21 Ways To Save Time As A Freelance Social Media Manager

So, you’re working as a freelance social media manager, and you feel like you’re drowning. You’ve got a billion projects, and you’re spending way too much time on them than you’d like. What do you do?

As a former freelance social media manager who’s been in your shoes, I’m here to tell you there’s hope. Services like graphic design can save your bacon. It lets you automate your posting schedule so that you can complete more work in less time, freeing up your hours to focus on building relationships with clients or working on the next big thing.

And because it’s designed to be used by freelancers like us, it uses artificial intelligence to mimic the way we really speak, so it feels as natural as if we did all of our posting ourselves.

Sound good? Here are tips for saving time as a freelance social media manager:

Becoming a Freelance Social Media Manager in 2023

Takeaways
Use social media scheduling tools for efficient posting.
Repurpose content to reach a wider audience.
Create templates for frequently used content formats.
Batch tasks to minimize context switching.
Automate repetitive tasks with social media automation.
Outsource non-core tasks to free up your time.
Prioritize tasks based on their impact and urgency.
Use analytics to refine your content strategy.
Set specific goals for each social media platform.
Use keyboard shortcuts for faster navigation.

Table of Contents

1. Identify Your Most Important Tasks

As a freelance social media manager, take note of what tasks are most important to you. This can be anything from creating content to responding to customer inquiries on Twitter. Your day-to-day tasks could consist of these activities and more, so it’s important to figure out what tasks need your attention first and which ones can be put off until later.

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2. Track Your Time

When you’re working as a freelance social media manager, there may be times when you feel like the day has flown by without getting much done at all! If this happens often enough for you, try tracking your time throughout the day by writing down exactly how long it takes each task or project takes (and what it was for).

By doing this over a period of weeks or months, you can determine if there are any specific activities that are taking up too much of your time and if anything needs to be adjusted or done.

3. Create A Schedule

Creating a schedule is an easy way to stay organized and save time when it comes to managing your freelance social media accounts. You don’t have to stick to that schedule 100% of the time; it’s just there for you to keep yourself on track. This way, you can make sure all of your accounts get the attention they need without having to constantly check upon them.

4. Don’t Multi-Task

“Multi-tasking” isn’t really a thing! It’s been proven that doing multiple things at once is actually less efficient than tackling one task at a time. So if you’re trying to run multiple social media accounts, focus on one at a time and then move on to the next rather than switching between them constantly. You’ll get more done that way and with better results!

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5. Set Goals

Are you a freelance social media manager? Do you often find yourself wondering, “Where did my time go?” It’s easy to get lost in the world of social media, but it’s important to stay on top of your game. Here is how you can be more productive with your time:

Set goals before you start any task! If you don’t have a specific goal in mind, it’s easy to get distracted and find yourself scrolling through Instagram when you should be boosting your client’s post.

6. Don’t Waste Time On Social Media Unless You’re Working

This may seem counterintuitive, but it really does work: if you want to save time on social media, don’t waste as much of your day scrolling. You may think you’re being productive by checking out everyone from B2B marketers to journalists in your industry, but what you might actually be doing is wasting tons of time and distracting yourself from real work.

Limit yourself to just a few minutes per day of browsing other people’s posts you’ll find that it’s much easier to focus on your own content once you get in the habit of not spending all of your time reading other people’s.

7. Get Everything Done In One Place With A Tool Like Google Drive

Social media managers are people who help companies manage their social media accounts. They do a lot of work, and this can be time-consuming, but it doesn’t have to be.

There are many different ways to save time as a social media manager, from automating tasks to doing them manually. Since the topic is so broad, we’ll just address the most popular options here.

Using Google Drive is a great way to save time because it allows you to keep all of your work in one place. You can organize everything by category, which makes it easier for you to find the information you need.

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8. Delegate What You Can

You might think that in order to be a successful freelancer, you have to do everything yourself. But if you’re paying attention, you’ll notice that there are plenty of opportunities for delegating and outsourcing some of your work.

For example, when it comes to social media management, there are tools available that allow you to schedule your posts ahead of time such as Agorapulse and Buffer (Free basic plan). Most of them are available at multiple price points and with varying levels of functionality. Some will even automatically post your content at an optimal time based on the engagement of your followers.

9. Focus On Efficiency, Not Perfection

This is the simplest way to save time: don’t get bogged down in details! Sure, you may want to create a post that will blow people away, but if you’re paying too much attention to every single word, it’s going to take longer than it needs to. Are you choosing a metaphor that’s just a little bit too obscure? Or maybe you’re polishing one sentence over and over again, trying to get it “just right.”

Remember: what matters most is whether or not the reader understands your message. If they do, then they’ll engage with your content. You don’t need perfect prose and exacting language just make sure the message is clear and easy to follow!

10. Take Care Of Yourself

If you’re not feeling well, you can’t do your best work. Make sure you’re giving yourself enough sleep, eating healthy meals, and making time for self-care. This goes for when you’re busy and when you’re not the more time you spend taking care of yourself, the better off you’ll be in the long run!

11. Automate

There are so many ways to automate your social media posts that there’s really no reason not to do it, especially if you’re running multiple accounts at once. Not only will it save time by automating posts, but it’ll also keep things consistent and on-brand across all your social media feeds. With apps like Buffer and Hootsuite, you can schedule all of your posts for the day in just one sitting.

This means that instead of spending all day posting different content for each campaign and social platform, you can automate them in advance so they go live at the times that are most effective for user engagement.

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12. Use Templates

Whether it’s for email responses or blog posts that need regular updates like product pages or about sections on websites, templates can help make sure you stay consistent and efficient with your work.

13. Set Up Alerts For When You Need To Post Something

This is the most important way I save myself time and stress as a freelance social media manager. I have alerts set up on my phone that tell me when it’s time to post something on each of my clients’ accounts. This means I don’t have to spend time looking at the calendar constantly and remembering what needs to go out and when the alert tells me!

I usually use Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar to set this up. You can set up an event in each client’s calendar (or a separate calendar altogether) that will alert you at different times throughout the day or week that you need to post something for them. Just make sure you change the alert settings so that it doesn’t repeat indefinitely!

14. Set Up Alerts For Your Clients’ Competitors’ Posts

As a social media manager, it’s important to know what competitors are doing in addition to what’s happening with your own client’s accounts. You can stay on top of it by setting up alerts for each client’s competitors.

The alerts can be based on keywords, products, or usernames. Then whenever anything new happens with one of those companies, you’ll get a notification! This will not only help you create better content for your clients because you’ll understand their competitors better, but it’ll help you identify trends in the industry or any changes that could affect your client’s business.

15. Make Use Of In-App Analytics Tools

There are some great ways to get analytics on your clients’ pages, but the best place to start is just by using the in-app analytics tools that come with the platforms themselves! You’ll often find that they have data on everything you need to know to monitor your clients’ accounts: how many people are seeing their content, what kinds of posts are performing best, and what times are best for posting.

You’ll have to check each platform’s analytics tool individually to see exactly what data they provide, but it’s worth taking some time to get familiar with each one.

16. Use Trends To Create Content Ideas

Social media is nothing if not fast-paced and reactive to what’s happening in the world around us. Finding ways for your clients to engage with popular topics and trends is an excellent way of ensuring both speed and quality content. You can even make these topical posts less time-consuming by creating template content ahead of time that can be tweaked for each client based on the topic at hand (for example, pre-write a tweet about winning the lottery and use it whenever there’s a big jackpot just change the numbers)

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17. Ask Clients For Their Opinions On What They Want To Post

Many small businesses don’t know what they want to post, or how often they want to post. If you give them some guidelines and ask them what they’d like to share and why you’ll create more room for yourself in the long run and your clients will feel like they have more ownership over their content, which will lead to better engagement.

18. Let Clients Know They Need To Help Promote Your Work

When you send them a post, it can’t just sit in their inbox they need to get it out there! To that end, make sure it’s easy for them to share posts. If the post is for Facebook, give them a link to your page or the post itself. If it’s for Instagram, give them a link or a copy of the caption. If it’s for Twitter or LinkedIn, tell them what hashtags or tags that should be included. The goal is to make sharing as easy as possible.

19. Understand That Sometimes Things Don’t Go As Planned

When you’re running your own business or working as a freelancer, being an eternal optimist is essential to not only surviving but thriving. You’ve got to believe that the work you do will be successful and that you can find clients. But part of this optimism means knowing when to move on from things that aren’t working out and pivoting into something that does.

This could mean letting go of certain clients because they’re just not worth it or struggling to keep your head above water, no matter how much you love working with them.

20. Stay Focused By Putting On Music And Headphones

When you’re listening to some good music, it helps you get into a groove and stay in that zone for longer than if you were just sitting at your desk, staring off into space, trying to come up with a good post. And when you put on headphones as well as playing music, even if it’s just white noise or something like that, it helps limit the number of distractions that come your way.

21. Hire Interns

Hire interns. It sounds counterintuitive: Why would you pay for someone else’s labor when you’re trying to make more money? But the truth is, college students will often work for cheap (and sometimes even free), and they can really help streamline your processes. For example, if you find yourself putting together a lot of content calendars, but have trouble coming up with engaging social posts, consider hiring an intern who can dream up a bunch of post ideas and write some sample posts for different types of clients each week.

Final Thoughts

I hope that these tips and tricks will help you eliminate some of the stress and workload of social media management, while still remaining creative and considered in your campaigns. After all, if you’re going to take the time to post, it should be for the right reasons.

The big draw is, of course, those all-important brand impressions. But don’t forget about customer service and engagement—these are still primary goals for your business. The more you can do to master them all, the better your social media management will be.