Ever wonder how much time you should devote to social media each week? While there is no set formula, this infographic breaks down the components of maintaining and measuring a social media strategy (based on a 40 hour work week). Maintaining a social media strategy is not only about scheduling tweets and replying to mentions. Rather, social media marketing is a living process in which each component is connected to the others. From content creation, to post scheduling, to campaign development, to analytics reporting, social media is an ongoing process.
The social media work flow infographic below assigns time benchmarks for eleven components of a strong social media strategy:
- Updating social networks – 4 hours
- Planning, writing, and publishing blog posts – 7.5 hours
- Research and planning internal and external content to share – 4 hours
- Curate and share content – 2.5 hours
- Engaging with your community – 4 hours
- Monitoring brand mentions online – 2.5 hours
- Developing campaigns, such as promotions and contests – 2.5 hours
- Community growth – 2.5 hours
- Strategy management and adjustments – 2.5 hours
- Analytics Reporting – 2.5 hours
- Contingency time for damage control or unexpected problems – 4 hours
Do you allocate your time in a similar manner? Do you think that one component should have a larger focus during the week? Leave a comment below with your thoughts!
I think I would add a LOT more time to content creation rather than just curation at this point in time. The best brands now aren’t just moving around the ideas of others but putting time into creating some of their own whether it is simple text graphics or more complicated ebooks, podcasts or videos!
That is a very good point Jenn! It is even more important than before, especially now that unique content has become so critical to SEO. Thanks for checking out my post and commenting!
Brianna
Brianna,
Thank you for writing this article. I’ve recently started to follow you, and think you give some really insightful and effective information.
I have a question: In the workflow example you’ve provided, what is the difference between engaging with your community and community growth?
I allocate time in a similar fashion, but allocate more time for community engagement and being a part of the conversation–both by listening and engaging. I think social engagement and listening are vital components to learning about your customer, and better serving them.
Thanks again for a great article.
Hi!
Thank you so much for the comment. Regarding your question, community growth is the time spent on finding industry influencers and potential customers to follow or connect with via social media. Community engagement is exactly what you are talking about: listening and responding to brand mentions, answering customer questions, and joining relevant industry conversations.
Hope that helps, and thank you again for the great comment!
Brianna
I would like to thanks for the great information for social media work flow. I will also follow this steps and received more benefits for my site.
Very nice infographic. I am wondering why there is so little time spent to listening? And is there any time for creative development?
Hi! Thanks for the great questions! Regarding listening, I think that listening may be smaller because there are so many great tools out there that do the listening for you and deliver the information right to your inbox. Some great tools like Socialoomph, Hootsuite, Google Alerts, etc. Another reason I think it is smaller is because listening and engaging typically go together.
For creative development, I find that strategy development and blogging are often very creative processes. What do you think? Would you allocate time differently?
Thank you again for the great comment!
Brianna
I agree with what Jenn said (below) about the deeper time it takes to create worthwhile content vs fluffing up the pov or adding onto other’s ideas. In general however, what you have is pretty right on. Thanks.
Hey Brianna, I just came across this – glad my infographic inspired your blog post. As someone who works in the social media space you probably recognize the value of attributing the original source of any content you publish. I’m sure leaving out a link to the original infographic was just an oversight 😉
Hi Mark,
Yes, so sorry I always try to link back to the original source. I have linked the infographic to your original article.
Love your infographic!
Thanks!
Brianna
Thanks Brianna!