it a few times and then make sure I was using one of my saved brand templates, but it blew my mind and made me SO many posts at once.)
If you don’t have Canva Pro, there’s a free trial, but it is well worth the subscription price.
Then, you can go into your Meta Business Suite on Facebook and schedule all your posts for the week. It will send them to Facebook AND Instagram.
2. Keep it simple
A lot of small business owners get hung up on what to say or post or what picture to use and then they end up doing nothing. That’s so much worse than posting an iffy picture.
It doesn’t have to be perfect! Post a picture or make a Reel and in the caption explain what it is and give customers a call to action (tell them to do something).
It can be to follow you, like the post, leave a comment, send a message or come by your business (and don’t forget to include your hours and location), or visit your website.
Here are some ideas:
- If you have a restaurant or food truck, post pictures of your food from the day before. Snap a pic or video before you serve it and you should have lots of content to choose from.
- If you have a special of the day, post a picture of that.
- Post pictures of happy customers.
- Post a behind the scenes pic or video of a product being made.
- Post pictures of new products.
- Post pictures of your place of business.
- Post a picture of yourself and share a little bit about why you opened your business.
- Highlight employees.
- Share 3-7 tips related to your business and how it can help solve a problem.
- Post text on background images that answer FAQs and direct them to your website.
3. Automate messages and schedule engagement time
This is kind of two tips, really. It’s hard to get things done if you’re constantly on your phone responding to social media. Schedule a time (or times) during the day just for engaging with followers – then hop off.
You can use automated messaging (provided in Meta Business Suite) to respond to messages you get when you’re busy or just away from your phone doing actual work.
People. Can. Wait.
Social media doesn’t have to run your life. In fact, it shouldn’t if you want to build a business you actually enjoy.
With my food truck, I mainly use social (and email) to let people know when we’re going to be open and if there’s a special. Then, I give a call to action (pre-order now!) with a link to our online ordering system (our preferred ordering method because it takes payments and keeps orders timed right).
If we get a social media message during delivery hours, customers get an automated response telling them how to order. If they wanted to order, they click the link and do that.
If they have a question or comment, they can just leave it in the message and I’ll answer it during the time I have designated for it. It works well and our customers have learned that if they want an order, they need to use the link. (And there’s instructions on the site for what to do in case the system goes down).
