Even If you have truly committed to your social media marketing efforts, there will be days where everything goes off the rails. People have called in sick, and suddenly you’re the only one in the office. You’ve managed to book yourself solid thinking you would get time to tweet while you have lunch – only to realise the concept of lunch was never really a reality.

Or maybe, it’s what we refer to internally here at Green Umbrella as Tumbleweed Tuesday. That one day of the week where the whole world seems to have stopped arguing and giving out opinion. Which means there is no news to share.

For clarity, I’m talking about unbranded content. The stuff that makes you interesting, and shows that you are an expert in what you do. What I’m not talking about is your sales stuff.

Content for content’s sake

I am a great believer that doing social the right way means actually managing your profiles – not just churning out content. But what does managing social media for a business look like?

1. Creating a content plan. If there’s nothing happening in the big wide world that you can use – this is your opportunity to plan your branded content. Produce imagery and work on the wording of your sales driven social postings. Then get them scheduled ahead using a tool like Hootsuite.
2. Do a quick competitor check. How does their presence look at the moment? Are they active? Can you see any trends they may be on top of that you’re not? What is or isn’t working for them?
3. Review your own presence – Facebook and LinkedIn have a habit of changing ideal image sizes on us. Are you happily posting away, thinking your beautifully branded content rocks when actually everything is being cropped out of the feed. If you are using a scheduling tool, this is definitely something worth checking regularly. Who knows what the API gremlins get up to at times!
4. If you’re using Twitter – review your lists. Lists should be the lifeblood of your Twitter account. So keep them organised and up to date.
5. Is there anyone you should have followed recently? Or a contact you should have connected with on LinkedIn? When did you last ask for reviews or recommendations? When did you last give any?!?
6. Review your list of news sources. We often build extensive lists of news sources for our clients related to their industry or the interest of their target audience. We’re all guilty of reverting to favourites and old reliables – but on a no news day you often find there is a source or two you’ve forgotten about. Or, that you actually have a few more sources to add to your list!
7. Review your strategy. What exactly are you supposed to be doing again? Why are you putting all this effort into this particular platform? Have you got caught up selling products when actually you were supposed to be gathering opinion on a possible new direction?

Consistent effort

Managing social media profiles requires consistent effort, and consistently looking at your own work with fresh eyes. It’s tough to do as you can’t help but get emotionally attached to your work. It is after all social – that means there is a little bit of you in every tweet. (Sounds cheesy – I know.) So whether your no news day falls on Tumbleweed Tuesday or not – I encourage you to use that time to your advantage, and not get caught up looking for things that are just not there.