by Mandy Green, Busy Coach
Do you struggle to find enough time in your day to manage social media?
Does the thought of juggling your social media tasks make you break out in a cold sweat?
Let’s face it, coaches are busier than ever. Between email, phone calls, recruiting, practices, games and team meetings, adding social media to the mix is a recipe for overwhelm.
As Jan Jasper, author of “Take Back Your Time” points out,
“You can see it all around us,” “People talk too fast. We’re always in a rush. We start things and don’t finish them and are constantly nagged by the idea that we’ve forgotten to do something, but we’re not sure what it is.”
With so much coming at you, it’s easy to see why managing social media can feel like a burden, instead of a joy.
If you’re ready to take back your day and do away with time wasting tasks, then read the simple tips below.
Each one will help you adjust your tactics and better manage time on social media.
Social Media Time Management Tips
1. Get Strategic
Have you ever hopped on the Internet, perused Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram only to find you’d wasted an hour? It’s easy to do, especially if a hit or miss strategy is your sole plan.
To succeed in today’s hectic coaching world, you need a social media strategy that offers focus each time you get online. Not only does a strategy allow you to act on purpose, it forces you to steer clear of time-wasting activities.
Not that there’s anything wrong with saying hello to your friends or family, but there is a time and a place for that.
Want to save yourself countless wasted hours on social media?
Answer a few questions:
- How does social media work in harmony with your offline recruiting efforts?
- What does social media success within your program look like?
- Which social channels are your recruits on?
- Where are your recruits or team hanging out?
- What are they talking about and how can you become a valuable resource?
Be thoughtful when answering. You need to understand why you’re using social media and how it fits into your recruiting plan.
You need to get integrated. Determine how social media works in tandem with all of your other recruiting communication efforts. Once you’re clear about it’s purpose, your next step is to put your plan in place.
Keep in mind, this should not be an overwhelming process. It’s as simple as opening a Word or Excel file and breaking down what content you will share and what actions you will take to give recruits the feel of your team, coaching staff, and campus.
2. Track Your Activities
Have you ever wondered where you’re actually spending your time each day and how much time each task takes?
For some reason, tracking daily activities with your athletes is a best practice to continue to push them to their best performances.
But that practice never fully transitioned into the using social media to help you attract recruits that will be the best fit for your program. When trying to wrangle your time, you must track how long it takes to manage your social media to-do’s.
Tools like E.ggTimer and Rescue Time will help you stop wondering where your time has gone. I use E.ggTimer to limit my time on certain tasks. It’s simple to use and allows you to set your time like an old school egg timer.
For example, only have 30 minutes to spend writing your tweets for the week? Schedule your egg timer, start writing and call it quits as soon as it goes off. I find this helps me stay focused and distraction free.
Rescue times is also an invaluable tool in its ability to eliminate interruptions. This includes the option to block certain websites while working on specific tasks.
If you want to stop wasting time falling down a Facebook rabbit hole and instead accomplish important tasks, this tool is for you!
3. Set Boundaries
Nothing can suck up your day like social media when it’s not managed. In order to do away with time sucking activities, you must set boundaries.
Determine how often you’ll check each social network and then track your time using free tools like FocusBooster.
FocusBooster is an app based on the Pomodoro Technique, a time management system designed to instantly improve productivity.
How it works with social media:
- Choose the social networks you will visit.
- Determine what your goals are for each network and have content ready to share.
- Set the timer for 25 minutes.
- Focus on your task (s) for 25 minutes and then shut your social networks down.
- Give yourself a 5-minute break.
- Move on to your next money-making activity.
Final Thoughts
As you work to refine your social media workflow, realize that Rome was not built in a day. Managing your social media activity is fluid and determining where your time is best spent will change.
Get laser focused on what matters most today. Laser-like focus on the task at hand is a deadly weapon that will help you accomplish more social media tasks in less time.
If you want to get off the treadmill and truly take control of your day, you need to pay attention to how and where you’re spending your time.
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If you are interested in learning other ways to be strategic about using your social media, check out the 365 day recruiting content calendar I created for college coaches.