The Ultimate Social Media Checklist: Daily, Weekly & Monthly Tasks For Your Social Strategy

Keeping up with your likes, follows, and mentions on social media is always an important part of a comprehensive digital marketing strategy, and it’s even more essential in light of the on-going COVID-19 pandemic and the near-constant changes that come with it. Particularly when it’s not business as usual every day, social media provides a way to build brand awareness and to stay connected with your customers digitally if you cannot be there in person.

Whether you are social savvy or are just getting started, this checklist breaks down all of the daily, weekly, and monthly tasks you should do to keep your social media presence organized and up to date.

Daily Social Media Tasks

Check your mentions. We recommend doing this at least once per day, or if you can, once in the morning and once in the afternoon/evening. Mentions include any time someone reaches out directly to you on social media, whether they’re tagging you in a comment that they expect you to respond to or tagging you in a photo they took on one of your tours.

Facebook: Click the "Notifications" icon.

Twitter: Click on “Notifications,” then choose the “Mentions” tab.

LinkedIn: Click the "Notifications" icon.

Instagram: Click the heart icon in the top toolbar.

Respond to your followers. This includes everyone who reached out to you via messaging or who left a comment on your posts. By staying on top of this task daily, your messages won't pile up and become overwhelming to answer. Keep in mind that only 1 in 6 social media messages get an answer (Sprout Social), so by replying to everyone, you’re probably one step ahead of some of your competitors.

Follow back people who follow you. A big part of social media is gaining followers, and people who follow you always appreciate a follow back. Check in each day to see if any new people followed you and give them a follow back.

Looking to grow your social media following? Check out these 10 tips.

If you have time, look for people who match your focus or share common interests and give them a follow. You might just get one back!

Make new connections. Go beyond simply liking or retweeting and form a connection with a new person. For example, when you gain a new follower, welcome them with a personal message. Or if someone shared a photo from one of your tours on their social accounts, reach out to them to tell them how much you like it.

Engage with your regulars. Social media regulars are your MVPs -- they are the people who are your biggest fans and followers and regularly interact with you. Pay attention to them as this group could consist of influencers or brands that you’d like to get to know better.

Check out our short video on 8 proven ways to engage with followers on social media.

Get your team involved! Your tour guides and employees are the best way to help boost your social media presence. In fact, employees are 70% more likely to interact with content (clicks, comments, shares) on LinkedIn than a typical user (LinkedIn). Give your team occasional reminders to share your content so their friends and families can see what you have to offer.

Do you have a new blog post, video, or important piece of information to share? Email your staff when it comes out and ask them to share it on social media.

Browse other social media profiles. It’s easy to get stuck in your own social media world, but make sure you’re checking out other profiles for inspiration. Check in on your competitors, big names in your industry, and other pages you enjoy.

Check target keywords and phrases. It’s important to know how searchable your business is on social media. Search for the following:

Your business name and any variations or potential misspellings of your name

Your slogan or catchphrase if you have one

Any specific campaigns or hashtags you’re using

Phrases that describe your business (e.g. Florida kayak tours or Denver brewery tours)

Schedule your posts for the next day. Scheduling your social posts saves time and allows you to stay up to date with your social media strategy. If you use Facebook's Business Suite (which we recommend for business pages), you can schedule Facebook and Instagram posts and stories from your desktop or the app. How often you post on social media will depend on your business needs and the time you can put towards creating new posts. If you can only post once a day or a week, that's great! If you have additional bandwidth, keep the following guidelines in mind for planning posts:

Facebook: Twice per day

Twitter: Three or more times per day

Instagram: Once or twice per day

Weekly Social Media Tasks

Check your stats. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram all have business analytics options built in. Check the following:

Replies and comments

Favorites and likes

Re-shares and retweets

Engagement rate

Overall engagement

Follower growth

Page likes

Performance of different types of content (video, text, photos, etc.)

Consider using third-party software. Social media management software can provide additional helpful insights and aggregate some of your social performance information.

Review your goals. See how much progress you’ve made toward long-term goals (more on these in the monthly social media checklist section).

Check progress on a per-post basis. For example, maybe you’ve set a goal of getting 100 likes per post.

Check progress on a broader basis, such as long-term follower goals or brand voice development.

Take time to strategize. Think about your short or long-term goals and your progress toward those goals. Consider these questions:

What do I hope to achieve with this social media account?

Am I conveying my brand in a clear way?

Is this social media platform right for achieving my goals?

Attend online events like chats and hangouts. Try to attend whenever you can. For example, you might join a Twitter chat or watch a live video. Encourage your followers to do the same and start a conversation.

Update your ads. Check on and refresh your ads to see what’s working and what isn’t.

Review our social media advertising guide to get started.

Monthly Social Media Tasks

Set achievable goals. Think about goals in terms of production, number of interactions, or any other way that makes sense to you. Typical goals include things such as committing to sharing four blog posts a week, getting to 10,000 followers, making more one-on-one connections each week, and more.

Check out this helpful article on types of social media goal-setting if you need more inspiration.

Perform a social media audit. Think of this as a way to check in on your profile and see if you need to make any improvements.

Update profile picture, bio/description, cover photo, and any other profile items that need to be improved.

Determine the frequency with which you’ve been posting across social media platforms. Do you need to increase your engagement or have you been pretty consistent?

Check in on your follower growth on all platforms.

Look at referral traffic from your social media profiles to your website.

Plan ahead for the next month -- or later! Set goals for the coming month and think about any big upcoming launches or seasonal promotions and when to start pushing them to your social media.

Not sure if you're making common social media mistakes? Our guide outlines 7 things to avoid doing on social media.

Local Social Media Strategy Tasks

Engage with local influencers. Find influencers within your niche or industry and start by following them on your chosen platforms.

Comment, like, retweet, or share influencer posts that relate to your community or any local initiatives. For example, if they share content about a popular location in your area, drop a comment mentioning that your tours visit that spot as well.

Don’t be discouraged if they don’t follow you back right away. Your goal is to connect and build a relationship. You can do this by engaging when it makes sense to do so. Don’t bombard them with comments or messages.

Engage with partners or local businesses. Follow and engage with other brands in your community, such as the following:

Hotels, bed and breakfasts, other popular accommodations

City guides, local news sites, visitor information center pages

Other tours and activities that complement but do not compete with your own. Looking to partner with other local businesses? Join the FareHarbor Distribution Network!

Pages for popular points of interest in your area

Restaurants, festivals, and other local events

Curate local-focused content. Find interesting things going on in your area and share them on social media to create a cohesive experience for someone looking for things to do in your area. You might share local blogs, upcoming events, or new restaurants.

Find your competitors on social media. The best way to get an understanding of your local market is to see what your competitors are doing and who they are interacting with. Look at their recent posts, see who’s been commenting, and pay attention to what they could do better (then do it yourself!).

Run giveaways and offer special discounts to your local followers. This might involve asking people to share a photo of themselves on one of your tours, selecting a name at random, or having people answer a question about your industry.

Encourage tour guests to follow you. At the end of your tours, ask your guests in person to follow you on social media. This is a great way to ensure that you’re cultivating a local audience online. You can do this by putting up QR codes or signs with your social media handles so people can easily find you online.

Encourage your tour guides to get involved. Ask your guides to share your posts/campaigns on their personal accounts to reach a direct local audience of your peers.

Keep up the good work you’ve already done on your social media strategy and consider implementing some of these ideas to gain followers and build your online presence. For even more information about how to get started on various social media platforms, measure success, and create great content, check out our additional social media guides.