How to Automate Social Media & Save Tons of Time Online!

Almost Friday babes! Yeahhh!
What do ya'll have cookin' for this weekend?!

Believe it or not, we are going to Minnesota for a KIDS-FREE (drumroll pleaseeeeee) sports weekend! Vikings game, Minnesota Wild game, some mall of America madness. Yasss, girl, yasss!

Head over to my IG stories and check our trip. It's going to be super fun. I mean... no kids, football, hockey, beer, pizza, and shopping? #dreamsbelike

Now, I asked ya'll over in our community if you'd be interested in a GOALSETTING & PLANNING workshop and you said "HELLS YEAHHH!" So, that is on the books for 12/19 at 7PM MST. Be sure to mark your planner, iPhone reminder, tag your laptop with a stickie because this is going to be S O. G O O D.

I'll be teaching you how to goal-set for the new year, break down your goals into attainable, actionable steps, map out a vision roadmap for next year and also plan monthly, daily, and even hourly so that there is nothing left but MASSIVE ACHIEVEMENT. Click here to RSVP to the webinar! 

Next up:
Today's podcast episode!!!

HOW TO AUTOMATE SOCIAL MEDIA, STOP THE SCREEN ADDICTION & SAVE TONS OF TIME

Get ready. In today's show, I'm sharing my automation hacks when it comes to social media. It used to be such a time suck! From 5+ hours a day trying to drum up leads, drive engagement, and figure out how to create a following to now, ehhh, maybe 1-1.5 hours a day of INTENTIONAL social media time (that actually has a much higher result!). 

I'll be sharing my top 7 tips for saving you time, beating screen addiction, and automating the beast we call... social media. 

I hope you enjoy.
Love and light,
Stef

LISTEN TO THE SHOW ON ITUNES

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​​​​​​Full transcription available at the bottom of this blog post. ​​

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​Hey Friend! Before you go, I have some gifts for you to help you GROW your biz & profits.

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Learn More About Podcasting:  https://startapodcast.gr8.com
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COULD PODCASTING BE RIGHT FOR YOU?

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Need Clarity? Struggling to figure out how to get started with your calling? Need someone to map out the podcast or course WITH YOU? I gotchu girl.

Did you know besides being a PODCAST COACH, I am also a BUSINESS CLARITY COACH. I help women figure out their calling, niche, and focus. Then monetize using courses or coaching!

GET CLARITY + WORK WITH ME!

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SHOW NOTES:

This episode is sponsored by Fantasticapp! This revolutionary family-based app is a whole new way to manage your family. Kids will be motivated to do chores and take responsibility using the app's 'chores' category. You can let your kids manage their own money with the app's piggy bank. Other features include a shared grocery list, budget tool, to-do list, and a family calendar to keep everyone in sync. And, oh yeah... it's FREE! Download it here.

Join the Mompreneur Mastermind Community on FB! bit.ly/successsupportgroup

Become a Success with Stefanie Insider & get my favorite guide: 30 Ways to Grow Your Following & Boost Engagement in 30 Days, AND get early access to my weekly podcasts, a 9-page social media strategy PDF, and two masterclasses on sales and attraction marketing!!! https://30growthhacks.gr8.com

If you find value in today's episode, please take a minute and drop me a review on iTunes. I truly appreciate each of you. Hearing from my community lights my soul on fire!

Pre-registration for the 2019 spring session of Passionately Profitable is officially open! Six weeks to transformative growth in your life, purpose, passions and profits. There are 30 spots. This course will sell out. Head over and register STAT, sis! (Please note, this group coaching program is included in the Exclusive Holiday Bundle) http://passionatelyprofitable.gr8.com

Learn more and connect with me! stefaniegass.com

Interested in sponsoring a show? How about being a guest? Head over here to apply.

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The #1 thing I get asked is... 
How the heck do I grow a following & drive engagement!?
Enter...30 of my BEST growth hacks. 
Enjoy sista friend.

INSTANT ACCESS TO 30 OF MY BEST GROWTH HACKS!

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:

​[inaudible] what's up. Mama boss. Welcome back to The Mompreneur Mastermind Show. I'm Stefanie Gass, success strategist, and passive income queen creator. If you're ready to step into your God led potential, create profit from your passions and capture the success that is already yours. This podcast was made for you as always, and you can find out more and connect with me over stefaniegass.com. So grab that cup of coffee or fill up that glass of wine and let's dig in to today's show. First of all,

Can you guys believe that it is legit December? What happened to 2018? Oh my gosh, absolutely crazy. I was just thinking about that the other day. It's just wild. Wild. How much time flies anyways, here we go. Today. My friends, we are talking about how to automate social media and save tons of time. It's gone be real good girlfriend bursts. I want to read this awesome review from Jess Brown. Steph's words are such a blessing and encouraging. She has a way with words that so many moms can relate to no matter where they are in their journey. I'm so glad she took her wisdom to audio. So more mamas like me could tune in. She is my go-to podcast for me time. And my morning runs. Thank you so much, Jess. And you have no idea how much your view means to me and means to the show.

And ladies, if you have learned something from this podcast and it's helped you in your business, it's helped you in your life in some way, you are better for it. Take 30 seconds for me, head over to iTunes, leave a quick review. I truly appreciate each and every one of you. Alrighty. So episode 19 is sponsored by the most awesome app ever fantastic app. Y'all mamas. This app is the most incredible free app. By the way, way to organize your family. You use this simple app to motivate your kids to do chores. I mean, heck yes, right? To help them take more responsibility because they can see the reward on the app. Let kids manage their own money with a piggy bank. There's also a shared grocery list, budget tool to do lists and a family calendar. If you want to use something like that, to keep everyone in sync together, you can also do a custom budget with categories for your kiddo, helping them with spending money or saving, et cetera, to love.

Love, love this app. You guys got ahead over to fam tastic app. Download it now and give it a try. All right, drum roll, please. How the heck to save tons of time by automating social media? Yes, please. Y'all social media is such a time suck or it can be. I used to live in social media. I browse all day looking for leads, post in groups, post here posts there's spam my market. Then I would spend all day commenting back to people, focusing on posting in groups. Then I would have to go on Instagram and then Twitter and then YouTube and then LinkedIn. And it was like, how on this earth are you supposed to run a business? Be a great present mother, parent wife workout take time for meditation and prayer. When all you're doing, it feels like is a living on your phone in Facebook and Instagram land.

Am I right? Are any of you nodding your head? Because that is where I had found myself also social media for me turned into an addiction because I had to spend so much time there for business. I found myself really struggling to get off of social media and, and just so accustomed to clicking on and figuring out what's happening and, and checking in on the leads that I was doing it almost without any control over myself. And it became a subconscious need. Yuck, yuck, ha. How many of you have found yourself there? And then lastly, it's a double-edged sword because we need it for our business. So how do we mitigate using social media to a beneficial extent without spending our lives within all of these apps? So we're going to talk about that today. Here are my seven steps for saving tons of time on social.

And first sidebar, if you all have found yourself addicted to social media, do a social media detox. This is not one of my tips. So here's your free tip of the day. Turn off the apps, delete them from your phone. Don't get on it all for a weekend. At least once a month. I'm telling you it's incredibly liberating to realize you don't need social media. And it also helps you to reevaluate your, your actual life being present. Every time I do it, I feel refreshed, ready, renewed. And I'm also able to come back to social media with boundaries, detox, detox, detox. I would love to detox once a week. So that would be the goal, but I would, I would highly recommend at least doing that once a month. Okay. Bosses gear is number one on how to save tons of time on social time block.

And this means you are setting intentional hours of your day using your planner. Go back to my episode on time-blocking to hear an hour on this topic, but basically you are planning in, let's say 30 minutes or an hour, a day to deal with social media. And if you run a business entirely online using social media, great book yourself two hours a day. I mean, seriously, how much time do you need be realistic and don't schedule any time for surfing. You don't need to surf social. I'm sorry. It's just not something that is beneficial to your business. It's not really beneficial to your day. And it also pulls away from your present life and your kids and your husbands and your you time, all of those things. So if you're time blocking in, Hey, I've got 30 minutes right now to go in there and be super focused and get two posts out, do it, or, Hey, I have an hour and today my hour is going to be spent on commenting back to people, focusing on my inbox, catching up there or checking on my Facebook ads.

Restrategizing their time block and be intentional with the time you spend. And ladies just be conscious of the scroll. If you find yourself in there and you're not going go in to take an action, right. Go into, do something. Don't just go in. Because when we just go in, it's a black hole and now you've lost an hour of your productivity time because you know, you're checking on Mary's cat. Yeah. Whoo. Like that really helped our day. That's going to help bring us money in the bank time. Blocking is non-negotiable number two, identify where your market or your avatar is living. When it comes to social media. Let's take me. For example, my market is 27 to 33rd, 25 to 37 year old women, 80% of them, their mothers, their wives, they're Christians, they're faith driven. Okay. They have a moderate to higher income level.

They are entrepreneurs already bloggers photographers, network marketers. Where are these women living? There are three places that these women are living for me. And that is where I spend 80% of my time focused, social media, Pinterest and Instagram. And then the third one for me is Facebook. And the only way I use Facebook is by pulling all of my new leads from Pinterest and Instagram and funneling them into my Facebook group. And this is going to be tip number three, only picking two or three main social media networks to invest in. I used to focus on, I have to figure out what to post on YouTube. And then I'm posting over here on Pinterest. And I should have a Twitter because everybody has a Twitter. Even though I have no idea how Twitter works, I should then figure out Snapchat. I mean, is that even still happening?

You guys, I then have to figure out like on and on and on and on and on and on. There are endless opportunities when it comes to social media, but, but you can save yourself a massive headache by saying, Hey, where is my avatar living? And you guys, that's easy. Write down your descriptive paragraph for who your avatar is. Who is she? What does she do? How much money does she make? What does she love? Where does she thrive? What does she do for a living or he okay. Or whatever. And then think about what platform makes the most sense for that person. If you have women from 25 and up, and they're moderate income to high income level, and they're a mompreneur, they stay at home or they work from home or they have an entrepreneurship based business. They on Pinterest. Okay. And Pinterest is the most under utilized incredible platform.

And it takes the least amount of time. For me, that is where I spend time. Second, secondly, of course is my Instagram account, which has the largest following for me. And it's where I get most of my leads when it comes to clients, people that take my group coaching that hire me, that sponsor my show, that sponsor my posts. It's off of Instagram. So why would I spend all this time on Twitter? All right. Cause like my dad's on Twitter and like my dad's not my target market. Sorry, dad. So that's what you're going to do. Identify where the market is. And then number three, only pick two or three of those social networks. And start there. You may be thinking okay. Stuff, but you're not just on Pinterest and Instagram. I've seen you on Facebook. You've got a Twitter. I mean, I do have a Twitter.

Hasn't been updated since 1990, but I do have one you're thinking I do see your videos come out on YouTube. You now have this podcast. Like you have all of these things, ladies. Yes I do. But this is tip number four to repurpose. When I go into social and I say, I have one hour today for social, I'm going to come up with my Pinterest pin, that links to a blog post that I have written or a podcast episode that I've created. And it's specifically aimed at the Pinterest pin and the Instagram post. That's how I create my stuff. So I write it for Instagram and I write it for the podcast or for the verbiage that goes with the podcast. And then all I do is I repurpose it, which is tip number four. I copy whatever I've done. Whether it's my podcast, save it as a video file, upload it to YouTube or my Instagram post save it, upload it to Facebook, the Facebook group, the Facebook story, the Instagram story.

I'm copying it into my email list. I'm copying it into my many chat bot. It's the same message is going everywhere, right? And this is something that you can have a virtual assistant do for you. This is something that you could pay your kids to do for you. If they're old enough, it's something you can do yourself, but it's going to save you a ton of time. I have clients come to me and they're like, okay, I'm going to create this for Instagram. And then I'm going to do this one for Facebook and I'm gonna do them all in different days. Oh my gosh, you guys a why? Like, why are you going to stress yourself out like that? It is totally in my opinion, all about repurposing one really incredible post or really one, one great message or one great video that you've put together across all of your platforms instead of instead of six different messages that are subpar and you're posting those everywhere.

Does that make sense? Nod your head. Woo. We are on fire today. So that is tip number four. Repurpose that ish. Okay. Now number five. Here's the big one. This is the biggie. Big bigs. You guys ready? This tip keeps me out of scrolling. I don't scroll Instagram. I don't scroll Facebook. I don't do it. I don't have time for that. You guys, I have time to go in intentionally post share. I do do Instagram stories, but again, that's me pushing stuff out there. Not just, Oh, what's happening over here and did it. And there's a difference between scheduling time to do market research and you're in the analytics and you're exploring different accounts for ideas or for inspiration. That's wonderful. And you should do that maybe once a month or have someone do that for you. If you have someone that works with you marketing every day, it's just gonna end up hurting your business and your, your intentionality.

So tip number five is to schedule your content pre schedule. I love this tip. Oh my gosh. And you guys can find every scheduling tool that I use over@stephaniegas.com slash resources. I use only Poult for Instagram and you can sign up and grab a free month over on my resources page. I use post Cron for Facebook, my Facebook groups, my Facebook's, all my Facebook stuff. I also have an Instagram manager and her entire job is to grow my Instagram account by finding targeted users that are just like me and just like my clientele engaging with, with them, for me and pulling them over to my Instagram account. All of these things are automated. I don't have to do anything here. And the beauty of this is that I don't have to go into Instagram to do a post. I go into my scheduling software that keeps me from answering messages, from getting lost.

Oh, look at this. Oh, Bobby Joe wrote me like, Hey girl, right? Like you guys, you have to focus on the task at hand and just really don't allow yourself to have any distraction. What I like to do when it comes to scheduling. Once a week, I have a two hour time block give or take sometimes it's every other week and I'll do three or four hour time block. And all I do is schedule content. And remember my avatar lives on Instagram and Pinterest. So when I'm coming up with content for her, I'm creating funny memes, mom memes, coffee means I'm telling stories, vulnerable stories that share who I am and how I run a business and manage my kids and juggle my kids and how I find success as an entrepreneur. I'm inspiring them, motivating them, coming up with all of these awesome story, telling posts, and then I'm scheduling them out for an entire week.

I schedule it on Instagram first because that's where my avatar lives. And then I copy that post over to post Cron, which I use for Facebook. And I copy it over to the group and the page. And you can do it all at once. So you're just clicking which accounts you want it to share to. And automatically it will do it for you. You can put in your hashtags, you put in the date that you want and you add your photo. So within this two hour block, ladies, I've now scheduled an entire week of content. Why is that? So incredibly because I don't have to get back into social unless I want to. Stuff is posting for me. I'm continuing to grow my following. Here's the only thing about that is to grow your engagement. You need to be on social, interacting with people. So I also try to schedule 15 minutes a day at night or in the morning to go in and just comment back to people on the posts and remember, where am I living Instagram?

So I'm going to do it on Instagram. First. If I have extra time, I'll go to Facebook. But Instagram is my jam. It's where my people live. So I'm over there first. And then if I don't get to it once a week, I'm like, Oh, who do I haven't replied to anybody. Good Lord. It's been crazy. I'm going to schedule an hour at the end of the week. Like, let's say Sunday afternoon, we're watching a football game or whatever. Great. I'll go in and interact with people and engage. And I try to reply to every single comment, every single comment and every single message. And even if it's just a heart awesome. You know, scheduling is the biggest time saved for me. And it also helps me to be in the zone. If you guys are going in there and you're posting real time every day, you're staring at your screen, what am I going to post today?

I, my kid is on my leg. I just spilled coffee on my shirt. I've got a pee like, okay. But if you're in the zone and you're like, right now, I have no distractions. I've got two hours and I'm going to bust this out. Your brain gets in the flow and you're able to come up with content much quicker than if you're breaking it up piecemeal. And your focus is divided between all the other things going on. Make sense. That is number five. Number six. I kind of touched on this one. It's focusing on the engagement before the following. And this just simply means ladies, if you're going to be focusing on intentionality within social, go in and focus on the engagement, get to know people, compliment people don't scroll, but reply back. I mean like taking the time to reply to people that have already given you something they've commented on your post.

They've sent you a DM, things like that. And ladies, when you focus on engagement, that's where you begin to grow a following. It's not, I'm going to grow a following. It's I'm going to grow my engagement. I'm going to get to know people. I'm going to pour into people. And then the following will come. People start to recommend you like know and trust you. They're coming back to your account. You're taking time to care about them. And my best tip here. I know this is hard because here we all are sitting behind a screen and we're all so busy. It's hard to humanize the, the person behind the computer. But if I have a massive takeaway for you, it's this, you have to think of every comment. And every DM as a person that you're sitting down to coffee with, you've met her. She has children, or she is just like you, or she's looking for products that you have, or she's interested in your business, or she's just fun and light and funny.

And she's a new friend and you're sitting down to coffee with her. How do you now see this person across the screen from you, do your best to humanize that person and then spend 10 seconds and reply to her with, with meaning don't reply to her with, Hey, buy this or join my group or dat dat dat. Right? It's Hey, thank you so much for that comment. Like you rock sister, by the way, like your kiddos. So cute, like be genuine with people. And the more genuine you are, the more friendships that will cultivate. And then the more opportunity that you will have to grow your business and to have new customers flow in. All right. Last tip. Number seven is to outsource the things that can be outsourced when it comes to social, you have posts that you have to do. You have graphics that you have to make, you have photos that you have to take.

You also have growing a following. There are so many there's Facebook advertising, right? Like social is this huge beast. It's not just, Oh, I have Facebook. It's many, many, many components of how to market and build a brand and build a business within social media. I ask you to ask yourself what is taking you the most time when it comes to social media and then see if it would be possible for you financially to outsource that. For example, I do not wish to spend the time. We all have time, right? But I would not wish to spend my time liking new accounts stuff, going over there, introducing myself in hopes that they will resonate with me and come follow my account, liking all their pictures. Growing the following from an in an organic way would take me for like three hours a day. And I just simply cannot expend that.

So I outsource that to an Instagram manager. Okay. And it's worth it for me. It's worth the investment to not spend three hours of my time that I could be taking coaching clients, for example, or coming up with a new podcast or growing my brand. Now, another thing, if you're not great at graphic design and to like to create a meme or to create a graphic takes you an hour, comes out just looking like your five-year-old made it. And you're like, okay, graphic design or, or this whole photo aspect, like stock photography and all of those things that is not my forte outsource it. Guys, you can use Fiverr for five bucks a graphic. I have a graphic designer that I can highly recommend. If you need help with this, see what you can do to eliminate all of the time you're spending on social media, outsource the stuff that's not serving you, or that's taking way too much of your time.

Also, you could get a copywriter. If, if the posts are the thing for you coming up with storytelling posts and your grammar is bad, for example, or you just can't seem to get the words to flow right? In this, in this way, that's going to resonate with the audience, send a week's worth of posts over to a copywriter and have him have him spruce them up for you, give them some vibrancy, edit them. There are limitless options for you when it comes to outsourcing, that can save you time. And I highly recommend checking those out. I've given you lots of tips for saving time. Ultimately, the biggest thing that you can do is to time block in social media, begin to schedule your stuff, outsource what you can't really get done in a normal amount of time, pick a few social networks that you're going to live on, and don't worry about being present everywhere.

I would rather, you have one social network that you're extremely incredible at, and you understand it thoroughly. You know how to market on it. Your following, you have a great following on one network. I would rather see that than see you have 10 networks and they're all floundering. Okay. Be great. At one, don't be subpar at all of them and believe me, I've been there. Go look at my Twitter. If you want to see like a crapshoot, it's real bad. Now I know that Instagram and Pinterest are my jam and that's where I'm going to spend the majority of my, of my social. Time-blocking again, head over to Stephanie gas.com/resources, check out all of the scheduling tools that I use. You can get a free month of only. Poult a free month of post Cron and learn more about those tools over there. Last thing you guys have got to get your hands on.
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Fantastic app. Again. It's so awesome at helping your kiddos with budgeting chores, helping kids manage their own little piggy bank. You can, you do your grocery list on there. It's just this comprehensive app for your family. And I know it's going to help you win. And that's over@fantasticapp.com. All of these links are in my show notes. If you're like, what is she saying? There's so many links. Don't worry, boo. I got you. Check out the show notes over on iTunes or Podbean and you can check them out there. My beautiful friend, I'm going to leave you with an abundance prayer. I pray over you right now. Mama, beautiful. You listening to this episode that you realize you have the intentionality to be all the things that you truly want to be. I know that you have all the time in your day to accomplish everything that you want to accomplish for your business, for your life, for your health, you have the power to set boundaries, and I believe that you truly can have it all. I pray that you have the power and the belief in yourself to set the standards that you need to set. And I also pray that you find the right system of management to, to begin to block and take control of your own life. I pray that you turn to the Lord for guidance, wherever it is that you're struggling today, don't forget that he is always there for you. He is listening to you and he's waiting to hear from you now. God bless you all love and light, Stef.