Social media networks are not just for friends to connect anymore — they’ve grown into lucrative marketplaces. Top brands use social platforms to increase their market reach, learn about and identify their target audience, advertise products or services, and communicate with customers.  

Being a social media manager can be very challenging. Social platforms don’t sleep, for starters, so how are you supposed to ensure your brand's accounts remain active even during your off-hours? Moreover, trending topics shift all the time, and it can be difficult to know which ones your brand should “hop on” and when. Lastly, social media managers often have to “wear many hats”, and are expected to perform tasks outside of their role.

The life of a social media manager is definitely challenging, but there’s a way to make it a little less draining. Here are seven time-saving tips for social media managers. 

1. Plan Your Content in Advance

According to All About Careers, social media managers work between 35 and 40 hours weekly. But these numbers can go up when deadlines are fast-approaching, leading to burnout. Fortunately, you can avoid this hassle by planning your social media content in advance.

Consider using a social media editorial calendar. You can use a spreadsheet to create your calendar or download social media calendar templates from platforms like Hootsuite.

This calendar includes all the tasks that need to be completed by the end of the week. Other details to add are dates and time, content information, platforms to share the content, etc. 

It can help to differentiate your content by platform in this calendar.

Planning gives you enough time to create quality content and engage with the audience more effectively. It’s also very helpful when you’re expected to share content multiple times daily.

2. Schedule Your Posts

Post scheduling tools are lifesavers to social media managers. These tools allow users to schedule posts to go live at specific times. That means you don’t have to be awake, online, or even near a gadget to publish your posts.

Pixlee TurnTo allows your brand to schedule posts to social channels like TikTok and Instagram, and tag posts with brand products for easier reuse on your website in a Shoppable Gallery

NAVY Hair Care takes an omnichannel approach to content scheduling and planning, tagging products and featuring their own Instagram posts in a shoppable, on-site display.

Time your posts to ensure they go live at the perfect time for maximum visibility and engagements. This is especially useful if you have followers located in different time zones. It ensures your followers receive your message at the perfect time.

Remember that one of the factors that influence the success of social media marketing funnels is reaching your audience at the perfect time. Scheduling tools make that possible by ensuring you time your posts to the second.

Scheduling posts also increases efficiency and productivity. For example, you can use 30 minutes every morning to schedule posts for the day. Once the posts go up, you can focus more time and energy on real-time engagement with your audience. You can apply this routine to multiple accounts as needed.

You also need to know the recommended posting frequencies for different platforms. It is advisable to post one time on LinkedIn, one to two times on Instagram, three times or more on Twitter, about ten times on Pinterest, and at least three times on Google+ per day. The period between subsequent posts can be about two hours.

3. Feature More User-Generated Content (UGC)

Customers like to see people like them on social media — content that blends into their feed instead of sticking out like a branded advertisement. That’s why influencer marketing is growing! When you share UGC on social media, you don’t have to worry about creating your own content, and customers are often more engaged with UGC than traditional posts.

Direct-to-consumer brands in any industry can take advantage of UGC for social content. Delta regularly shares its customers’ adventures on Instagram.

With Pixlee TurnTo, brands like Alo Yoga and Lamps Plus automatically collect, curate, and publish UGC from customers and content creators to their social media profiles. This means no more manual searching for community-generated content to reshare — free, high-quality content is just within reach. Plus, Pixlee TurnTo offers easy bulk, one-step permissioning to promote brand safety. 

Social media managers stand to benefit from a UGC and influencer marketing platform like Pixlee TurnTo to automate and diversify their content strategies. One of the most Instagrammed hotels in the world, the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, drove over 250 million impressions using Pixlee TurnTo-powered UGC across its social channels and website.

4. Automate Other Tasks

Social media automation is a top time-saving tip for social media managers, when it comes to UGC management and other day-to-day tasks. Besides scheduling posts, technology allows social media managers to automate other tasks like data collection and reporting, social listening, and content curation.

With data collection and reporting tools, you will have analytics across all your social media pages under one platform. Therefore, you won’t have to visit each account to collect vital data. That makes comparing your performance across multiple networks easier. Pixlee TurnTo also allows SMMs to map actual revenue to specific pieces of content and creators to help you determine which strategies and partnerships are working best.

Examples of the metrics collected by such automation tools are:

• Likes
• Comments
• Shares
• Follower growth
• Impressions

Your chosen tool will allow you to organize your data in easy-to-understand charts, which you can share with clients. Some tools will even compare your performance with industry benchmarks, giving you an average score.

Social listening tools will provide you with information about what's being said about your brand. Consequently, you won't have to manually search for pages that have tagged or mentioned your brand. 

Pixlee TurnTo allows brands to monitor and collect content from mentions, photo tags, branded hashtags, authenticated influencers, and more. Monitoring these conversations can also improve your industry knowledge, including trends to look out for. Consequently, you can help your brand satisfy market demand.

Automating content curation can also take your social media campaigns to the next level. You don't want to post irrelevant content that won't benefit your client or company. You also don’t want to waste too much time finding the perfect content for your followers, right?

Content curation automation can fix both issues. It helps you identify and publish relevant content within seconds. It also makes it easier to maintain active social media accounts.

Automating these tasks helps you save so much time. You can then utilize that time and focus your efforts on other more critical tasks like monitoring your metrics and enhancing your social media campaigns.

5. Prioritize Social Platforms by Target Audience

There is no point in posting content on several platforms and only receiving solid responses or engagement from one or two. Focus on platforms that generate meaningful results. 

Your business type will determine the most suitable platform/s. While brands in the home decor industry might see more engagement on Pinterest, restaurants and food companies may generate more buzz on Instagram. Social listening tools and tactics can help you identify which channels to focus on.

Furniture brand Million Dollar Baby shares UGC and branded content on Pinterest to help future parents design idyllic nurseries.

You can analyze social media users’ metrics to identify which platforms are likely to work for you. Most platforms publish these analytics publicly. You could also do customer research to determine which platforms are popular among your brand’s target audience.

Ultimately, you may have to test different social channels to identify the ones with the highest ROI for your client.

6. Create a Schedule That Works for You

A significant percentage of social media managers do not work in a defined time frame like traditional 9 to 5 jobs. Without a schedule, you can overwork yourself or not get any work done. To avoid this, create a schedule that works for you. 

The schedule works just like a social media calendar as they both keep you organized. The difference is that your schedule describes your daily routine, whereas a calendar lists your content distribution plan.

Here is an example of a schedule: In the morning, check and reply to emails, schedule content to be posted, hold meetings, and have check-in calls with clients using VoIP solutions. Respond to emails, engage with the audience, check out the analytics, and curate content in the afternoon. Lastly, read and prepare the next day’s content in the evening.

Undoubtedly, you will take breaks in between. If this example doesn't work for you, tweak it. For example, you can curate content in the morning if that’s when you’re most productive.

It is also essential to focus on one task at a time. If you are engaging with the audience, give them full attention. If you’re creating content, focus on that.

7. Recycle Your Best Content

Some posts receive more customer engagement than others. If you have such posts, consider recycling them.  

Not everyone sees your content the first time you post it. Thus, you can reach out to more people by reposting the content. However, if a post needs to be updated, do so before recycling it.

Kimpton Hotels frequently reuses influencer and community content to fit different social campaigns.

If you work with social media influencers, make sure you’re resharing their original content on your brand’s social media channels and website for maximum reach.

Content repurposing is another effective, time-saving tip for social media managers. You can turn an informative YouTube video into a podcast, for example. Additionally, you can divide a long YouTube video into small pieces of content and distribute them to other social platforms.

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This example shows how an online business owner uses the same content on two platforms. That saves time as they don’t need to create different content. 

Social media management is a relatively new career. Since the field is not structured like traditional employment, it can be challenging to have a productive routine. 

The tips discussed above can help you save time. Plan your content, schedule your posts, and automate tasks like content curation. Moreover, prioritize the platforms that work for your brand and recycle your best content. Finally, make sure you use tools that can make your work easier. 

With the above time-saving tips up your sleeve, you can be a productive social media manager — and generate impressive results for your client or company.

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Michal Leszczyński is immersed in developing, implementing, and coordinating all manner of content marketing projects as the Content Marketing Manager at GetResponse. He has 8-plus years of expertise in online marketing with a Master of Science Degree in Strategic Marketing and Consulting from the University of Birmingham (UK). Michal is the author of more than 100 articles, ebooks, and courses for both GetResponse and renowned websites like Crazy Egg and Social Media Today.