Automating and backloading content to stay sane and tech-free these holidays

So the year has sped by and you’re now freaking out that Christmas is less than a month away. Yep… Take a sec, breath, and gather your thoughts. It’s okay, you got this!

The bad news is… we’re not going to do your Christmas shopping for you.

The good news is… we can provide a few simple tips for your content marketing so it all runs smoothly over the break.

It’s 4pm on Christmas Day, you’ve just finished lunch that took five hours to prepare and 30 minutes to eat, everyone goes to relax on the couch and pick up their phones to see what’s happening in internet land.

So, what to do you do with all of your social media accounts, blogs and content?

1. Automate your social media

You probably don’t want to be trying to post on Facebook , Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram etc. in the middle of the Christmas craziness. But, people will have downtime over the break and will want some sort of content to peruse.

So, what do you do? Buffer is a great tool to schedule Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn and Pinterest posts. It has all kind of metrics and data that you can get into once you get a handle on the basics, but for now, we just want to connect our social media accounts, load up some posts and schedule them out over the holidays. Here’s a basic guide on what Buffer is as well as some FAQs.

What! No Instagram? No problem. Grum is a similar web app to Buffer. You can upload images and schedule posts to Instagram directly from your computer! Simple.

2. Forward thinking for other content

Maybe you want to send out a blog post or two over the break as well. Here we need a bit of old-school forward planning. Set aside some time to write a post before the break so you’re not frantically working at home. We have two options here:

Firstly, Medium is a great place to post (as well as your own site of course!) but with Medium, you can actually write within their website, upload all your images and it will save it as a draft if you don’t want to post straight away. So one option is to do this, then log back in over the break and hit ‘post’. Done!

Our second option is to write, post and schedule your social media with Buffer — what we talked about above.

3. Inform your clients and followers of your schedule over the break

Let people know if you’re closing up over Christmas or not. A good way to do this is via EDM. Some things to include would be:

• Date you’re closing up
• Return date
• What people can do if they need support or help
• Make sure you have a support email setup and direct people to it

That’s it!

So, to sum things up: a little thinking and future planning now will pay off over the break, allowing you to relax (as much as possible anyway).