5 Easy Ways to Manage Multiple Social Media Profiles

The Art of Juggling Different Platforms

It’s 9am and you’re already behind on posting. You’re sifting through Twitter, news feeds, Feedly, Digg, and more identifying post-worthy content. Finally you craft a post and open the various tabs to all of your social media profiles (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google My Business …the list goes on). Thirty minutes later, you’ve successfully posted on all of your channels.

This is an extreme case scenario but the problem that we are all facing is very real, and that is the demand of our never-sleeping social networks; unforgiving to our busy schedules or lack of fresh daily content. Having confronted this issue, we have developed 5 easy ways to manage multiple social media profiles to implement this year:

One: Planning Takes Precedence

Planning should take precedence over anything else in order to manage multiple social media profiles. This tends to take a back seat when people tackle social media, but a plan has a larger ROI compared to ad-hoc posting. Identify your profiles, each of their individual objectives, and your post-schedule for 6-12 months. The objectives for your Facebook page should be different than the objectives for your Google My Business page. There is no precise formula, but first look at your analytics for each channel; what kind of interaction are you getting from your Facebook page? Based on those findings, focus your page on the specific content and approaches that are excelling. Similarly, look at different engagements on your other profiles to determine their strengths and, in-turn, where your focus should be. Now is always a great time to huddle up and look at your profiles, objectives, and post-schedule for 6-12 months.

Two: No More Scrambling

To do-away with last-minute scramble posting, start scheduling your posts. First, take a chunk of time, perhaps a day, and read a lot! I’ve heard that for every post I create, I should have read at least 9 things. While ambitious, the point is that your content should be valuable and value requires a time investment on your end. Generate about a week to two weeks’ worth of posts (e.g. at a rate of 4 posts a day, you would create 56 posts). Schedule those posts as insurance for not falling behind.

Three: Hootsuite Heaven

While some extra hands would be amazing, we’ll settle for third-party social media aids. Our favorite social media posting platform is Hootsuite. It allows you to host your LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to schedule posts, identify optimal times to post, track engagement, and analyze traffic. Google My Business and Pinterest do not yet allow scheduled posts.

Four: Success in Scheduling a System

Designated roles are key for delegation and flow. Depending on how big your team is, it is important to sit down and analyze the most efficient way to delegate tasks and create a functioning system. One person might be in charge of scheduling posts every two weeks, while another person is in charge of responding to interactions, while another person is in charge of generating new content and pushing it to the scheduler. There are multiple ways of doing this; the important part is establishing clear roles. If you are a one-person show, build a routine. Pick a day to check in with your news sources and marketing team to identify new themes, content, resources. Pick another day to schedule all of your posts for the week. Pick 2 windows of 30 minutes a day to check interaction with your profiles and respond.

Five: Simultaneous Simulation

Switching between accounts is a huge pain. To juggle your personal and work channels, create two profiles in your Chrome browser. This allows you to have two windows open simultaneously, logged into one window as your personal user with all of your social media profiles, and the other window logged in as your professional user with all of your work profiles. Similarly, have all of your social media profile apps on your smartphone and stay logged in. Twitter allows multiple users on their app, allowing ease in toggling between different social media channels.

Yes, this may seem like a lot, but with these 5 steps, your ability to manage multiple social media profiles increases. Have patience, plan, and then plan some more, schedule your time, delegate, and don’t forget to remain creative and inspired. Try new steps this year to rock your social media strategy.