As small business owners, we often don’t get to take a lot of time away from work, and when we do, it can feel stressful. One concern I hear is about keeping social media accounts active while on vacation. There are ways to go on vacation and still being present on social media.

iTunes                  Stitcher

So, how to manage your social media accounts while you are away? These are some quick tips because I know that everyone has limited time. Especially if you are about to run away for vacation.

Inform your audience

My first tip is to actually tell your audience that you are going on vacation. If you have a Facebook page, Twitter page, etc., simply saying that you are going to be away is one option to help people. If you decide that you are not going to be posting the whole time you are on vacation (Which as a side note, I don’t recommend going completely silent, but that is your decision), I would at least tell your audience so they know why you are not putting out any content. Then they know nothing is wrong, they know that you are just on vacation.

Schedule Content

For many small businesses, once you start gaining a little bit of momentum on social media, you don’t want to stop it altogether, because then you have to start it back up, once you are back from vacation and it is … a pain.

If you want to keep having consistent content, schedule your content. Scheduling is a great way to keep providing your audience with consistent content, all while you are relaxing on the beach.

If you do decide scheduling is the way to go, take a look at your analytics and see the best times to post. Then, find some interesting content via Feedly, Pocket, or wherever you find your content, and schedule away. You will also want to include some of your own blog posts, graphics and videos.

hootsuite for social media scheduling

Using a social media scheduler helps save time and keeps your content consistent while away on vacation.

The social media scheduler I use currently is Hootsuite, but could there are so many options. I also use Buffer to send out content, which has made keeping my Twitter feed updated, so much easier.

Other scheduling options? Meet Edgar, Sendible and Sprout Social (and many other options!).

I would also recommend scheduling posts for a few days after you get back because we all know when you go on vacation – especially for a week – that when you get back, that first day back is sometimes rough because everyone wants something from you.

Collaborate

Another option to keep your social media accounts updated while on vacation is to ask someone to do a takeover. If there is a like-minded business in your community, you can meet with them, tell them your situation and ask them if they are interested in doing a takeover. Make sure to take a look at their social media accounts first to see if they update regularly.

Women in Tech on Snapchat always has a new and interesting personon their account

Women in Tech on Snapchat always has a new and interesting personon their account

I’ve seen takeovers on Snapchat before where people will actually take over someone else’s Snapchat channel. And it is kind of interesting because they have this person come on to their Snapchat and it’s someone new and interesting.

Doing the social media takeover option is also helpful for the person doing the takeover because they get to talk to a whole new, different audience. They get to promote their own Snapchat profile so that they can get a bigger audience.

As long as this ‘takeover’ aligns with your business, it is kind of interesting because it gives people a different perspective on things. They probably would share some different content, and post things in a unique way.

You want to make sure that you have clear expectations set for what you want and give them examples of things that you would post but it could be interesting.

Ask for Help

This option might seem obvious, but if you are like me, asking for help can be one of the hardest things to do.

If you have one person in your office that understands not only social media in general but customer service and marketing, you can designate them as the social media contact. Make sure to have a guide laid out for how to post, how to schedule, how to monitor, how long approximately things should take and then some preset templates for responses or ideas for how to answer things.

Hire Someone

Another way to manage your social media accounts is to hire a Virtual Assistant from somewhere like Upwork.com. You can hire for short term jobs, and once you find someone you really like working with, hire them on a consistent basis. You might notice that spending money on a social media manager who truly understands social media might end up saving you a lot of wasted time, and give you more time to spend working on your business.

Take your Audience with you

Depending on the brand voice of your business, you could also tell your audience that you are going on vacation, and then choose one platform where people can see behind the scenes of you on vacation. This option would work well if you were travelling to somewhere really interesting, or you were doing an activity that your audience would really enjoy.

A good platform to do this would be Snapchat, Instagram stories, Facebook Live, or Periscope. It could be kind of fun if you want to be on social media while you are on vacation. I know some businesses wouldn’t want to go this route, but it could be fun for you and your followers on social media.

Take Charge

If you decide that you just need to check social media while you are on vacation (I get it, I do it too), one thing to make it easier, is to create standard replies to have on hand.

What I mean by that is, if you are going to be checking your social media while you are on vacation, if you create some standard replies to have available in your notes app on your phone or on Evernote, you will have these replies available so you don’t spend so long crafting individual responses. So, for things that you get asked often, if you have it all typed-up and saved in your app, you won’t have to manually type a specific response for every person. You can obviously customise them, but this could end up saving you quite a bit of time.

Also, have images and videos saved on your phone so if you do need some content to share then it is ready on your phone to share.

If you have any ideas of things that you’ve done while you are on vacation and how to keep posting and stay relevant on social media while you are on vacation, make sure to connect with me and let me know.