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For small business owners and creatives, trying to keep on top of social media marketing as well as everything else can sometimes feel like an impossible task.

Fear not, my overwhelmed and creatively stuck reader!

After 10+ years planning, writing, creating, editing, and scheduling social media content, I’ve got a few time-saving tips for you.

Tips that will hopefully lighten the load of social media marketing and improve your engagement.

P.S. If you read my recent ‘9 Confessions of a Social Media Manager’ newsletter, you’ll know I lamented the fact that most people never heed my social media advice.

So please, please, please… take these tips, apply them, and if you have any questions—any at ALL—hit reply to this email.

1. Get into the habit of taking photos/videos throughout your week

When it comes to creating content for any social media platform, be it Instagram, LinkedIn, or TikTok, you’ve got two things to consider: 1) the idea and 2) how it will look visually.

Tip #5 in this list will help you get faster at coming up with ideas. Broadly speaking, sharing a mixture of education (tips, lessons, step-by-step processes) and personal stories with promotion sprinkled throughout is what you want to aim for.

But how should all of this look?

If you want to share a ‘5 tips’ post or your reflections on a week of highs and lows in your business, what’s the best asset to use or make to convey this?

➡ A candid photo (not posed or branded) or a ‘vlog-style’ video (Reel/TikTok).

You don’t need to spend hours in Canva fiddling about with graphics. You don’t need to film yourself talking face-to-camera if the thought of that makes you feel queasy.

👆 All of this takes time. A lot of time.

You can share wisdom, actionable tips, and personal insights on top of/alongside a moment from your everyday life.

Here’s an example from Laura Riches, founder of the wine brand Laylo, doing just that on LinkedIn.

Here’s an example from Nesha Woolery, online business strategist, on Instagram.

And the best part is, this kind of content performs really well.

Less polished, more real content is what people want to see. So give it to them!

To do this effectively, try to make content capture part of your everyday life.

• Off for a walk with your dog this morning?
• Jumping on the tube to visit a client?
• Working from your light-filled studio?

Take a photo or a film a few short clips as you do it.

What might seem like mundane moments to you is all perfect fodder for social media content.

2. Organise your photos/videos in folders

Here’s the thing—if you get into the habit of capturing visual snippets of your life, you need a way to organise all those photos and videos.

Otherwise, your phone gallery will become one big mess of random downloads, photos intended for social media, pictures of your best friend’s new puppy, screenshots of funny messages, memes your dad sent you and on and on and…

So, right now—right this very minute!—go into your phone and make a new folder called ‘Social Media’. Everytime you capture some content (or at the end of the day/week), select anything new you’ve taken and drop it straight into that folder.

Trust me—your future self is going to love you for this.

3. Don’t stress about hashtags

Save yourself eons of time by no longer worrying about hashtags. If you must use them, use 5 (only on Instagram or TikTok, you don’t need to use them at all on LinkedIn) and make most of them super specific. For example, #watercolourartist or #watercolourartistsoninstagram and not #artist.

4. Keep your posts simple

As said above, don’t waste your life making fancy graphics in Canva. Keep posts really simple.

If you have a gallery full of photos and videos you can use for posts (or for the majority of them) and a running list of ideas, then putting these together into Reels/photos and captions should be relatively quick and easy.

Remember: Short Reels (5 seconds) almost always perform better. This is because they encourage a rewatch, which is a big thumbs up to the algorithm. This is great news for the time-poor among us! Yay!

5. Always have a list of hooks/ideas to lean on

You’ve made content capture part of your everyday routine and now you’ve got a folder full of photos/videos (“assets”) to use on social media.

But what about the ideas?

I also have a folder for each client on Instagram where I save down other Reels or posts that I think we could recreate/add our own spin to.

Finally, I have this handy Hooks cheatsheet, which never fails to spark ideas if I’m feeling a little stumped.

6. If in doubt part I, share some of your wisdom

Educational content performs really well on every social media platform.

So if you’re time-stretched and just want to get something out the door, share some tips or lessons related to your product/service.

If you’re on Instagram, share this as a short Reel with the hook (title) written on the video, and keep the answer (the tips or lessons) within the caption.

Here’s a great example from interior designer, Hannah Ashe.

7. If in doubt part II, share a testimonial screenshot

There’s no better way to promote your product or service than sharing glowing reviews, testimonials, and case studies.

This builds trust with your audience. It shows them that investing in you is a risk worth taking because people like them have had an amazing experience.

Take a screenshot of recent customer feedback, stick it on a coloured background in Canva, and hit publish.

Here’s a great example from my client, artist and business mentor, Amanda Heath.

8. Batch create a few posts at once

Don’t panic.

I’m not suggesting you do what I do for clients and create a month’s worth of content in advance.

But what will really really help is creating a few things at once e.g. editing 5 Reels or writing 5 captions (or doing both together!). This is so much more efficient—and less likely to lead to burnout—than making and publishing posts one at a time.

9. Diarise social media time

Take it from someone who spends their life planning and creating content—diarising this activity is going to make the whole thing (i.e. social media) more efficient, less stressful, and overall more successful.

Even if it’s just 30 minutes planned in your diary every Friday morning for Reels creation or caption writing or planning ideas or all of the above, do it.

10. Leverage the ‘Use Template’ feature

This one is specifically for Instagram users.

Scroll through the Reels Feed and soon enough, you’ll see a Reel with the words ‘Use Template’ in the bottom left-hand corner.

If the Reel in question has great engagement (lots of plays and comments) and is using trending audio (indicated by the ↗ symbol next to the name of the audio) that you like the sound of, then even better.

If you press ‘Use Template’, you can use the same timing/editing as the person who created the original Reel.

You don’t need to trim clips or fiddle about editing the footage together. The hard work’s been done for you! Hallelujah!

👋 Your turn!

Do you have questions about any of the time-saving tips shared above?

Hit reply and let's chat!

Until next week,

Bella

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