Countless articles, surveys, and infographics point to how important social media is for B2B marketing strategy and Vendors and Channel Partners are not immune. Still, no matter how many times we hear the message, posting and engaging on social falls to the bottom of the priority list especially for Partners who often wear many hats and lack time and resources for social media marketing. With never-ending to-do lists, how do Partners make time for social media and how can Vendors help them solve this challenge?
These 8 time saving tips can help:
How much time do Partners spend waiting each day? Waiting in line at the grocery store, for a meeting to start, on an airplane…it adds up fast. Phones and tablets are usually within arm’s reach. Using apps during wait times to find and share articles, comment on LinkedIn discussions or like someone else’s post is one way to carve out time for social media.
Spontaneously tweeting before a meeting is great, but for all the Type-A planners out there, scheduling and bulk posting might be a better style. Social media scheduling tools like Buffer and Hootsuite allow Partners to write many social posts at once and then schedule those posts to social platforms later.
Vendor provided Partner Portals often have social syndication as an offering, allowing Partners to post Vendor created content onto their social platforms with a mouse click or two. This is one more simple time saving way for Partners to post relevant content regularly on social media.
Once social content is scheduled, all Partners need to do is check for engagement with their posts periodically and reply when necessary which can easily be accomplished via social platform mobile apps.
Buffer, has an option to “re-buffer” (re-schedule) previously posted social content. So, when posts are doing well in terms of engagement and reach, re-post them! Social media is very noisy, especially Twitter and re-posting helps Partners reach followers that missed it the first time. Using this feature in moderation and in conjunction with the scheduling feature makes it less time consuming to keep up a regular social media posting cadence.
News aggregator sites like Feedly and Flipboard make searching for relevant, shareable content a breeze. When Partners search for keywords like “marketing” or “DevOps” or for a news source like “Fast Company” or “New York Times” they will find an ample supply of articles. From these aggregators, sharing directly to social platforms using a URL, or scheduling to be posted later in Buffer or Hootsuite are all possible via their mobile apps.
Google Alerts are similar to news aggregators except the news comes to your inbox. Partners can easily set up alerts and receive relevant news via vetted news sources based on their chosen keywords. They can also choose the cadence for how quickly they receive alerts when their requested news breaks. Using Google alerts is a great way to stay on top of trending topics in order to respond in real time.
So, you’re drinking your morning coffee, scrolling through Harvard Business Review online, when you come across a really great article. You don’t have time to post it, and you know you will probably forget to do it later. This scenario happens to all of us. The Pocket desktop app, adds a small button to a browser window so Partners can store the article for later with one click. There’s also a mobile app for Pocket, which works with Buffer for scheduling on mobile devices. Another simple way to use waiting time to save articles and then schedule them all at once later!
Partners are often inundated with email. If they are receiving a few dozen emails a day updating them on every little interaction they have on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, it just adds to the noise. No one likes that. Partners can go into the settings and turn off emails, but turn ON push notifications for their mobile devices. Push notifications won’t flood their inbox, but do provide a nice reminder to check their social platforms and see who is engaging with their content.
This one is Twitter-specific, but definitely still worth noting. Partners may not be aware of the “lists” feature in Twitter. The Twitter homepage feed is extremely noisy, and it can feel like you are getting nowhere when you try to listen in or contribute to a conversation. With lists, Partners can group the people they follow by category and monitor their feeds without the noise from those who post off topic.
Many of us spend our workday jumping from one screen to another. By leveraging wait time and tools Partners can become more active on social media without creating another to-do item for their list. The more they use social media, the more they benefit from it. Once these social media habits have been adopted, social will feel less like a chore and more like the fun, effective, rewarding networking and lead generation tool it is.