15 Social Media Tasks You Can Do In 15 Minutes

Social media is the job that often gets put onto the backburner. You’ve got no problem scrolling through your Instagram feed, but actually taking the time to audit your own? Never seems to happen!

We all know how huge the benefits of social media are – there are brands that make a living just off social alone! This isn’t just pure luck – like every job, social media is something that just needs a little bit of time and attention to pay off. 

Today we’re giving you a challenge: set a timer for 15 minutes once a day every day for a week and pick one of the below tasks. Don’t get distracted by incoming emails; don’t let your mind wander off to anything else. These micro tasks will help you chip away at bigger, more mammoth tasks to make them easier in the long run.

1. Brainstorm ideas for 10 social posts

Either alone or with colleagues, have a quick glance over your previous content to get your brain into motion (1-2 minutes), a quick glance over competitors’ recent content (1-2 minutes), then spend 10 minutes writing down as many ideas as possible for social posts. Make the goal 10 ideas, but if you go over that number, brilliant!

To help you along the way, here are a few different formats you might consider:

• Product images/albums
• Animated videos
• Product videos
• Links to your own blog content
• Motivational quotes
• Reviews of your product
• Behind the scenes life at your business

2. Schedule 2 social posts

Take your list of brainstormed ideas and pick one platform – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, any platform of your choice for today. Then make 2 (just two!) of these ideas a reality. Write the content, source your images and schedule the content. 

3. Update social media profile and header pictures and bios

Give your profile pages a refresh! The first step here is to check that your branding is consistent across all platforms – make sure you’re using up to date logos and, if you’re not using all the same images, make sure at least the colour schemes and fonts are consistent. Even just make a couple of tweaks to the content in your bio so that it reflects your company and brand as best as can be.

4. Check your social profile metrics 

Load up your insights or analytics directly on the platforms or whichever tools you use for tracking, reporting or scheduling. Note down your metrics at this moment in time in a spreadsheet and save it, then set yourself a reminder to come back to it in a month so you can measure how well your efforts have performed.

5. Compare your social metrics month-on-month or year-on-year

If you want to compare how you’re doing now, check your results compared to this time last month or last year, then make notes on what has done particularly well – is it a certain image, video or product? Do longer posts work better or shorter snippets of content? Do your audience react better to brightly coloured images or calmer colour schemes?

6. Create a content calendar document 

Creating a content calendar is a job that seems huge at the outset, but all it needs is 10 minutes to set up a document that you can add to as and when over time. We’ve even got a free downloadable template here you can use so you can get started right away!

If you already have a calendar or are using our template, spend your 15 minutes checking if there are any awareness days/weeks/months relevant to your industry coming up that aren’t already on your calendar and note them down. Or you could spend 15 minutes brainstorming ideas around those you already have in the calendar.

7. Conduct a mini competitor analysis

Find 5 socially active competitors in your industry and glance over their social profiles for inspiration. Note down any posts that catch your eye and any ideas that occur to you as you look over their accounts. Save these and use them for another 15 minute brainstorm or scheduling session later in the week.

8. Get out of the box ideas

It’s so easy to get stuck in a rut with your social posts, and hitting a creative block really slows you down. Once you’ve set your 15 minute timer, jump up and sit with a colleague who doesn’t work on the same client or area of business and brainstorm ideas for social posts – it’s likely they’ll have ideas you would never think of!

9. Spend 15 minutes interacting on Instagram

We can all fritter away time on scrolling mindlessly through social media. Take 15 minutes to actively engage on Instagram – like, follow and comment (genuinely!) on relevant posts, people who you think would be interested in your brand or product so that you get in front of their eyes.

10. Create a list of hashtags relevant to your niche

Start with a single niche hashtag and search posts using this for more hashtag ideas that would work for your product or brand. Try to come up with at least 100 in 15 minutes that you can pick from in future.

11. Write down 5 goals for your social media accounts 

Make 5 goals, whether that’s a specific engagement rate you want to achieve for one platform, the number of followers on another, or even just the number of posts you want to put out per week. Consider ideas on how you can achieve these goals and scribble them down too.

12. Design templates for graphics

The easiest way to create graphics for your social profile, and the best way to stay on brand with them, is to have templates. Canva is a brilliant option for this, especially if you have Canva Pro which allows you to save templates and branding to use time and again.

13. Create 5 graphics from your templates

Using your templates, create 5 different graphics for upcoming social posts. Easy!

14. Create a Twitter list

It’s tricky keeping up to date with your industry on social media when it’s so fast paced. Instead, create a Twitter list with a core group of people that you want to keep up with updates from – 10-15 people is a good start. 

15. Keep up with social media news and tips

Spend 15 minutes checking out your favourite social media news sites – if you’re in need of some new inspiration, take a look at the Social Media category on the Bronco blog.

And if this all seems like too much, give us a shout – we’re happy to help!