Why 34 minutes a day isn’t enough for your social media

One thing I’m often asked is how long my job takes. “How long do you spend on Facebook a day?” “How much time does it take to ‘do’ Twitter?” “How quickly can you come up with a social strategy?”

The answer is simply that there’s no simple answer. My response to these sorts of questions is always, “Tell me what you’re trying to do and let’s go from there.”

What are your business objectives? Who’s your audience? What are they saying about you? What do you want to tell them?

Many people don’t think about social media in these terms. They think of numbers, such as followers, views and “likes.” They think of minutes and seconds and headcount. If they’re yet to start out, they’re often worried about how much time it’s going to take and who’s going to do it.

Articles such as “Social media management in 34 minutes a day (or less)” prey on this concern and lack of knowledge. It’s a misleading, clickbait headline that would make Buzzfeed proud.

The truth is that doing social media correctly does take time. And the time you’re putting in varies.