First, let’s look at what on earth a social media library is.
Is it a place to check into where you can pull social media posts off the shelf?
It sort of is. A social media library is a database (library) full of social media posts, status updates, links and other content that you may wish to use on your social media platforms.
Why would you create a social media library?
The reason for creating a social media library is to firstly have a place where you curate all your content and safely store it away for future use.
Why would you need to use it in the future, can’t you just upload it now and forget about it?
You sure can but that means you would constantly need to come up with new social media content, and this is not always a wise use of your time. Sure, some things are for one time use only but many of your posts will do just as well in three months time.
The idea behind a social media library is to save yourself time, but also to re-use your content to constantly reinforce what you do in your business in a way that helps people, provides value and demonstrates that you know your topic.
Because many people, especially on Facebook, will not see all your posts it’s completely ok (in fact I’d say it’s a MUST) to re-use your content and show it again and again.
How often should I re-use my content?
This is completely up to you and it also depends on how often you post on your platforms. For example, if you post once a week, your feed will fill up slowly whereas if you post once a day it’ll be faster.
As a general rule, I’d say you can post something again in two to three months time.
How do you actually create a social media library?
There are multiple ways to do this but I’d like to suggest that you start with:
- an excel spreadsheet in which you list the category (attract/engage/inform/sell)
- add a column for type (image, quote, link, blog etc)
- add your actual content
- add a column for dates posted (you’ll be creating a few columns for this)
If you’re adding an image, you can save your images in dropbox and create another column where you post the link to the image in dropbox.
Maybe it works better for you in a google sheet, or word, or evernote. Find what works for you and refine it along the way.
What’s the best way to post?
Again, there are many ways you can do this. The first, and most cost effective, way to do this is posting it directly into your social media platform through using the scheduling function. For example, you can use Facebook’s scheduling function and plan for content to be posted ahead of time.
There are also many scheduling tools available, such as hootsuite, buffer, social oomph, coSchedule, Post planner, Edgar etc.
I use Edgar in my business, because it does this ‘library keeping’ for me. But what works for me, might not work for you so I totally encourage you to start building your own social media library and use tools that resonate with you.
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