3 Tips to Fit Social Selling Into Your Busy Schedule

Curating, scheduling, favoriting, and replying is an every day task for social media managers. However, what if you’re full-time job isn’t keeping up your company’s Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Tumblr and Instagram account up-to-date? Below is a three-item checklist for those who are using social media to build new business relationships, whether that’s development, sales, or networking. Here’s a weekly to-do list that will help your network stay active, allowing you to engage with like-minded influencers and establish yourself as a thought leader.

1. Schedule Content

Once a week dedicate an hour to go through your approved leads on Socedo to see what content they have been tweeting about. From that, you can find content that is both interesting to you, and your target audience (if your potential customers are Tweeting about it, you probably should too!). We also recommend using scheduling applications like Buffer and HootSuite so you can set up your entire week of posts and Tweets, then forget about it and move on to more pressing business. If you’re not using Socedo to find prospective leads and use that content to help you curate, think about which blogs you frequent, or what your following is posting that’s relevant to your product or service. Scheduling your whole week upfront saves you from thinking about reading or finding new content throughout the week. As I’m sure most of us have experienced, reading content on social media can be incredibly distracting. You can get sucked into articles and end up reading for hours. Setting aside one hour a week to schedule saves you from that.

We know that there’s a lot of pressure to churn out amazing content all the time, but don’t over complicate it. Find content you think is interesting and that’s in the same vein as what your followers, and following, are posting about. There’s a pretty good chance they’ll appreciate the topical overlap.

2. Start Conversations

While businesses once used to get away with broadcasting information on social media regardless of their followers interests, interaction on these networks has adapted and evolved. Now users (rightfully so) crave connections. They ask for real-life relationships over the internet with like-minded individuals who share common interests and passions. Now, businesses are turning to these social communities to share in a two-way dialogue with the hope of expanding their brand identity and reaching a broader market. This is where Socedo comes in. As a user of Socedo, spend 20-30 minutes a day approving leads or finding Twitter users who are relevant in your space and start conversations with them. Even if you’re not a Socedo user, utilize Twitter Search to discover leads by using keywords related to your product or industry. When responding to Tweets, try to keep the conversation going by asking questions. This helps you build the all-important one-on-one relationships. Because the social media sphere has evolved, companies involving themselves on a personal level with their customers by starting, maintaining, and finishing conversations on these social media channels is vital to building relationships with new prospects, and, eventually to drive sales.

We’ve found that responding, or beginning, conversations in the morning is most fruitful as people will be able to respond to you throughout the day.  However, it’s important to remember that responding on social media isn’t the end goal. Use your conversations on these networks to encourage your potential customers to begin a in-depth conversation via email or over the phone.

3. Utilize Mobile To Respond

Lastly, have your social network apps on your phone. This way you have the ability to react quickly to those who respond to you. In this social media and marketing environment, customers and followers depend on companies to resolve their problems and questions immediately. Thus, having the ability to respond in a timely manner is incredibly important to maintaining a good name in social media. This idea is so crucial Millward Brown Digital did a study about the importance of brands responding quickly on social media and found “53 percent who expect a brand to respond to their Tweet demand that response come in less than an hour.” As we can guess, that number skyrockets when your customers have specific question or complaint. Suffice to say, having the ability to respond quickly as a brand on social media is just as critical, if not more, than starting a conversation.

The added bonus on having the app on your phone is that you don’t run the risk of getting sucked back into your Twitter feed and the endless interesting articles that may be popping up should you be at your computer. Instead with the app, your only goal should be to respond to the message, continue the conversation, and get back to work.

There you have it! Three simple tips that will help those of us who aren’t social media managers to stay active on our social media accounts, develop relations and pursue leads, without spending inordinate amounts of time on these networks.