12 Tasks in Every Social Media Marketer’s Work Week

A few minutes a day? A couple hours a week? Nonsense. Social media requires a continuous, ongoing effort for companies to realize fully the potential of the medium to grow an audience and build a community. Take a look at the Social Media Checklist that we’ve previously published and you’ll find it requires quite an effort, selection of tools, and investment of time.

This infographic is my take on the time investment required to develop an effective social media workflow. Major caveat – of course, every organization is different and any workflow that is designed and implemented needs to work towards the achievement of business goals. That being said, I feel the time scope represented here is far more realistic than the notion that organizations can get value from the social channel by investing “15 minutes a day”. Mark Smiciklas, Intersection Consulting

Hours of Effort Each Week for an Effective Social Media Plan

• Blogging – 7.5 hours to produce content that you can share via social media.
• Contingency – 5 hours to problem solve, write unscheduled posts, research, and provide damage control to manage reputation.
• Updates – 4 hours to post text, photos, and comment.
• Engagement – 4 hours a week to respond to follows, mentions, and questions.
• Research – 3 hours to source internal and external content.
• Listening – 2.5 hours monitoring brand mentions, hashtags, keywords, and searches.
• Curation – 2.5 hours reading feeds, filtering, and sharing content.
• Community – 2.5 hours of audience outreach and acquisition.
• Campaigns – 2.5 hours to develop contests and manage promotional applications.
• Strategy – 2.5 hours of tactical planning and ideation.
• Analytics – 2.5 hours of reviewing social media reporting and performance.
• Planning – An hour a week to update your editorial calendar and assign tasks.

Here’s Mark’s fantastic infographic that breaks down these 12 tasks into the average number of hours that he sees companies spending to accomplish.