How to SHOW UP Consistently on Social Media (without it running your life)

You’re busy, I’m busy, we’re all busy...so how are you supposed to show up every day on social media for yourself (personal brand) or for your brand? 

Blogging, social media, emails, sales pages...it’s all a lot of work. And TIME-CONSUMING! So how can you get it all done? You don’t want it to take all your time...you have a business to run. Here are my top 5 tips to consistently show up for your online presence without it taking up ALL your time. 

Tip #1 - Are you even ready to be on social media?

For someone that has a course teaching people how to use social media for business (The Digital Academy of Social Media) and has a social media agency (The Babble Boutique), it probably seems odd for me to tell someone NOT to be on social media. But I’m a fan of using social media to help grow YOUR BUSINESS. NOT to look popular or anything else. And you can’t use social media to grow your business until you have certain things in place. 

Before you even worry about social media, make sure you have:

1. A clear understanding of who you’re trying to serve.
2. A website.
3. Something to sell (that serves who you’re trying to serve).
4. An email list and a way to opt into the email list on your website.
5. A sales funnel.

Need more help with getting these 5 started? The Digital Academy of Social Media is a great place to start!

Once you have those 5 things in place...and only then...it’s time to start using social media to GROW your business! 

 Tip #2 - Plan Ahead

Showing up consistently takes planning. 

You need a strategy behind what you're posting so that you're attracting the type of person that will WANT and NEED what you're currently selling. 

I break down exactly how to do this in The Digital Academy of Social Media.

Tip #3 - Batch Create EVERYTHING

This is a HUGE time saver. You shouldn’t be doing the same thing every day. Instead, do a lot of one thing each day. Batch creating is doing a lot of one thing in one time chunk so that you save time. 

Here are the tasks that I batch: 

• Photoshoot - I’ll have 2-4 looks and blog posts that I’ll take photos for during each shoot. We’ll (My photographer, Adam, and I) shoot for 1-3 hours in one sitting for all these looks. We usually try to go to locations that have a few different backgrounds and I’ll bring a few different outfits.
  Do you want me to do a post on how I prepare for shoots? Let me know in the comments!
• Blog Posts + Newsletters - I try to write all my blog posts and newsletters for the upcoming month in one sitting. Each month I have 1 newsletter and 1 blog for AzaleeMaslow.com, 1 newsletter for PrettyAF.com, and 4-5 blog posts for PrettyAF (1/week). I write all of this in a Google Doc and it takes about 5 hours. 
• Create Graphics for Social Media + Pick Photos for Social Media/Blog Posts - Each month I do 4 social media posts (1/week) for Azalee Maslow and 4 for The Babble Boutique. I do 3 social media posts per week for PrettyAF which is usually 16 posts per month. I create graphics using Canva and select photos from the previous shoot. For Azalee and The Babble Boutique, all 4 posts will relate to that month’s blog post. For PrettyAF, the 3 social media posts each week will relate to the blog post for that week. This usually takes about an hour. I’ll use folders on my desktop to keep track of which photos go to what. 
• Write Captions for Social Media - At this point, I’ll already have the photos/graphics selected and the blogs written so I already know what I’m working with. I’ll write all the captions with a brief description of what the photo/graphic is. I’ll write this in the same Google Doc I used to write the newsletters and blog posts. This will take about an hour.
• Edit + Schedule Blog Posts + Newsletters - I’ll copy and paste my blog posts and newsletters into where they’ll actually be scheduled/posted. There I’ll edit, format, and add any links. I keep all of my affiliate links in a Google Sheet for easy access. For AzaleeMaslow.com it’s all through Kajabi. For PrettyAF, I schedule the newsletters into Privy and the blog posts on Shopify. OH! And when I schedule the posts I’ll put the links to them in my Google Doc so I’ll have them handy when I’m ready to schedule my social media posts. I’ll edit and format the blog posts and newsletters directly in Kajabi/Shopify/Privy. This will take about an hour.
• Schedule Social Media Posts - I use Buffer to schedule posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for Azalee, The Babble Boutique, and PrettyAF. This will take about an hour since I already have all the photos/graphics ready and the captions are written. I also already have another Google Doc with hashtags in it so I just pull them from there and add a few to customize the hashtags. Do you want specifics on my hashtag strategy? Let me know in the comments! 

So total this all takes about 11 hours BUT in reality, I’ll do the photoshoot separately from everything else and then spend about 5 hours for 2 days to do everything else. This is for a month of social media posts, blog posts, and newsletters SO not too shabby!  

Tip #4 - FOCUS on the Right Thing

Every 3 months I like to decide what my main priority is for the next 3 months. My last 3 months were focused on launching PrettyAF and showing up consistently for all 3 of my brands online. My current 3 months (Now-January) is focusing on my health. My 3 months after that will be to focus on launching the PrettyAF Podcast (I’ve already started interviewing some pretty incredible people for it!). 

So if for the next 3 months you think you will see the biggest impact by focusing on constantly posting on social media then follow the plan I’ve outlined here! If your goal is to grow your Instagram following, focus on that. If it’s to get X number of people on your email list, just focus on that. Do 1 thing really well every 3 months and you’re going to be lightyears ahead! I promise you that. 

Tip #5 - DON’T Show Up Everyday 

As you can tell, from my VERY DETAILED description of how I batch create content, you can see that I don’t post every single day. I’d rather have higher quality content and post less than to force myself to post everyday and it’s kinda crappy. 

It’s better to show up in a small but valuable way consistently than to try to do everything at once and get burnt out and disappear. 

You have to decide for yourself, where you want to show up and how often you want to show up. 

I hope these 5 tips give you clarity on how to show up consistently on social media without it running your life! 

As always, if you have any questions, comment them below or send me a message at [email protected].

Cheers!

Azalee

PS - Do you want even a deeper dive into all things social media? The Digital Academy of Social Media might be the perfect thing for you! Check it out here.