Top Productivity Tips for Social Media Managers

The job of a social media manager is pretty dynamic, and achieving a decent amount of productivity without a set structure can be tricky.

As a social media manager, you must build a structure for your day that optimizes for high output and low stress, and in this post, we will discuss some ways you can do this.

So, here are our top productivity tips for social media managers.

Create a master to-do list

With the amount of input coming in from different sources, from your CEO to the graphic designer on your team, you must centralize all your tasks into a single list.

Creating a dump of everything on your plate is also known as inboxing (from the book "Getting Things Done"). So take 30-45 minutes weekly to download all your tasks into an app like Routine and then schedule them as and when you deem fit.

Time block at the beginning of the day

Given that your day is bound to change constantly, you must set up dedicated time slots for essential tasks that need your attention.

For example, let's say you want to create a list of all relevant hashtags for Instagram. You can then use an app like Routine to create an event and then drag and drop it onto your calendar to block time for it.

Many high-performing social media managers consistently use time blocking, and it would greatly help your productivity.

Batch similar tasks

Context switching is one of the biggest drainers of productivity if you are a social media manager. So ideally, you don't want to switch between unrelated tasks constantly.

Pick similar and/or related tasks and create a batch you can work on at a stretch. For example, four tasks from your list need you to use Kurato, batch them together and pursue them. This is much better than forcing your brain to switch between one tool or task and another.

Repurpose legacy content

As a social media manager, you are always creating or curating content. There is likely a lot of content in your backlog that didn't receive the traction it deserves, so why not repurpose it?

Instead of creating new content all the time, why not let gems from the past shine? Repurposing old content can give you more time to ideate new campaign ideas, explore design styles, experiment with a different posting schedule, curate unique hashtags, etc.

Eat the frog on your schedule

A popular method created by Brian Tracy, "Eat the frog," emphasizes picking up the most challenging yet essential task and finishing it first thing in the morning.

For example, if you don't like creating weekly social media analytics reports, but it is critical to complete, you are likely to postpone it until it becomes a pressing matter. But under the "Eat your frog" method, you'll pick that task at the beginning of the day and finish it before moving on to anything else, thereby freeing up your day and mind.

Use asynchronous communication effectively

One of the biggest time consumers when working in social media management is the frequent meetings. There are times when, as a manager, you are more anxious about the time these campaign meetings will take than the time it will take to execute the campaign.

So, first and foremost, try to reduce the number of meetings and embrace asynchronous communication tools. For example, comment and collaborate on Figma instead of long design meetings.

You can also set clear expectations regarding communication timelines with your teammates. It will not always be easy, but setting up time slots to handle communication is essential, so it doesn't hamper your productivity for the rest of the day.

Use as much automation as possible

Tools like Zapier, Make, and Integrately make it super easy to automate a decent chunk of your workflow as a social media manager. So take advantage of these tools and build workflows that save you time.

The easiest way to identify workflows that can be automated is to look at the Zapier catalog for the tool you are working with. For example, if you want to know things you can automate with Buffer, check out Buffer's Zapier catalog, and you'll get some ideas.

Run short experiments and drop non-performers

While you want to keep innovating on your campaigns and the content pieces you create, you need a mechanism to assess these campaigns' success rates.

For example, you can use a tool like Unbounce to do A/B testing on landing pages and Google Analytics to see whether it is working.

And give the campaign a hard stop, at which point you can see the feasibility of continuing with the strategy or moving on to something else.

Not sticking to campaigns for the lack of timely assessment makes you feel that you are being productive when you are not.

Are you taking the next step?

Now that I have shared my tips on how to get productive, it is up to you to kick start that journey. I strongly recommend that you start small and take progressive steps instead of trying to do everything at once.

A good start would be downloading the Routine app and preparing your task list, and then using Routine's planner to schedule time for them.

Do this for at least a week, and let us know if it made you more productive on Twitter. Thanks for reading.

About the author: Shiva Prabhakaran is a marketing professional and a writer with his core interests being growth, design, crypto and startups.