What is a 30 Minute Social Session?
30 Minute Social Sessions are my tested recommendations to help solopreneurs take away that confused feeling of where to go and what to do for their social media marketing. For each session, I’ll show you easy ways to add social media into your already crazy busy day.
Each session will show you steps you can do for 30 minutes (or less!) to help you grow your social media presence and to get your message heard by the people who want to buy from you.
If you missed the previous 30 Minute Social Sessions, here are the links to review them:
Click here to read how I scheduled these Facebook 30 Minute Social Sessions once a week into my calendar.
How I learned about how to track my site’s traffic with the Google Analytics 30 Minute Social Session that I do once a month.
What I learned about how a little Twitter 30 Minute Social Session goes a long a way.
What’s your favorite timer?
By now, your timer should be your new BFF (Best Friend Forever). I hope that you’re starting to use it more than just timing your 30 Minute Social Sessions. Sometimes I use my timer to do a big purge in my inbox – I set the timer and just keep cleaning out my inbox until the timer goes off.
This link will take you to my favorite online timer. I use this site because I can see the time left in the browser’s tab and I don’t need to keep checking the browser page to check my remaining time: http://www.online-stopwatch.com/countdown-timer/
You can use this one or an app on your phone or whatever you have around your home or office. Whatever you use, just keep it near your desk so you can stay on track with your time.
This Month’s 30 Minute Social Session: Pinterest
Last month I talked about the latest changes to Facebook’s fan page. I’m starting to see less activity happening with my fans. If you didn’t get the details about what’s happening with your Facebook fan page, take a look at this article from TechCrunch.
Now that we’re going to add in a third social media program into our marketing mix, I want you to take a good look at your Google Analytics. I hope you’ve done your 30 Minute Social Session for the past couple of months and you can see what programs are bringing traffic to your web site.
Why is this information so important?
It’s time for small business owners like ourselves to start thinking about a post-Facebook marketing strategy. Most of us have put a lot of time and effort into Facebook – linking and promoting our fan pages, doing product launches there and using the engagement strategy ideas that I gave you in the Facebook 30 Minute Social Session.
I believe that we need to start moving our eggs into other baskets. I’m not saying to stop using your Facebook fan page but I do think that you should take a look at your Google Analytics and see where you can start shifting your attention. If you see another social network like Twitter or Pinterest is coming in 3rd or 4th in your list, think about how you can spend more time on these programs to help you grow your presence.
Look at me, I’m Pinning!
One important thing to note here — my Pinterest account is over 7,000 people and growing every day. I did all this work on a Pinterest account for one of my clients who had around 175 followers when I tested out this month’s 30 Minute Social Session.
I used the tactics that I use in my company’s Pinterest account to see how I could grow a Pinterest profile that was just starting out.
30 Minute Blocks of Time
Each 30 Minute Social Session is about taking productive tasks and breaking them down into focused blocks of time. I recommend you schedule these Pinterest 30 Minute Social Sessions twice a week into your calendar.
Just like I did with the other sessions, I blocked off the time in my calendar like I would for a client meeting or when I’m teaching a workshop. I tested two different combinations for my 30 minute blocks of time.
Pinterest Session 1: Create new content
This session is about posting new content to your followers. The majority of the activity (80%) on Pinterest is repins so to really stand out in all the image-induced noise, you need to share new content.
Your new content could be valuable articles you’ve read or blog posts you follow that help your business. Or you could create your own images that your fans would find helpful, educational or maybe it’s a quote that brightens up their day.
For this session, I set the timer for 30 minutes and did the following:
I ran a search online for my client’s key words.
I would find a couple of articles that I wanted to share and with the help of my Pinterest feature that’s connected to my browser (you get the link to set this up when you first sign on to your account), I just hit the Pin button and uploaded the articles to a specific board.
To create my own images, I did the following steps:
- Clicked through the client’s web site to see what information I could share.
- Fortunately for me, my client has folders of photos that they own the rights to so I would find an image either that was already on their site or from their images folder that would work with the info I wanted to post.
- I pulled the image into PicMonkey and added the client’s web site and some text about the image.
- Uploaded it manually to a specific board.
- Add in your pin description using some key words and at least one hashtag.
- AND REMEMBER: when you upload it manually, you need to add in the web site URL by using the editing button. After you upload it, look for the edit button (the thing that looks like a pencil) and manually add in the site URL you want your image to be linked to.
I did this new content session once a week. Some days, I spent more time online finding new content and other days, I used the whole 3o minutes to create new images. Either way, I was adding new content to Pinterest and giving more people a reason to find my client’s boards.
Pinterest Session 2: Increase your engagement
This session is about connecting with more people and finding new followers.
For this session, I set the timer for 30 minutes and did the following steps:
1. Pin more stuff under the top pins:
- First I checked my activity log and scanned it to see which pins were repinned the most.
- When you click on that pin, scroll down a bit to see other pins that people who pinned your image posted to their boards. I used these images to find new pins to add to my boards as well as find new people to follow.
2. Run a search for new people to follow:
- I used Pinterest’s search feature to look for new people, boards and pins using my client’s key words.
- This was helpful when I was looking for more content to add to a board that I just started. I found people who had already done the searching and just repinned several of their pins. And depending on their content, I followed their board.
3. Look for group boards to join:
- As I was searching for new boards to follow, I would also look to see which boards were group boards.
- Group boards are an excellent way to get your content viewed by more people since your pins get viewed by everyone who is following the board (whether they can pin to the board or not).
- Unfortunately, Pinterest doesn’t have an option for us to request to pin to a group board so you’ll need to do some research. Check the board description and see if there is way to request to be able to pin to the board. Some boards give you an email to contact or ask you to comment on a pin to get an invite.
- If you see a board you know would be great for your company to be a part of and you don’t see any instructions, try reaching out to the person who set up the board. You should be able to click back to the main profile page from the group board, find their web site link and try to send them a message that way.
What did I learn?
I did these Pinterest 30 Minute Social Sessions twice a week for a full month. During those four weeks, my client’s followers increased by 15% and the repin activity grew so much that people were posting comments on the images I uploaded.
1. The timer kept me on track. When I was working on my new content session or finding new people, I stuck to the checklist of items that I listed above.
2. The more I did the sessions, the quicker I got. I used the extra time to hang out in my Pinterest main feed and just repinned the content that was posted in my home page.
3. My engagement with my fans increased. I found extra free moments in my day to do a quick 10 minute session (in the morning, lunchtime or before I logged off my computer for the day) and just repinned some images in my home feed. The consistent presence of being on Pinterest (even just for a small 10 minute session) was enough to continue growing my followers.
My Social Sessions Schedule
Since we’re now into our fourth 30 Minute Social Session, I wanted to share with you what my schedule looks like when I add in all of my 30 Minute Social Sessions checklists.
I’m still working though the steps in each session but I’ve added in what I call free moments of social time into my day (waiting in the school car line, waiting for my dentist appointment or for a meeting to start). I’ve also pulled back from Facebook and transferred that time to the social programs that are sending more site traffic.
I’ve had a crazy month of work with teaching workshops, handling 2 large client projects, creating content for my site and working on a new email opt-in for my Social Media Conversation newsletter. Let me show you the breakdown of my time using the checklists from Social Sessions.
Facebook:
Once a week, 30 Minute Social Session + 30 minutes to schedule my posts for the week = 1.0 hour per week
Google Analytics:
Once a month, 30 Minute Social Session to check where my traffic is coming from. I’m getting really good at checking this and I cranked out my February report in 20 minutes = 20 minutes once a month
Twitter:
Once a week, 30 Minute Social Session + 30 minutes to schedule my posts in Hootsuite for the week = 1.0 hour per week
Plus I use my free moments to add in new posts about what’s happening in my day, retweet people I’m following or thank someone for sharing a blog post = I’d say this is approximately an additional 2 hours for the whole week.
Total of Twitter time – 3.0 hours for the week
Pinterest:
Twice a week, 30 Minute Social Session, once to create new content and the other session to find new people = 1.0 hour per week
I also added in several days a week to do a quick 10 minute session to repin what was in the home feed = This was approximately an additional 2 hours for the whole week.
Total of Pinterest time – 3.0 hours for the week
At this point, I’m doing about 7 hours a week to keep my social media presence growing. And it’s not really 7 hours at one sitting, but scattered throughout the week and when I have those free moments that life throws my way.
If you missed the previous 30 Minute Social Sessions, here are the links to review them:
Click here to read how I scheduled these Facebook 30 Minute Social Sessions once a week into my calendar.
How I learned about how to track my site’s traffic with the Google Analytics 30 Minute Social Session that I do once a month.
What I learned about how a little Twitter 30 Minute Social Session goes a long a way.
Post your comments!
I opened up the comments section for this page so let me know how the Pinterest 30 Minute Social Sessions works for you. Feel free to ask questions or just share your experiences with these steps.
And stay tuned for the next 30 Minute Social Sessions where I’ll review how to use LinkedIn to network and find new people to connect with to grow your business.