For some business owners, the idea of going online is exhilarating. The potential to build your brand online is huge if only you can get in front of the right people to earn that know, like, and trust factor.

But even the exhilarated business owners hit a roadblock when it comes to posting engaging content consistently.

Why? Because social media can be overwhelming! But it doesn’t have to be.

If you’ve been trying to please everybody, I have some tips to help you save time, stay focused, show up in all the right places, and most importantly how to work smarter and not harder.

Whichever method you choose, just know that with social media, authenticity wins every time. Faster is not always best. The key is simply to be consistent, help your ideal clients solve their problem, and engage authentically so they know that behind that perfect profile pic, there’s a real human with real solutions.

 

Free Project Management Tools for Social Media

When you’re an entrepreneur, anywhere you can save money and time is a huge win, and social media project management is no exception. You don’t have to spend anything to get organized and show up.

The great thing is, many free project management tools will grow with you as you build your brand to include team members. I’ve used each of them as my brand has evolved over the years.

1. A simple and easy universal tool is Google Docs. The great thing about using Google docs is that you have the ability to share and edit documents effortlessly. And, the organization possibilities are limitless. You can create a new team folder with a simple system for keeping track of when to post what. Or, you can keep simplify further and have one shared Google Doc with a header for each day of the week and the single piece of content you’re sharing.

1. Trello. This is a great project management tool to keep everything in one place and is designed for team use or one-person use. The platform allows you to use boards (kind of like a bulletin board) and create cards for each of your content categories. Under each content card, you can write a post or caption that you’ll be sharing for the week. Again, there are so many possibilities here but don’t get overwhelmed by the system. Just keep it simple, and make it work for you.

(Tip: When you’re posting on some platforms, like Instagram, it’s more effective if you post in real-time rather than auto-posting your content. Remember, to get engagement, you have to engage as well, so be sure to take the time to post and comment. Trello makes it easy for you to copy and paste from your desktop onto the platform that you’re using, or you can download the Trello app for your phone and copy and paste it into the social media platform.)

Yes, you can schedule your content in advance, but make sure you’re on the platform when it’s scheduled to post.

My new favorite project management tool is Asana.  It allows you to:

1. create a project for your entire social media content calendar for the year
2. create one template that you can duplicate to organize your content by week or month
3. have all of your content in one place
4. assign tasks to team members

Catch my full Asana tutorial here.

Best Tools for Scheduling Social Media Posts

But, Shawon, you just said I should post in real-time, didn’t you?

I did. But as I mentioned above you can schedule your posts ahead of time, but remember to be present on the app for the time that you’ve scheduled.

Writing content and scheduling posts in advance is helpful:

1. When you need to maintain your online presence without spreading yourself too thin
2. When you need to take a mental health break from showing up without ghosting your audience

Now, if you’re trying to show up everywhere for everyone, my advice is to narrow down your audience and show up where they’re hanging out, unless you have a system, a team or the bandwidth to be in multiple places.

Social media scheduling tools are making it easier to have a presence on more than one platform.

Plannthat is an excellent tool for scheduling. You can plan your content in advance, save drafts, schedule automatic posting, and you can post content to Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn with the option to format your content for that platform.

Planoly is another good scheduling tool that I’ve used.

A Word of Advice

Just remember above all else, show up where your audience is hanging out, share content that solves their problems, and authenticity & consistency wins every time.

For more business ideas and practical advice to build your brand, join us inside Ignite Your Brand, my free exclusive Facebook community for women entrepreneurs. Link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/581973525727990