With summer officially upon us, many of us are scheduling vacations to take advantage of the warm weather and give ourselves a break from routine. These holidays are essential for recharging your batteries and avoiding burnout, yet for small business owners, they can often be more stressful than soothing. Even with a full team of qualified employees to help manage things when you are away, it is a valid fear to assume certain aspects of your protocol may fall to the wayside when you’re out of town. To avoid the dreaded “out of office” unavailability trap, social media can maintain your presence with your customers even if you are not physically reachable.
Facebook:
- If/where appropriate, acknowledge holidays (relevancy is important- you don’t want to post something completely unrelated if that’s what everyone is talking about)
- Schedule your content (use the arrow attached to the “publish” button on your status update to set the date and time)
- Check messages and respond once in the morning for 5 minutes
- Update your business hours if you have a brick and mortar location where those hours will change
Instagram:
- If/where appropriate, acknowledge holidays
- Plan content for someone else to post (no scheduling feature – if your smartphone has location tracking, it can give you away)
- Check messages and respond once in the morning for 5 minutes (or delegate, if phone service is unavailable)
Twitter:
- Use a syndicator (such as Buffer, Tweetdeck, or HootSuite) and fill your queue with enough content to last you through your hiatus
- Check messages and mentions and respond once in the morning for 5 minutes
We can all agree that a vacation away from the day-to-day tasks of life is necessary every now and then. Yet what good is a vacation if you spend your time fretting and fussing over your business instead of enjoying yourself?
Following these protocols before you go will allow you to find the balance between completely abandoning all responsibility and turning your hotel room into a mobile office.
Want more social media tips? Check out our webinar on Social Media Day, Tuesday, June 30th!
