Social media management can be a difficult task no matter how long you’ve been on Facebook, Twitter, or any of the other platforms.

The key to limiting your frustration is organization. Below are seven ways that you can better organize your social media efforts.

1. Develop a strategy/routine. Take the morning to review all of the social media posts that occurred the previous night. We are creatures of habit. Do your best to create a strategy or routine and repeat it so that it becomes habitual and as natural as making coffee before you check your email.

2. Redistribute content, carefully. No one is expected to use 100 percent original content when posting to social media accounts. When you redistribute content, however, use caution. If you have the same people following several accounts you manage, or subscribing to the same content feeds, you could annoy them by overloading them with duplicative content.

3. Don’t waste time. In the social media world, there is no time to waste. Do your best to track successes and failures, what’s hot and what’s not, and trending topics. Know your audience and know what triggers them to engage.

4. Use third-party tools. Take advantage of the many free and/or pay-for-service social media scheduling, analytics and monitoring tools. Some great tools are: HyperAlerts (free) and Sprout Social (paid). Facebook also announced recently its new scheduling feature that is sure to help get posts out more efficiently.

5. Limit (as best you can) the number of decision makers. We all know what happens when approval is needed from several different sources. The idea gets bounced around for hours and by the time it has been approved, the post you had in mind is yesterday’s news. Try your best to establish a “committee” of three (including yourself) that has the authority to approve your posts. Let me tell you from experience—it’s only a matter of time before they give you the keys to the car and let you drive on your own.

6. Don’t overthink. This idea might draw some skepticism. When coming up with a post, try not to overthink it. The more you overthink, the more time you waste, and the originality of the idea begins to diminish. Put just enough time into thinking of a good post and get it posted, or get it to whomever it needs to go to for approval.

7. Delegate. Try hard to delegate what you can. If you are in charge of posting, ask someone to assist you with content. I know most of us have a hard time letting someone else drive, but time is valuable and must not be wasted.

Even if only one of these ideas is appealing, try to keep all of them in mind when developing your strategy and tackling your everyday social media responsibilities. If you want to make the best use of your time and maintain a sustainable and efficient social media presence, you need to be sure to organize your efforts from the moment you start.

Anthony Salerno is the Marketing Assistant at Behan Communications in Albany, NY. A version of this story first appeared on the Behan Communications’ blog The Buzz.

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