Lots of small businesses are quite slow this time of year, it’s the perfect opportunity to get your social media game in order. It’s really quite simple:

1. POST REGULARLY: Planning and scheduling your posts are key to posting regularly.
Posting 3 times a week, every week is better than every day for a few weeks and then nothing for a month. This has been tried and tested over and over again. I use Hootsuite as a scheduler, it is a Canadian company that offers a FREE option, always and forever although you can upgrade if you want.

2. ENGAGING POSTS: Follow the 80/20 rule (20% marketing material, 80% of interest to your followers).
Using a tool like CANVA is easy (once you figure it out). The internet has a ton of free resources you can access like photography sites that offer FREE images for businesses AND a quick search like “quotes about…” can give you all the fodder you need to create posts that people will be dying to share.

3. BE SOCIAL: Share/Retweet/Share in stories (for IG)
It’s called social media for a reason, you need to participate too. Find pages you like and follow them and ENGAGE. You don’t have to be on social media everyday. Pick a day and go through your feed liking, commenting and sharing other peoples pages. Don’t forget to engage with people who’ve engaged with your page too.

I often work with clients helping them get their social media set up and running and then they can take it over themselves, (or not, whatever works for you). Give me a shout if you want to up your social media game, FIRST HOUR FREE.

I’d like to introduce you to CANVA. It’s a graphics design platform that can turn anyone into a graphic designer extraordinaire and it’s FREE!

Decide what you want to create, it can be almost anything, social media posts, business cards, presentations, invitations, cards, even parent report cards! I kid you not!

Once you find a template you like, there are lots of great FREE ones, you can use it as is or revise it however you want. You can easily change the fonts, their colours, the background colour or use an image, add or remove different design details… 

Check out the blog FREE IMAGES YOU CAN USE FOR BUSINESSES, to find great images if you want to go that route. 

If you’re not great with colours, full disclosure, I’m colourblind & I use the CANVA color palette generator. You just add the image to the generator and voila, you get a color palette (that I assume compliments the image).

Below are a Free template I used and then I personailized it by adding a FREE background from pixabay.com, I then used the Canva palette generator and customized the colours & mixed it all up a bit. 
If you want some help figuring out CANVA please feel free to give me a shout at [email protected] 

Scheduling posts can be one of the most powerful things that you do as far as social media is concerned. It gives you the opportunity to make sure that you’ve got several posts spread out through the week and then you can just check in quickly every few days to like, comment & share/retweet. Now you’re able to get back to doing what you love to do. Planning to go on a holiday, don’t laugh, that time will come again, being able to schedule a bunch of posts on social media means you won’t get lost in the algorithm. Want to spend some time "away" from the business? Scheduling posts means you can take a bit of break from business as usual and no one will be the wiser.
I use Hootsuite, it’s a Canadian owned business and FREE, two of my favourite things! The free account gives the opportunity to schedule up to 30 posts on 3 different channels. I pick one day a week where I schedule my posts and then I’m good to go. PRO TIP: Use the link above and scroll down to see the free option.
When you’re adding the 3 social media platforms make sure they are open on your computer and then it’s easy peasy. Now you are ready to start posting!