Social media is incredibly important for your business success. It is social platforms where you connect to prospects, stay in touch with customers, and promote your offerings. However, unless you are monitoring your accounts daily, it’s impossible to provide a great service to users and check that your strategy is working. There’s no need for social media monitoring to be a time-consuming process, though. In fact, dedicating just 10 minutes a day to this activity can lead to great results — as long as you use your time wisely.

Use Tools

Instantly reduce the time you’ll need to spend on social media by using tools. Third-party tools are more useful than built-in analytics, as they allow you to check insights from every platform in the same place. Plus, as well as social media management tools, you have tools specifically for scheduling, listening, and competitive analysis.

Know When to Just Listen

It’s unlikely that 10 minutes a day will be enough to respond to all the comments you receive. Besides, leaving a response to every one can look obsessive (or imply that you have a lot of time on your hands). The vast majority of comments, however, require no response. Often, liking a comment is enough — although in many cases, not even that is necessary.

Respond to Users

If you receive a direct message from a user, the likelihood is you do need to respond (the exception being spam). In addition, some comments deserve your attention, particularly those from influencers, insightful comments, and also complaints or criticism about your business — although you should ignore or block any trolls.

In all the above cases, it’s important you respond with using your brand voice and with positivity — never aggressively defend yourself, even if the comment is an attack on your business. If necessary, make your case using facts. If you receive praise, such as from an influencer, answer with gratitude.

Measure Results

To keep improving your social media strategy, you need to monitor results and measure progress. Set up a system to take note of what kind of content resonates best with your audience, figure out how you can optimize ads, and identify any tactics with poorer-than-expected results. Use metrics like web traffic from social media, engagement, and perhaps even an increase in backlinks (especially if you’re looking to improve your thought leadership).

Consider Your Goals

Other ways to use your time on social media will depend on your goals. Whatever goals you set for social media, these should follow the SMART framework and relate to your main business goals.

As you can see, how exactly you use your 10 minutes a day will depend on your unique needs. Download our free ebook for support creating a monitoring process that works for you. In the ebook, we also explain why monitoring is essential and what different people at your business should focus on monitoring.