The Why And How Of Consistency On Social Media

In today's blog I wanna chat to you on the importance of consistency on social media because I know that it can often be hard.

I feel online in the business space, you always hear “you need to stay consistent on social media”. I say it a lot too, because I know how beneficial it can be for businesses to have an effective presence on social media. However, I know just now whilst we are all in lockdown and a lot of businesses are closed it can feel hard and pointless to stay consistent on social media. I hear it all the time in my Instagram community but also through clients who are closed just now. They’ve lost their spark, and if I wasn’t managing their social media they wouldn’t be posting at all. I am always aware that not everyone has the benefit of having a social media manager, and my biggest mission of Greene Creatives is to help as many business owners as I can, which leads me to today’s topic on consistency on social media.

Let’s deep dive into why you should be consistent on social media and how you can keep consistency on social media. 

Why Do You Need Consistency On Social Media

There are a lot of reasons why you should try to stay consistent on social media, but I’ve whittled it down to the ones I think are important.

The main one is, it is currently the biggest FREE marketing tool that is accessible to small businesses. Think about it, there are so many platforms that fall under the social media umbrella that you are bound to find one that fits your business and your target audience. You don’t need to pay to have a profile on any of these platforms, you can create content and post it to an audience for free (minus the time it takes to create but that’s a different story). This then leads to my second reason, social media has made getting an online presence so accessible for small businesses - take advantage of this!

Having a presence on social media can also help give your business exposure and grow your audience, which should then lead to more customers or clients,  which then leads to more sales, then more money etc… We all know how it works. At the end of the day, you started this business to work for yourself and put food on the table, use social media to help you to do this.

Once you have built this audience you can then directly connect with your customers. You have what businesses decades ago would dream of, marketing research at your fingertips!

I have saved my favorite one until the end. Being on social media allows you to bring some personality to your business, and as we have seen recently there is a shift in how we buy as consumers. People want to buy from people. Whether you’re a solopreneur like myself, or have a small team, showing your personality is what will make people follow you and then convert into customers.

The Important Why On Needing Consistency On Social Media

I cannot emphasise enough how important it is to remember that social media is a tool to help your business grow. When using this tool, you need to remember that this is the main purpose of it and focus on the metrics that contribute to this. It is not a popularity contest, and you shouldn’t let it be. Focus on you.

How To Keep Consistency On Social Media

I can hear you all already reading the above. “Ok I get why I need consistency on social media to be doing it but HOW can I fit it in?”, sound familiar? I feel you! I sometimes plan and create content for everyone else and my own stuff gets left out. I have gotten a lot better at making time for my business so let me share some tips on how you can do it.

First up, planning is definitely key. I dedicate a day a week where I try to work on mostly just projects for my business. I appreciate that a day out of the week is a lot for some business owners, but within that day I would say it takes me around 2 hours max to plan my content, create the posts and schedule them. Try that going forward, set out 2 hours a week to plan your posts and I promise when you get into the swing of it your attitude towards social media will change. My Social Media Template Bundle is a really good tool to plan a head and allows you to plan what you need to do over all platforms.

I would 100% recommend scheduling your posts, especially your core posts. If you have these scheduled ready to go out then anything else you do on top of that is a bonus. My main platforms are Instagram and Facebook so I use Facebook Creator Studio to schedule these. It is free and allows you to schedule over the two platforms at the same time, which makes the process really efficient and means you are keeping consistent while working!

Having a strategy for your content helps to keep you focused and hopefully allows you to see the benefits of your social media presence. Having a strategy just means you are posting content that is relevant to what is happening in your business or that aligns with your goals.

Again, the Social Media Template Bundle helps you break this down. 

I think it is good practice to keep a notebook or a note in your phone for any social media ideas and then jot them down when they come to you. It is also good to have a bank of images you can use for posts too. This allows you to refer back to these when you hit a content block, and believe me this happens to all of us. My tip for this would be to stop trying and come back to it at another time. PS this doesn't mean stop consistency on social media, it just means take a few hours or a day away from it and come back with a fresh perspective. 

Finally, try to limit your time on social media. Don’t waste time just aimlessly scrolling. This will cause you to start comparing rather than focusing on what the platform is doing for your business.

Remember…

Social media can be draining on our mental health. If you need a break from it then have one. Your well being is much more important than staying consistent. Trust me, your business will not disappear because you missed a few posts!

If you would like to deep dive into this more with me then you can book a 1:1 Strategy Session where we can review your current social media strategy and look into how it can improve.