The 5 minute social media schedule

Social Media. 

Ohhhh those two words can really pack a punch can't they? So much good and so much frustration can be wrapped up in the world of social media. But as small business owners we can't ignore it. We need to find customers and clients and in order to do that you have to go where the customers and clients ARE. 

People are on social media. Like it or not, it's the way of our world at this time. Maybe in another couple of years things will change (actually I'm sure they will because as we all know, things are ALWAYS changing...) but in 2015 and soon to be 2016, social media is HUGE and it can be a powerful way to find clients and talk about your business and what you have to offer. 

There are countless articles and blog posts floating around out there about ideal posting times for all of the social media sites. I won't' go into detail with that in this post, but in order to maximize effectiveness it is a smart idea to post to your social media accounts throughout the day at ideal times. This can be a huge headache however since we all obviously have lives to lead and businesses to run so we don't have all day to sit around waiting for the best times of day to post everything.

Enter the beauty of the social media schedule. 

I really started thinking about scheduling my social media once I started focusing on growing my blog and blogging more consistently. Now that I had some quality content to share, I needed a better way to get my info out there into the interwebs in a way that wouldn't handcuff me to my desk waiting for ideal times. 

Buffer to the rescue. 

In summer of this year (2015) I took a few hours and sat and thought about exactly what kind of schedule I wanted to stick to for social media. What accounts I wanted to focus on and how often I wanted to post to them. After some tweaks and experimentation, I have arrived at a strategy that I am happy with for now, with the knowledge that things might change in the future based on trends, developments in my business etc...

Facebook

As we ALL know facebook is an ever changing beast that is not all that friendly to businesses hoping to get some free marketing from the platform. I don't hate on facebook for making the changes they have, they have a business to run too, but it can be hard for some people to swallow because there was a very small window where marketing on facebook for your business was free and it was glorious! 

But things have changed and now facebook greatly reduces what your "fans" will see on your page. Unless people start engaging with the post, the post will die off pretty quickly and not be seen in the news feed at all. The only way it will really get traction is if someone goes directly to your page to find content. 

For this reason I don't spend a lot of energy posting content on my facebook page, at least not educational content. I still feel like sharing images from sessions for clients is a great way to potentially reach new clients on facebook but in the past 6 months I haven't had a steady stream of clients since we just relocated. In the future, the number of times I post to facebook during the day may increase when my sessions increase. 

For now, I post my blog posts to facebook once a day I like to keep my page updated so if prospective clients visit my page they will see I am active and relevant. Sometimes when I visit a business owner's page and see they haven't posted anything since April of last year it makes me wonder if something is up. 

Twitter

I have a love/hate relationship with twitter, as I think a lot of other people do. I do think there is value in the platform, but it moves so fast and honestly can be just plain difficult to figure out 

For this reason I choose to share liberally to twitter, but I don't stress too much about it and I don't actively engage either. I will likely re-evaluate my twitter strategy in the next 6 months or so just to make sure I'm not wasting time or throwing away valuable opportunities! 

Google + 

Google + is somewhat of an untapped resource. Even though no one is hanging out there, google plus is a great boost for SEO. Now, I don't pretend to be an SEO expert in any way shape or form nor do I know exactly how it works, but I know that sharing content to Google + and hashtagging helps your stuff show up in searches. I've done some very unofficial research and what I found is enough to get me posting to Google + on the regular. I might save some of this juicy info for another blog post so be on the lookout!

Pinterest

Pinterest is another fantastic source that I think a lot of bloggers and photographers don't use to its full capacity. I share posts to my own boards and on occasion to the Rising Tide Society boards and I get repins all week long. Especially my educational content. People ARE on pinterest. Your content needs to be there as well. 

Instagram

And if all of the above wasn't ENOUGH, there is also Instagram. Instagram is currently in its heyday, especially for small business creatives. It took a while for people to understand how easily they could use instagram to find what they are looking for, but it's catching on and people are figuring out its a great place to find new services, products etc...And for photographers it's a no brainer. It's the perfect way to showcase your work and add hashtags so people can find what you are selling. I try to post to IG at least once a day, I mix personal with business and I try my best to keep a general aesthetic to my feed. 

I have had clients and brides find me on Instagram so I think the potential to drum up business from this medium is HUGE. It's just all about knowing how to use the system to your advantage. 

Social Media Schedule 

You might be saying to yourself right now..."Cinnamon you have listed FIVE different social media platforms! Isn't that too many? Most of the info out there says to stick with one or two, three maximum. Isn't this post about saving time and not adding more time to your day?" 

I get it...five social media platforms IS a lot. And they probably aren't all necessary. However, when you create a schedule and a system for posting your content, the time factor kind of flies out the window. I can get my current day blog post out on all of these platforms in under 5 minutes now that I have a good system and schedule in place! 

Buffer and the schedule

I use Buffer to schedule out all of my posts on Facebook, Twitter and Google +. The interface makes it so easy to add posts to your queue, caption, hashtag, add images...whatever you want to do. Then you just set your posting times and Buffer does the rest for you. Its super easy peasy. 

I pin my images to Pinterest right from the blog post and I use latergram.me to post images to Instagram. I can take care of all five platforms in literally five minutes every morning. 

So this is the gist of my schedule:

• Facebook : Once a day
• Twitter: 5 times a day
• Pinterest: Post to relevant boards 
• Google + : Once a day
• Instagram: once or twice a day, never back to back (always allow a few hours between posts so you don't clog up people's feeds) 

If you would like a more in depth look at how I use Buffer to schedule everything I made a video where I go through my process of posting everything. This is what I would do on any given day that a blog post is going live. I know the video is 20 minutes, but I'm talking and explaining throughout so that accounts for the length. Normally the process takes me about 5 minutes. Enjoy! 

How to resize images for web use using Blogstomp

Dpi. 2048 on the long edge. 5mgb. Compression. 72ppi. 300ppi. Pixels. Inches. Conversions. ARGH!!! 

Does all of this sound familiar and kind of make you want to pull your hair out? Resizing images without compromising quality for online use and balancing the fact that those same images could be taken off the web and reproduced has been a struggle for photographers ever since digital was introduced. 

First things first...if you are more visual and like to SEE things being done as opposed to reading about them, skip by the text and there is a handy video down at the bottom that goes over everything in this post!

The issue

There is a TON of information floating around the internet and photography forums on how to size images properly for not only your clients, but also for print and then also for web. Because the subject can be rather complicated (and by complicated I mean seriously almost impossible for people to agree on) there is a ton of conflicting information out there and trying to figure out what works best for you can be a STRUGGLE. 

Because of the confusion, I decided on a simple solution that I thought would work best for me without accidentally breaking something. The further research and study that I do, the more I have come to realize WHY my system actually works. I have something planned for the future that I hope will be much more helpful in understanding the complexity of sizing images properly not only for web but also for print, but in the meantime, I want to show you my system of getting my images ready for online use on my blog, facebook, twitter etc!!! 

my system

My system is comprised of two basic steps.

• Exporting full size, high resolution images from Lightroom
• Blogstomp those images to make them more manageable for online use

Bada bing, bada boom. Done. 

What is Blogstomp for?

Blogstomp's main purpose (in my opinion) is twofold.

First, it has the ability to compress (or resize) your images so they don't take up so much disk space on your computer and are easier and quicker to upload onto online platforms. ***You can also do this in Lightroom or PS as well, but I find that instead of exporting out of LR a bunch of times for my various purposes, I just do an export once and then make other changes in Blogstomp. 

Second, you can put images together in collages and blogstomp will easily constrain that collage to the size/dimension you specify in one quick step. In Photoshop or Lightroom, putting together collages can honestly be a HUGE pain. If you have never had to do it before, trust me you are not missing out. 

How does it work?

Blogstomp is a very simple, easy to understand platform that you download on to your computer. 

You simply drag the images you want to "stomp" into the left hand panel and then play around with how you want them to display. 

I typically will only stomp one landscape image at a time OR two vertical (portrait) images next to each other like in the photo below. 

But you can make more involved collages by simply selecting the images you want in the filmstrip. If you don't like the exact way blogstomp has positioned them, you can click "Mix it up" and it will change things around automatically! 

Once you have a design you like all you do is click "Stomp it!" and the image will be saved in your Stomped folder wherever you have designated that folder to live on your hard drive. 

What else can it do?

You have the ability to set "styles" for your stomped images. In those styles you can opt to include a border around the image or between images, you can select dimension size, you can add backgrounds or a watermark as well. There are lots of options!

For example, if you wanted all stomped images for your blog to be 960 on the long edge you can create a style for "blog images" and then use that every time you stomp images for your blog. If you want images that you will post on FB to be 2048 on the long edge AND include your watermark, you can set up a style for that as well. 

You also have the ability to post directly from blogstomp to facebook, twitter or your blog but I haven't done that. I found the system that works best for my workflow so I tend to stick with that, but by all means play around with it to see what might work for you! 

Blogstomp is absolutely one of the best investments I have made for my photography business. The amount of time it has given me back is HUGE. At at mere $49 (one time!) this is something that most photographers should likely invest in especially if they will be sharing images on a blog or social media. 

P.S...Blogstomp has no idea I exist and has not compensated me in any way for talking about them. ;-) 

For a more in depth description of HOW to do all of this, check out the video below!