Don’t Lose Sleep Over Your 24/7 Social Media Strategy

If the Internet never sleeps, then why should your social media strategy?

Scrolling through your Twitter feed at noon on a Monday, you see tweets posting by the second. There are countless media outlets reporting on breaking news, numerous brands attempting to vie for your eye with a witty promoted tweet or two, influencers presenting their thought leadership, and your friends exclaiming about this or that.

When you log onto Twitter at 2 a.m., you find just a few tweets from news outlets, maybe a brand or two, and a couple of friends and influencers — all of whom seem to be taking advantage of what is a captive audience.

There are many factors a brand should consider when developing the right social media strategy for their business. This doesn’t mean that a 24/7 strategy is a one-size-fits-all solution – but it is easier than you might think and can lead to insightful discoveries on how best to distribute content and deliver value to your customer.

When determining what posting schedule will best server you brand, it is critical to think first about your target audience – how you will address their needs and when they’re most likely to engage. You can experiment with this.. Do a few days of 24/7 posting around the clock on the hour, every hour. After the test, see which times frequently performed the best—the results may surprise you.

East coast folks must remember that just because it’s 1 a.m. in New York City, it’s only 10 p.m. in Los Angeles. So if you’re a national brand, or a global brand, the importance of experimenting with 24/7 social channels is of even higher importance to fully capitalize on your audience, both potential and existing across time zones and international borders.

It’s also important to consider who’s online throughout the night: students, doctors, insomniacs, shift workers. Parents of newborns and frequent business travelers are regularly waking up at 5 a.m. or sooner to start their day. All are curious consumers who are actively devouring content while they are up and ready to have their attention captured by whomever is there do so.

And with useful free tools like Hootsuite and low-cost premium ones like Sprout Social your brand can schedule posts across Twitter and other social platforms like Facebook and Google+. There is no need to stress about posting outside of regular business hours. (Both of these platforms also have tools to help you monitor your audience’s responses and certain keywords so that your customer service response is set up for success.) Facebook even has a built-in scheduler for brand pages that makes scheduling content – and seeing a post’s reach – even easier.

Thanks to these social media management tools it is possible to be both meaningful and efficient when distributing social content to your audience. Scheduling how and when you deliver content should no longer feel like a burden. It is simple to spread out your current social media postings across dates and times throughout the entire day and week, taking little to no more time to schedule than it does to send out posts in real-time during the 9 to 5 office hours.

A brand will be hard pressed to achieve audience gains in the social media sphere without the basics down pat, and so a 24/7 social schedule adapted to your audience and your needs is worth exploring as it is an easy way to get started.

Don’t Lose Sleep Over Your 24/7 Social Media Strategy