Is Social Media Distracting You From Your Business?

In my experience, most small and medium-sized business owners don’t need convincing when it comes to social media.

They know their audience will find them on social media.

They know they’ll get results if they have a consistent, value-driven presence on social media.

But… they struggle to get into it.

Why?

Because social media is a time suck.

I mean, let’s face it.

Entrepreneurs don’t always have time to spend an entire afternoon, or days, or weeks planning and scheduling social media content across multiple platforms.

So, what are your options?

The easy fix, of course, is you could always hire a social media manager, like yours truly over here!

Or, barring that, you could invest in a social media scheduler.

A social media scheduler is a dashboard that synchs to your business’s social media platforms so you can plan your social media calendar and schedule your posts.

Publer is a great social media scheduler that I use and you can try it for free?here.

Beyond saving you time, there are a couple of advantages to using this valuable tool.

With a social media scheduler, you only need to log in once

Once you’ve synched all your social media platforms to your scheduler, you just have to log in once, with one username and password.

Believe it or not, one of the greatest joys I get from using a scheduler is not having to log in with a username and password every time I want to post on a particular social media platform.

And no, it’s not because I don’t want to memorize a bunch of usernames and passwords (although that’s a huge bonus – not going to lie).

The reason is that I get to bypass the social media platforms when I’m composing and scheduling posts and – as much as I enjoy scrolling and engaging on social media – when I’m WORKING, I need to stay focused on what I’m doing.

If you find yourself getting easily distracted from your work on social media, don’t feel bad – you are not alone.

Social media is literally designed to be distracting.

That’s why you lose track of how much time you spend there. It’s not an accident.

The creators of YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter have literally studied human behaviour and psychology to figure out ways on how to reward your brain with chemical signals that keep you happy, engaged, and distracted – not unlike gambling or getting a dose of dopamine.

Harvard University?reports: “Although not as intense as a hit of cocaine, positive social stimuli will similarly result in a release of dopamine, reinforcing whatever behavior preceded it. Cognitive neuroscientists?have shown?that rewarding social stimuli—laughing faces, positive recognition by our peers, messages from loved ones—activate the same dopaminergic reward pathways. Smartphones have provided us with a virtually unlimited supply of social stimuli, both positive and negative. Every notification, whether it’s a text message, a “like” on Instagram, or a Facebook notification, has the potential to be a positive social stimulus and dopamine influx.”

So, unless you want to spend a whole lot of time on something that should really only take you a fraction of that time, be sure to distinguish between working on social media and enjoying social media – because those are 2 different things.

When you’re working, don’t let yourself get distracted. Use a scheduler, bypass the “fun part” of social media, and get your content scheduled quickly and easily.

Using a social media scheduler will give you access to analytics

Depending on the scheduler you choose, you will likely have access to data from your posts that can help you with your social media strategy.

For instance, you might get feedback on which posts work the best, or what times and days are best for you to post so that you get the most engagement.

Observing how your content performs can help you devise new content and determine how you want to spread it out over multiple platforms.

Using a scheduler will help you produce more content

Having a social media calendar encourages you to be more disciplined and productive.

Without using a scheduling tool, you might find yourself posting content all willy-nilly, without real consistency.

If you want to build more credibility, having a steady stream of content is essential.

And to achieve this, you don’t just want to schedule to publish, but also schedule to produce.

For example, let’s say you decide in advance that you’re going to publish a new video on YouTube every Thursday.

With that in mind, you would know that on Monday, you’d better have your script written, so that you’ll be ready to shoot your footage on Tuesday. If you need a videographer on that day to help you shoot, or if you have to get your set ready, you’ll know to get that in place beforehand.

After you shoot, you should schedule enough time on Wednesday to edit and get your captions and subtitles ready.

Now you are ready to upload and schedule to post, so that on Thursday, you’re published first thing in the morning – without fail.

Using a scheduling tool will help you plan your social media calendar with more ease, and more importantly, it will help you reverse engineer your posts so that your content gets produced on time.

Using a social media scheduler such as?Publer?will not only help you save time, but it will also help you stay focused. Having to only log onto one dashboard instead of individual social media platforms will help you avoid distraction. Depending on what scheduling tool you decide to use, you will have access to analytics that can help you deduce which content gets you the best results and when you should post. And finally, using a social media scheduler will help you maintain a content calendar and be more consistent with your content creation.

Publer is a great social media scheduler that I use and recommend. You can try it for free?here.

Read my product review for Publer here.

This post contains referral links for products at no additional cost to you.

#PublerNation