Photo by Christopher Porter

It’s summer. It’s hot. Most of us want to spend less time at work and more time enjoying the weather with family and friends.

Managing social media can take up a lot of time in your day—but it doesn’t have to. Here’s how to manage social media in 35 minutes a day.

How to Manage Social Media in 35 Minutes a Day

Morning: 25 Minutes

1. Respond to any direct messages, mentions or comments that were posted on your social networks overnight. (5 minutes)

2. Read through your feeds and catch up on news and conversations (but don’t get distracted by irrelevant content). Find interesting content to share, post or RT. (10 minutes)

3. Schedule content to go out throughout the day via Hootsuite and Facebook’s new scheduling feature. For Google+, use this tip from Guy Kawaski. (10 minutes)

Note: Think about when people are social networks (when they first get to work, at lunch and in the evening) and schedule content to go out at those times.

After Lunch: 5 Minutes

1. Check in on your accounts and respond to messages as necessary. Ideally, you want to respond to comments within a couple of hours. (Tips on managing Facebook comments.)

End of Day: 5 Minutes

1. Check in on things one last time. Make sure your scheduled posts went out smoothly and respond to comments and messages.

If your fans and followers are online in the evening or early morning, make sure you have content scheduled to go out while you’re out of the office.

If You Have an Extra 30 Minutes

If you can, spend an extra 30 minutes a week reviewing what’s working and what can be improved.

1. Look at Facebook Insights and Hootsuite Analytics. What types of content got the most engagement? What got the most RTs? Post more of that type of content next week. (10 minutes)

2. Find new pages to like and new profiles to follow. Make sure to follow people who commented, shared or RT’d your content. (10 minutes)

3. Ensure that your profiles look fresh. If you’ve pinned a post on Facebook, swap it out for a new post. Maybe update your cover photo. (5 minutes)

And that’s it. Social media management in 35 minutes a day (plus 30 minutes a week). Now go enjoy the beach!

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