In my line of work, I find many people ask about prioritization and time management. It’s something that all busy professionals and business owners struggle with.

Adrian’s no different. Consider his question which I am sure will resonate with you.

“I want to be blatantly honest with you Sarah, I struggle with priority setting and time management, but priority setting in particular. It’s true, I do say yes to a lot of things because you know how I give you all trouble about saying yes to too many things. But especially work that I love. I love to say yes to freelance photography. And it’s not that I have no time. I have perhaps too much time. I have a great team that also works with me at the gallery, and I will pass things over from them from time to time. I’m doing more outreach these days, and I just don’t know if what I’m doing is effective and paying off. I use about 15 different forms of social media, and I do occasionally get people in the gallery saying they found me there. But again, not that many people, and I’m not sure if all my efforts are effective. Any ideas?”

Do you have the same question? Can you relate?

There is so much pressure – on individuals, organizations, and entrepreneurs – to create content and to be out there on many social media platforms. But many feel they don’t have the time or can quantify their efforts to create ROE (return on effort). Not to mention the worries about your privacy, impact on your lifestyle (e.g., cutting into fitness time), and attention taken away from family and friends. These can leave you feeling depleted, frustrated and ineffective but it doesn’t need to be.

Social media has many benefits. It builds and reinforces your brand so you’re ready for the next opportunity (e.g, prospective employers, clients, and relationships). It is free and easy to use with almost no learning curve to get started. It’s also millions to billions strong (depending on the platform) so guaranteed, it can help to build your credibility if you’re putting valuable content out there.

Here are three tips to be sure, like Adrian, your efforts get you results:

1. Choose the social media platforms

Rather than try to be on every social media platform, decide which ones you feel most comfortable with and adds value. For example, I don’t serve youth, so you won’t find me on Snapchat (much to my teens’ glee!)

Ensure the ones that you choose are matched up to where your prospective employers and customers are. Get really good using the ones you choose and you’ll find not only do you enjoy it more, but you’ll also be able to find ways where you can maximize it, such as sharing from one site to the other, rather than creating organic content for all of them.

2. Monitor your analytics

Have you looked at your analytics lately? What posts get the most interaction? How many people follow you? What followers’ level of engagement is with you over time? If you find certain social media platforms have low engagement, maybe you can take a “holiday” from them. Or, try to boost those analytics such as having a call to action on your posts (e.g., share the post, tag someone). You can even try giving away free, valuable content or encourage in-person visits (such as in Adrian’s business he wants more foot traffic).

Take note of what posts tend to get the most interaction and by knowing this will help you make some really conscious choices about how you spend your time on social media.

3. Delegate to your team

Social media posting is time-consuming and requires diligence, persistence, and consistency so your audience comes to know and expect your content and your brand. But the good news is, you don’t have to do it all yourself.

My virtual assistant, Caroline, handles all of my sharing and posting of these weekly posts (in fact it’s part of a broader system of connecting with you weekly that I spoke about in last week’s post). Because of her system, she is super efficient and more effective at it than I am, therefore I can work on other aspects of my business given she has that covered.

I hope you found these three productivity and time-saving hacks really helpful. If you have other questions or comments about how you can maximize this, jump over to my Facebook group, Greatness Biz. It is especially helpful if you are considering starting or expanding a business. In this community, we discuss many aspects of business because productivity and time management is essential to your success.