As a small business owner, you’re probably wondering: How much time should I spend on social media marketing? While the answer is not always clear, you need to be realistic about your goals. Most small businesses can’t devote a full day to social media marketing. If you’re a nonprofit, you can post at least one or two times per week. For those in the education sector, you should post at least two or three times per week. You may also want to plan ahead and create a social media calendar to keep track of your content.
The typical social tasks are scheduling updates, engaging with your community, and promoting your business. Each of these activities can take as little as half an hour per day. You should budget an hour a day for content creation and curation. Once you have the content ready, you’ll need at least one hour a day to schedule posts and engage with your audience. Once you’ve created a content strategy, you’ll need another half hour each day to implement it.
Once you’ve outlined your expectations, track your time on social media marketing. Start by tracking how many hours you spend on each of these channels each week. After two weeks, you’ll likely be shocked to learn that social media takes up to 25% of your time. While this may seem high, this is normal for businesses. If you’re looking to increase your social media engagement, it’s important to set expectations with your stakeholders and make sure that you’re giving them the time and attention they need.
