5 Productivity Hacks for the Social Media Army of One

By: Julia Angelen Joy

September 23, 2019

As a social media army of one, I have managed social for small businesses, large corporations, PR agencies and entrepreneurs.

The best advice I can offer for fellow solo social media “teams” is to make sure social media marketing is part of your daily routine. Engagement requires steady momentum; it follows that a daily social media routine will help you grow your brand’s following. Here are my tips for saving time as a small or solo social media department:

Use a content calendar to plan your posts in advance. A simple spreadsheet could mean the difference between following an efficient roadmap and losing time to writer’s block when you are down to the wire. Check out Biteable’s up-to-date calendar of social media holidays and content ideas for inspiration.

Reduce, re-use, repurpose. Repurposing a single blog post into smaller social media-sized bites is a great model for streamlining your workflow. Try the following steps:

1. Plug blog posts into your content calendar at a cadence that is realistic for your workload. Predetermine a general topic for each post.
2. For each day’s theme or topic, write a post your audience will consider useful. Include detailed analysis, making the most of the lack of a word limit. I like writing one lengthy blog post for the week, and splitting it into smaller daily chunks.
3. Gather photos relevant to the topic. Stock photo sites like Unsplash and Twenty20 are useful resources.
4. Shorten the blog post into a thought leadership piece for LinkedIn. Link back to your original blog post to offer followers a deeper dive into your chosen topic.
5. Trim the LinkedIn post further to craft a Facebook post with a few photos and a link back to the blog.
6. For Instagram, post the best-looking photo to your feed, with a provocative sentence from your post in the caption, directing followers to a “link in bio.” (Be sure to change the link in your brand’s Instagram bio to the homepage for your blog first.) Use a few keywords as hashtags on both the feed post and an accompanying Instagram Story. For the Story, use one of your photos, and/or grab a short quote from the blog post using Canva or the native “Type” feature to make it pop.
7. Pull a 280-character (or less) quote from the blog post, and post it with an accompanying photo on Twitter, linking back to the original blog post.

Don’t like-and-run. Liking others’ posts without meaningful interaction is inefficient. While it’s tempting to take a hit-and-run approach when you are strapped for time, you won’t build long-term trust or community by doing so. For better results, post brief comments on content relevant to your business, answer questions, respond to those who comment on your posts and share others’ creative content.

Aim for a 70-20-10 content mix. Create a checklist for yourself: 70 percent of your content should be made up of real-time updates linking back to your website or blog. 20 percent of your content should share others’ posts—a great tactic for the army of one because it reduces the volume of content you’ll need to create. The last 10 percent of your posts should repost or comment on news topics of interest to your audience.

Focus your platform-specific efforts. Prioritize the big four: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Take time to learn each social platform’s interface to hasten the publishing process.

Follow these simple steps and you’ll soon find yourself winning the daily social media battle—even as an army of one.

Connect with Julia on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter.