If social media isn’t your primary job focus or area of expertise, then how do you stay on top of social media changes when platforms are altering weekly?
It’s like trying to sail your ship to its destination, but the wind keeps changing direction.
It’s easy to fall behind, become overwhelmed, and get lost amid the vast ocean of social media changes.
If you’re like me, it’s enough of a struggle to create content and schedule time for engagement. Never mind the responsibilities to learn about and adapt to the new developments in social media!
As you know, though, change is inevitable, especially in the fast-paced digital environment. As a business owner using social media for marketing, you must be able to adapt quickly. Your audience expects it but your business requires it.
How can you navigate the ever-changing ocean of social media without too much stress? There are at least five ways that can help.
Five Ways to Keep Updated on Social Media Changes
1) Reduce Your Footprint
One of the easiest options to manage updates is to decrease your social media presence to one or two platforms.
There is no rule that your business needs to be on every social media platform. In fact, I recommend figuring out where your audience is and dedicating your efforts to that platform.
Branching out to a second platform will diversify your marketing but could negatively impact your entire social media strategy, especially if you don’t have the money to outsource.
Keeping your presence to one platform mitigates social media’s impact on your time. I’m not referring to only your time invested in daily social media management but also in keeping abreast of platform changes and new functionality.
Reducing your footprint means that social media changes become more manageable and simpler to accommodate.
When it comes to social media, sometimes less is more. By devoting more time to one platform rather than less time to many, you’ll find that the effort has a bigger payoff.
2) Follow Social Media Industry Blogs
Much of the information you need to stay in the know is available online for free. You just need to know where to find the articles, tutorials, and videos.
For all things social media related, concentrate on industry influencers that publish some of the best content. Choose only one or two so that you don’t get bombarded with too much information.
My two “go-to” references for staying on top of social media changes are Social Media Examiner and Social Media Today.
Social Media Examiner covers all of the most popular and widely used platforms. Their content is varied, robust, timely and easy to understand for all levels of the social media learning curve.
Additionally, their weekly roundup covers platform changes, updates, and industry news. Why waste time Googling when you can access the top changes in social media in one location?
Social Media Today publishes timely platform-specific updates that are more informative than educational. In particular, the section on Social Networks via the top main navigation is a helpful resource.
If there is a social media platform change on the horizon, then Social Media Today usually covers it before, during, and after the change is live.
Sign up to receive their updates in your inbox so that you don’t miss a thing! Or use Feedly to collect their blogs into one location and make it easier to stay informed.
3) Google Alerts
Google Alerts is another tool to help stay on top of social media changes. All you need is a free Google account to set up Alerts.
A Google Alert is when Google monitors a specific topic that you’ve selected and emails you content related to that topic.
Google Alerts offer several advantages. First, you get to choose the search term for Google to use when creating the alert, so you can be specific and targeted.
Secondly, the information is bundled and delivered to your inbox once a day. You don’t have to spend time searching for data.
One of the benefits is also one of the disadvantages: you receive everything related to the topic. That’s good news if you want to know everything on the topic. Unfortunately, alerts often include a lot of off-topic information that is not of interest or relevant.
For example, an alert set up for “Twitter” will also include investor and stock articles as well as information that isn’t related to platform changes. And although the content is delivered to your inbox, you still have to sift through it, which can be a huge time drain.
Google Alerts are powerful and robust but may not be the easiest, more time-effective method of figuring out what’s going on with social media changes.
4) Twitter Lists
Another terrific resource for information is Twitter.
Twitter is known for unveiling breaking news. To take advantage of this, you can create Twitter lists to monitor what’s going on in social media.
A Twitter list is a grouping of Twitter accounts (@names) that you create within Twitter. Once you’ve created a list, you can click on it to see only the tweets of those accounts on your list.
For example, if you wanted to get up-to-the-minute updates on social media changes, create a list using Social Media Examiner and Social Media Today’s Twitter handles. Instead of getting emailed their newsletters, you could check Twitter for daily updates.
The main drawback to Twitter is that you have to manually search for the information. This means that you have to remember to check Twitter, which means that you Not every tweet will be applicable, and there will be much sorting to do.
5) “Inner Circle” Community
While the above four options will make you the captain of your ship in terms of navigating social media for business, they still require a lot of sorting, searching, digesting, and analyzing. This is where joining an “inner circle” is handy.
An inner circle is an online or in-person community led by an industry expert or experts. These “inner circle memberships” can be fee-based or free. The offering and value differ across circles based various factors.
Finding the right inner circle group can be a massive time-saver in terms of staying on top of social media updates and all things social media marketing related. You have someone else managing the information and giving you the details that are pertinent. You can focus on your business and rely on that inner circle when you need them.
Over to You
Staying updated on social media changes is tough, especially if it’s just you in your business. Consider using one of the tips above to help keep your ship sailing in the right direction with lots of momentum. You don’t want to get stranded!