If you are visiting, 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 so busy with all the tasks you have to do in your 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 name online also. Lucky for you, I’m here to help you save time online.
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 for you when launching the browser. In Google Chrome, under “Settings” on “On Startup”, you can “add more than one page to start-up”. Just click on “Set pages” and show the pages you want to start-up when you open the browser.
Tip 2: Schedule a routine to do tasks online: Schedule time to go online once a day to check out 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 in a timely manner.
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 there, like Viraltag, Buffer, and Hootsuite. In Hootsuite, you can easily set up all your social media accounts except Pinterest and be able to see all the social media feeds in one place through their “Steams” feature. NOTE: the mobile app doesn’t allow you to post to a few of the social media sites and it is displayed differently. These services can be used to schedule posts also. I recommend scheduling ads, older posts, and others articles that you want to share with your followers once a month at the end of the month for the next month. There is a free version or a paid version. The link below will take to the paid version.
Tip 5: Use Google Alerts: If you are looking for information on a particular topic, using Google Alerts work great. You need a Gmail account to set this up. All you need to do is write the topic 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 it up for your business.
I hope these tips help you get your online presence up and running. 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 Hootsuite, and at no additional cost to you, I will earn affiliate fees if you decide to make a purchase.
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.
Jeannette Paladino says
February 11, 2016 at 11:14 pmSabrina — 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.
Sabrina says
February 12, 2016 at 5:07 pmTrue, 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.
Phoenicia says
February 11, 2016 at 3:20 pmI 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.
Sabrina says
February 11, 2016 at 6:44 pmThanks for visiting and commenting, Phoenicia! I really appreciate it.
Roslyn Tanner Evans says
February 11, 2016 at 9:27 amIt took me too long to figure much of this out. I love using buffer & I plan to look into google alert. great list.
Lisa Swanson says
February 11, 2016 at 9:05 amIt 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.
Joyce Hansen says
February 10, 2016 at 10:52 pmSabrina, 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.
Kim says
February 10, 2016 at 7:35 pmGreat tips thanks! I really need to try that Google alert it sounds good.
Beverley Golden says
February 10, 2016 at 7:12 pmThanks 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.
joan potter says
February 10, 2016 at 5:56 pmThank 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!!
Sabrina says
February 10, 2016 at 6:35 pmI’m glad this helped, Joan! Thanks for commenting.
Verushka says
February 10, 2016 at 4:35 pmGood tips, Sabrina, I like the google alerts and smart phone notifications. Have to figure out how to set them up though.
Meghan Monaghan says
February 10, 2016 at 3:13 pmReally 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.
Kristen Wilson says
February 10, 2016 at 1:13 pmAwesome 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.
Sabrina says
February 10, 2016 at 1:48 pmThanks 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.
Karen Langston says
February 10, 2016 at 12:48 pmWOW! 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.
Sabrina says
February 10, 2016 at 1:45 pmGreat tips, Karen. Thanks for sharing!
Teresa says
February 10, 2016 at 12:47 pmGreat tips! I never heard of google alerts and will have to check it out – thanks!!
Beth Niebuhr says
February 10, 2016 at 10:54 amIt’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.
Susan Mary Malone says
February 10, 2016 at 11:39 amThese are great tips, Sabrina! I didn’t even know you could set pages on start-up. Off to do that now! Thank You.