3 Marketing Tools That Will Save You Time

In an earlier post I mentioned the key marketing strategy you can’t ignore and discussed why building relationships needed to be a key component of your marketing. These days social media makes this all easy. But even when things are easy, they still take time. And you have to be intentional on how you spend your time so things don’t fall by the wayside. We all know marketing is important, but far too often the urgent overcome the important.

Here are 3 marketing tools that will help keep your social media on track and save you time:

• An editorial schedule. Create an easy to use chart of what you want to post and how often. Here is a very basic sample copy Editorial Calendar Sample. If you want sometime more extensive, just Google “Social Media Editorial Calendar Templates” and you’ll find all kinds of ideas! It doesn’t have to be fancy, just fill in the blocks and start using it. The great thing about this type of chart is that you can later give up control of your social media to an assistant! You could also have someone else fill out the chart with suggested posts which you then approve before they are published. Either way, the editorial schedule will give you a leg up on being intentional and getting the job done!
• Hootsuite – This web-based program allows you to schedule social media across a wide range of platforms (Facebook, Twitter, etc). Manage all your social media from one place. Start out with the free version to see how you like it. You may want to upgrade to the pro version which allows you to import multiple posts via an excel spreadsheet (HUGE time saver). The pro version also allows you to pull stories from blogs you love so they post automatically (another huge time saver). And if you want to outsource your social media, the pro version gives you extra log-ins so someone else can take over.
• Google alerts – this free service allows you to monitor key words of your choice. This is a great, easy way to find content to share with your clients. Just set up Google alerts on your favorite topics such as “dog training, dog boarding, dog daycare, etc”. This will help you find great content that can educate and humor anyone who follows you.

These are three simple ways to get started on your intentional relationship building through social media.

And if the whole idea of social media scares you…just start small. I’d recommend starting with only one or two social media networks. Use what your clients are most likely to use (for many in the pet industry Facebook seems a natural choice). Then, commit to spending just one hour a week doing your social media using the tools above and you’ll be on your way to better relationships with your clients!