The Minimalist’s Guide to Managing Your Social Media

By Claire Sakaoka

As freelancers and solopreneurs, we are always looking for ways to either cut overhead or create more time in the day. Or very often – BOTH. And when you are busy, creating and managing social media accounts fall to the bottom of your list. Admit it, at least one day a week, the thought crosses your mind, “I should be posting to __________.” Insert your chosen social platform in the blank. But then at the end of another impossibly busy day, you say, well, maybe I’ll get to that tomorrow.

I help people manage their online marketing every day and I’m going to let you in on a little secret – you can do this! Not only can you do this, but you can do it well and with minimal fuss. It does take some forethought, a little setup in some cases, and a small time commitment. The return on your efforts will quickly justify the time you spend. With consistent minimal effort over time, you can create and build an online social media presence.

How to become an expert minimalist on social media:

1.     Use only the social media platforms that will directly benefit your business. There’s no need to have an account on every social media platform out there. You’d spend more time looking up your passwords than actually posting if you did. How do you decide which platforms to use? Take an inventory of your target audience.

If you sell products or do business directly with individuals (i.e., massage therapist), then Facebook and Instagram are your platforms of choice.  If you work primarily with other business professionals or contract with business-to-business companies, use LinkedIn, especially right now. Recently, an article in Social Media Today cited a statistic from LinkedIn’s owner, Microsoft, that more people are using LinkedIn than ever before, with engagement up 31% in the most recent quarter.

Twitter is great if you are a regular blogger and want to push links out from your website through your Twitter account. Otherwise, Twitter can be a considerable time investment and is generally not ideal for a social media minimalist. If you are a chef or nutritionist, or anyone who does a lot of food preparation, Pinterest and Instagram are great choices.

2.     Automate blog postings on your website to post to your chosen social media platforms. Most websites can be configured to post automatically to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Depending on which website builder you are using (Squarespace, Wix, WordPress, etc.), creating this functionality could be as simple as a toggle switch or a plugin installation. If you aren’t a tech guru, don’t worry too much. This type of setup is generally very reasonably priced. It is only a one-time fee, so well worth it in the long run to have your posts showing up on your social media accounts without any additional effort on your part. 

3.     For content ideas, create topic-specific Google alerts. These email alerts are free and send updates with recent news and blog articles published using the topics chosen. Remember the rule of thumb: 80% of social media posts should promote others' content, with the remaining 20% for directly promoting your services.

4.     Set aside dedicated response time. It doesn’t need to be a huge time investment, maybe 20 minutes a couple of times a week, but it is ideal to be present and engage with any comments to your posts.

Implementing one or more of these strategies will help you create a manageable social media presence that you can grow with minimal effort and time investment. I challenge you to give it a try! You’ll be excited and inspired by the results.

P.S. I recently had a chance to chat about being a social media minimalist on the Wobizzle podcast, a podcast for female solopreneurs and freelancers. Listen in on my conversation with Melissa and Michelle!