Time Saving Tools To Protect Your Mental Health for Social Media Managers

As social media managers, our job goes far beyond posting pretty photos and videos on social media. While social media has been around for a while, I still find myself explaining the importance of strategic social media management to potential clients. Until recently.

One of the only upsides to the pandemic has been increased awareness of the effectiveness of good social media for business. The pandemic forced us to communicate to our customers solely through the use of digital media. If a business had a poor presence online they quickly realized their message wasn't reaching their audience. These businesses were slow to pivot and took the hardest hit during the pandemic.

Lucky for us, this increased interest in effective social media management has boosted business for social media managers. With increased business, we need to check in with our processes and ensure we have the right tools in place so we can continue to provide a top-tier service for each of our clients. More importantly, tools that will save us time and protect our mental health.

Scheduling

Some of you may be saying, "Well, duh!"... But I can't tell you how many times I've talked to social media professionals and small business owners and they aren't using a scheduling platform. If you're not planning and scheduling out your content it's easy to miss important dates and ultimately there is no strategy behind what you're doing. How can you really track what's working and not working when you're shooting from the hip every day?

Second, scheduling content is a HUGE timesaver. Without scheduling, there is no such thing as being able to take a vacation without your accounts suffering. It's so important to protect your mental health and take a day off here and there. Social media can be a toxic environment. If you don't take yourself away for a little bit every once and a while you'll find that it will take a toll both on your mental and physical health.

Here is a list of our favorite social media scheduling platforms:

• Sprout Social

• Facebook Creator Studio (Free! Instagram and Facebook only)

• Hootsuite

• Later

• Tailwind

Deciding on what services you offer, platforms you're posting to, budget, and a few other factors will help you choose the right platform for you. Many social media networks also have their own scheduling in place so you may choose to use the free scheduling that comes with each network, or a hybrid of some kind. For example, we use a combination of Sprout Social and Facebook Creator Studio for our clients.

Outsource

If you're feeling overwhelmed, the best thing you can do is ask for help. As your workload grows, it's important to make a list of tasks or projects for which you could recruit some help. If it's a large list, you may need to hire some part-time or even full-time help. While it may cost you a little bit of money to bring someone on your team, it's well worth it for the sake of your mental health.

If you're not quite ready to make the commitment of adding someone new to the team, there are plenty of freelance professionals out there that can help you with a project here and there. We've recently discovered UpWork and it has been a breath of fresh air! While I have heard of some people having some negative experiences, we have been lucky to have nothing but great experiences using UpWork so far. We've found freelancers on UpWork that have helped us with small projects like designing infographics and video editing for TikTok and Reel content.

Not comfortable working with someone online? Or, maybe you prefer to support local freelancers? We love that too! For larger client projects, we prefer to outsource local photographers and videographers. Client content days are a HUGE commitment and recruiting some help can not only help free up some of your time but can also help you focus on the content strategy side a bit more.

Templates

Creating templates for yourself rather than starting every project from scratch is another huge timesaver and it ensures your providing a consistently great service. It may be some extra work at the beginning but in the long run well worth it. Creating your own templates for things like content calendars, social strategies, reports, etc. will ensure you never miss any important information when that time of the month or quarter comes around. Not to mention another big timesaver because you won't be starting from scratch each time.

There are also many great templates online you can purchase from other social media professionals. Pinterest and Google are both great resources to use to find the right template for your business. We personally create all our own templates, so unfortunately I don't have any good recommendations. However, I would recommend spending time researching and learning about the many different templates available so you select the right one for your business. You may even have to purchase a few before you find the one that works for you!

We've created out templates using mostly Google apps including Google Slides, Sheets, Docs, and of course Google Drive. It's super easy to share these files with clients, download PDF versions, and collaborate with your team on them so there are no outdated versions circulating around. Plus, if you're already using Gmail for your email these apps are free.

Task & Project Management

If you're not a list person, there's no better time like the present to start becoming a list person!

There are SO many moving parts when it comes to managing social media, especially multiple client accounts. Creating tasks for myself and setting reminders is the only way I can guarantee nothing falls through the cracks. Not to mention the peace of mind knowing that I'm not forgetting something. Before the days of detailed task lists, I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night frantically remem