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Finding time for your social media marketing tasks isn't always easy. Actually, sometimes it can feel downright impossible. But today, I'm sharing my secret sauce for figuring out where social media fits in your schedule. So you can be consistent and reap the benefits of a strong social media presence for your business. So teacher author's go ahead and reheat that cup of coffee, because I'm your host, Cassandra Foster. And we're about to get schooled in socials. Welcome back to school and socials. Time, we talked about time savers in the last episode, and we're keeping with that time theme today by talking about fitting social media into your schedule. And I think I've cracked the code to making social media work, no matter your schedule, with a little help from a scientist. So let's get started. Fitting social media into your schedule truly comes down to creating a habit of social media, a habit of posting consistently and engaging consistently. So we're going to take a second to not talk about social media, and instead talk about habits and how to form habits. Now my all time favorite book on this topic is tiny habits by BJ Fogg. Now BJs whole premise is that you can only create large changes in your life by starting small. In fact, by starting tiny, and he isn't just another guru sharing unsubstantiated advice. BJ Fogg is a behavior scientist who has been studying the formation of habits in humans in his Stanford lab for over 20 years. The idea is that you start so small with a new habit, that it doesn't even feel hard, and you slowly progress up to the complete habit you want to build. And that builds up your motivation along the way. And that helps you maintain your habit in the long term. Seriously, if you haven't read this book, yet, I highly recommend putting it on your list. I'll even leave a link to it in the show notes for you. And so because of Bj Foggs, amazing research, I always like to tell my strategy clients to start small, to not try to jump in and carry out every new piece of a social media strategy all at once, because it will probably end up in them not being consistent, and eventually giving up. So the same applies to our discussion here of figuring out where social media fits into your schedule. Marketing your resources on social media does not just consist of one task. It consists of a bunch of little tasks, all of them add up to your strategy that will help you make the gains you want to see in your business. So things like graphic creation, caption writing, posting stories, if you use Instagram, video, filming and editing, responding to comments and DMS, engaging with it, other counts, etc. So start tiny. Here is an example progression that I would share with a strategy client. Step one, consistently post two stories for one week, step to the next week, keep posting stories and start creating content. Step three would be another week. After that, continue steps one and two. And now our posting one to two times a week. Step four, will be continuing steps one and two. And now try posting three to four times a week. And repeating this process until you're consistently posting content as many days of the week as you'd like. PS, it does not need to be every day, step five would be continuing steps one through four and then adding 10 or 15 minutes of engagement two times a week, answering those comments and DMS engaging with other accounts. And again, repeating that process until you work up to the number of days you want to be engaging. Again, it doesn't have to be every single day. Now, again, wherever you start with your tiny steps is really based on your comfort level, and what you're already doing for social media. If you are posting to stories and feel comfortable doing that, start there, ramp it up, and then move on to maybe trying to post a few times a week. If you're posting three times a week, but not doing stories or engaging. Start with the posting, solidify that and then move on to one of the other two. And of course, I couldn't end our discussion of habit forming without chatting about one of Bj Foggs other life changing tactics called habit stacking, which is when you attach a new habit to an already ingrained habit. For example, I wanted to be more consistent posting to stories. So I connected that habit to my coffee habit. I know F Every morning, I get up, I eat breakfast, and then I make myself a cup of coffee. So while my coffee is brewing, I now post a story sharing what I'll be working on that day. And making my coffee was such a strong habit that it was much easier to start and maintain my story habit by connecting them, instead of finding a separate specific time of the day to post to stories. And that I have found is a key to finding exactly where social media fits in your schedule. It isn't always about finding a separate block of time, it's about connecting a particular social media task to another task that you already consistently complete throughout your day or within your business. For me, it was coffee making. For you, it might be answering Instagram comments right after you check your email. Because that is something you consistently do on your work days, are sharing a post right before you brush your teeth at night. Truly, you can latch on to any ingrained habit, and then add a small social media task to it to help you get it done and get it done consistently. There is so much pressure this time of the year to buy more stuff from Black Friday sales to Christmas ads. But I don't want you to buy more stuff, I want you to get the right things you need to uplevel your business in this season. So that's why I've opened up my mini social media consults schedule for the next three months. So that we can make resources that are going to get stuck in your downloads and courses that are going to go immediately to your desktop graveyard, like thing of the past. Instead, you're going to get my brain and your business for a focus 30 minutes so that you can make sure you have a solid plan moving forward. And you know, your social media will help you reach your business goals. This is not a one size fits all solution. Instead, you're going to get targeted advice that is focused on you and your business. And for Black Friday. And until these spots sell out, you're going to be able to get it for $47, which is the lowest price point these mini consults have ever been. We're talking transformational advice that will make your social media work harder for you. For less than a night out. This isn't stuff. It's the thing you need to get clarity and move forward with your social media marketing. You can grab your discounted spot right now in the show notes. But hurry, because once these spots that I've opened up for the next few months are gone, this price point will be gone too. I can't wait to make 2020 for the year that your social media marketing helps you reach all of your big business goals. Now because I know habit stacking works so well. I'm going to share with you the ultimate social media habit stack to help you fit social media into your schedule. And you might already be able to guess it. If you've seen my trainings at summits, or followed me on Instagram for a bit or even have been keeping up with this podcast. You know, there's one social media strategy I suggest over all others, repurposing. And there are a ton of reasons why repurposing your long form content is important when it comes to social media marketing. But truly, it's this habit stacking concept that will make it a win for you when it comes to consistently showing up on social media. If you create long form content, like blogs, or YouTube videos, or even podcasts like I do, you already have everything you need when it comes to social media content. And if you want to get more into repurposing and using it for your business, I highly suggest heading back to episodes 22 through 25, which is my series focused specifically on long form content and repurposing.
Now when it comes to fitting social media into your schedule, here's how repurposing can be the ultimate habit stack. Because if you are consistently creating long form content, if you have a workflow for that content, that is an established habit you have in your business. So connecting your social media content creation to it will make it feel easier and help you stay more consistent with it. Here's how to do it. Whenever you sit down to draft a blog post, plan out your YouTube video or podcast episode. Also have up your social media planner. And as you add ideas to your draft or outline, jot down what you could share about those ideas on social media in your planner. Then after you finish writing, recording, etc. Go back to your planner immediately and create those posts about that topic. You will have ready to go ideas and the topics will be fresh in your mind. And you can even grab bits and pieces of your copy to use in your graphics and captions, essentially start looking at it as if your piece of long form content isn't done until your social media posts for that topic are complete. And thus repurposing becomes the ultimate habit stack of social media content creation, you've got that ingrained habit, and you're adding a new one to it for maximum success. It's not always easy to find time, and starting something new, like posting or engaging on social media is hard. But by starting tiny, with social media tasks you are already doing and working up to your long term social media content goals, as well as habit stacking those tasks. And using the ultimate habit stack of repurposing your long form content. I'm confident you'll be able to make social media work for your schedule. And if this all still sounds too overwhelming, that's okay. I'd love to help you with a one on one mini social media consult. So we can take a look at your specific business goals, your schedule your habits, and figure out the best course of action when it comes to fitting social media into your schedule. You can schedule a time with me and learn all about my mini social media consults in the show notes. Alright, cool coffee friends. Thanks so much for listening. If you're loving getting schooled in socials, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Also, I would love it if you left a review so that other teacher authors like you can start getting schooled in socials too. All right, I'll see you in the next episode.