Posting to social media can feel like a chore for many local businesses. Further, posting to one platform or another typically should occur up to several times a day. Therefore, how as a local business owner can you make this process manageable? One way is to develop a methodical approach which may involve utilizing a spreadsheet or similar local business scheduling tool. Once you’ve identified a method to track your process, consider taking the following steps.

Determine how often and when you should optimally post on each of your platforms. If your local business has been promoting itself on your social media platforms for at least a few months, you likely have a sense of when during the day you get the strongest response from your followers. There is also general information available about the best times of the day in general to post on the various platforms. For example, one recent local business article indicated the greatest follower response on Facebook was received by posting once a day. Further, tweeting is often cited as being most effective during the business day. However, this information refers to general trends over a large data pool and not your particular business. Therefore, use general trend information as a guide if you don’t have that information yet for your local business and then modify your schedule as you get actual data on the optimal time to interact with your audience.

Compile a list of local business content you can promote. One way to consistently have great content about your local business to use in promotions is to create an electronic or paper file of stories or newsworthy information about the business. As you create posts for the various platforms, you can refer back to this file to pull stories or repurpose information. Consider keeping a list of upcoming events, new products, etc… so you have a reminder about these items as you’re compiling your posts. Remember, it’s always easier to brainstorm from a file of ideas than a blank sheet of paper.

Develop content for at least a week at a time. To make your content creation as efficient as possible, set aside a one day a week to generate the bulk of your content for the week ahead. Populate your spreadsheet with information on what you are going to post on each platform for the week ahead. This planning doesn’t restrict you from changing your content to share a breaking story at the last minute, but it does help ensure you’ll be consistently promoting your local business on each of the platforms and consistency is the key in fostering a following.

Once you’ve used this process for a week or so, evaluate your results and determine how you may become more efficient in planning, creating, and posting your local business social media content.

Chris Marentis is considered an expert in the field of local business online marketing and is the founder and CEO of Surefire Social.