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If you are visiting our blog, you are most likely a small business owner. You are so busy and can’t fit social media into your day, right? There’s no wonder – you are probably preoccupied with all the tasks you have to do each day. I’m here to tell you that you are not alone in not having time to be online. But knowing that, it is crucial to be involved and get your brand online as well. Today, I am going to share with you some tips to keep your online tasks simple, quick, and easy.
5 Tips To Save Time Online
Tip 1: Create Automatic Startup Tabs
If you go to the same sites each day, you can set up your browser to open up the tabs (Affiliate Link) for you when launching the browser. In Google Chrome, click on the three vertical dots next to your profile picture. Then, select “Settings” and scroll down to the “On Startup” section. You can “add more than one page to start-up.” Just click on “Open Up Specific pages or set of pages” and show the pages you want to start-up when you open the browser. If you have the pages already opened, you can select “Use current pages,” and it will pull all the pages that are open in your browser.
After you do this, you can close the browser and open it up again. You will see the tabs (Affiliate Link) will open up exactly how you want them in the exact order you want them.
Note: It may take the browser a little longer to load. Keep that in mind when setting the pages.
Tip 2: Schedule routine to-do tasks online:
Schedule time to go online once a day to check your website and your different social media sites. Try going online at lunch while having lunch. All you need is an hour to stay on top of your correspondences. This way, you can respond promptly.
Tip 3: Set notifications on your smartphone for your email and social media apps:
If you don’t want to be disturbed throughout the day, set the notifications for each of your apps and emails to update once a day. The afternoon around 3 or 4 works great. This will help you stay on top of new prospects on the go. If you have an iPhone, here are the instructions about notifications.
Tip 4: Use a Social Media Manager application
There are several out companies that will help you manage all your social media accounts, like Buffer, Tailwind (Affiliate Link), and Hootsuite just to name a few. In Hootsuite, you can easily set up all your social media accounts and be able to see all the social media feeds in one place through their “Streams” feature. These services can be used to schedule posts also.
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I recommend scheduling ads, older posts, and other articles that you want to share with your followers once a month at the end of the month for the next month.
Tailwind (Affiliate Link) (affiliate) is designed specifically to share on Pinterest and Instagram (if you buy the upgrade). If your target audience is on these platforms, this service may be better for you.
Visit our posts for social media marketing inspiration to share for different industries.
Professional Organizing industry: 30 Engaging Professional Organizing Industry Social Media Post Ideas
Hair Salon Industry: 30 Engaging Hair Salon Industry Social Media Post Ideas
Real Estate Industry: 30 Enticing Real Estate Social Media Posts
If you want help setting up your social media marketing or need someone to manage them, please feel free to contact us.
Tip 5: Use Google Alerts
If you are looking to keep updated on a certain topic for your business, using Google Alerts works excellent. You need a Gmail account to set this up. All you need to do is write the subject in the space provided, and Google will email you any news, blogs, videos, the web, finance, etc… that are available on the topic. You can set it up for once a day, once a week, or as it happens. Click here to set this up for your business.
I hope these tips help you get your online presence up and running and help you save time online when doing your small business task. If you need help, feel free to contact me. What is your favorite social media save time online tip for these small business owners? Please leave the comments below.
Please note these are affiliate links through Amazon, and at no additional cost to you, I will earn affiliate fees if you decide to make a purchase.
Sabrina — excellent tips. I use both Hootsuite (to follow different categories of people) and Buffer to schedule my posts, which saves a lot of time. I think the only downside to opening tabs automatically is the time to load and slowing down your computer speed with these pages loaded in the background as you work on other applications.
True, Jeannette. If you have a newer computer, it doesn’t take long. It also depends on how many tabs you automatically open up when launching the browser. Thanks for commenting.
I like your idea of setting notifications for particular times. It is all too tempting to check social media throughout the day. It proves as a great distraction.
Thanks for visiting and commenting, Phoenicia! I really appreciate it.
It took me too long to figure much of this out. I love using buffer & I plan to look into google alert. great list.
It really is difficult to stay on top of social media. With so many different platforms, I feel like I’m always falling behind on one or two! I love the idea of setting up Google Alerts. I can see how this would really help in finding info to share with our audiences.
Sabrina, thanks for the tips. I’m already using Google Alerts and just started with Hootsuite. But, I didn’t know about Automatic Start Up Tabs. That will be a big help.
Thanks for the great tips Sabrina! Yes, I use Hootsuite and love it. That is one thing I agree really saves a lot of time. As far as notifications on my phone..I am not interested. When I am out or even at home, I am not interested in getting them o my phone. I do get email notifications which is probably why I have soooo many emails each day. They really add up. I do schedule time to do my online “stuff”, although no matter what I do, it seems I am online way too much and don’t seem to see an end to it in the near future.
Great tips thanks! I really need to try that Google alert it sounds good.
Thank you , Sabrina! I am in the sippy-cup stage of tech–competency, & often it seems so overwhelming. However, these hints seem do-able. Even knowing that a function is available is very worthwhile; I probably won’t use the social media manager, yet, but I appreciate knowing that it exists. The other hints I will employ – Thanks!!
I’m glad this helped, Joan! Thanks for commenting.
Good tips, Sabrina, I like the google alerts and smart phone notifications. Have to figure out how to set them up though.
Really nice tips, Sabrina. I liked that you said to schedule a routine to do tasks online. I’ve found the day can suddenly go in many directions and having that schedule helps bring me back on task. Daily notifications are a wise and gentle reminder, even when I have posts already scheduled in Buffer or Hootsuite.
Awesome tips Sabrina and I too love to have a schedule. Nothing like going onto each social profile to post updates every day.. Helloooo, waste of time. I use HootSuite and Buffer oh and Post Planner. I’ve used Google alerts as well, but found I got carried away and killed it. I try to stay off social when I can.. it can be a rabbit hole. Great tips.
Thanks for sharing, Kristen. Google Alerts can get out of hand easily. I noticed that I needed to keep the keywords specific when I use it for my clients.
WOW! These are great tips! And, I feeling pretty good that I am on top of my game in that I incorporate all of these. I have been using Hootsuite since it was in Beta testing a long time a go and I LOVE it. I spend a lot of time online and one thing I have just started to incorporate is setting up timers for each segments and then getting up and stretching and taking 30 minutes to relax and eat a couple times a day! Thanks for a great a post.
Great tips, Karen. Thanks for sharing!
Great tips! I never heard of google alerts and will have to check it out – thanks!!
It’s all about being organized, isn’t it Sabrina? Not wasting time by hunting for things but having set them up ahead of time. We can all use time saving tips and you’ve given some really good ones.
These are great tips, Sabrina! I didn’t even know you could set pages on start-up. Off to do that now! Thank You.