If you have tried to keep up with social media and are a small business owner you know it can be a daunting task, and frankly a time drain. 

When companies first start out on social media they believe that you are able to get by with a few posts a week and be successful, but quickly they learn that is not the case.

To be effective on social media you need a combination of key ingredients, but probably the most important step you can take is to be consistent. 

To be consistent on social media takes time, but we do have twelve tools/solutions we would like to share with you today to save time and help you stay consistent. 

1. IFTTT or Zappier -  Automation software. These online tools let your apps interact with each other automatically. You could set up things like “Automatically make a native Instagram post every time I post on Twitter. 

2. Feedly -  Is an RSS feeder and powered by Google. Create a feedly account or similar to get all the websites you go to regularly and put that content into one place. Quickly look through ideas and things to share. Feedly pro is $40-50 per year and allows you to send articles directly to LinkedIn or Hootsuite.

3. Canva - Create custom graphics for those who do not have the time to learn photoshop or want it done quickly. You could also try buffer/pablo. These tools can cuts your graphic design times in half.

4. Twitter lists - Engage easier with your top customers. Create lists on Twitter to find out what is going on with them easily in one place.

5. Plan out your social strategy at least a week in advance - This will also help for when you schedule on your social posting tool, but will help with brainstorming too. You do not need to schedule everything in advance, but we do suggest 50-70% be pre-planned to allow you to react to your audience.

6. Schedule your own time - This may sound simple, but if you don’t put social media scheduling on your calendar you won’t get around to it. Set aside time, or you will lose more time trying to go back and forth.

7. Staying up on trends - Reading blogs, watching webinars, etc. Sounds counterproductive as it involves more time, but if you are ahead of the curve or at least on it when something happens it may help save you time in the long run.

8. Curalate - Useful on Instagram and Pinterest, Curalate monitors conversations about brands, products and services, providing vital information to businesses. Curalate identifies potential brand advocates and influential followers.

9. Google Alerts - A simple tool, but one that can save you from running countless searches for mentions of your products, website or brand! Signing up for Google Alerts is free and easy, and ensures you never miss a brand mention again. You can select as many keywords as you like, and each time the word or phrase is used online, you’ll receive a notification. This is a great way to track mentions not only of your own brand, but of your competition.

10. GO MOBILE - all the apps and websites that we have mentioned have a mobile application. You don’t have to wait to be in front of your computer to schedule posts or reply to your  clients questions.

11. Rescue Time- Running on the backend of your computer, this software tracks how much time you spend on each website. Works on mobile and tablets as well. An added benefit of Rescue Time is that you can also set alerts to let you know when ‘time’s up’ for a particular activity!

12. Find an automation software. Whether it is Buffer, Hootsuite or something more robust like Hubspot or SproutSocial. These will allow you to schedule posts ahead of time, now we aren't saying to only use this. You might want to use this for maybe 50-60% of your posts.

We hope these resources are able to help you and your company run effective social media marketing campaigns while also cutting your time in half. As always, if you ever have any marketing questions, we are always here to help.