Day 26 - Close The Door for Social Media Success

"The key is in not spending time, but in investing it." 

~ Stephen R. Covey

Many of my friends, clients and online audience talk with me regularly about their integration into this ever evolving, fast changing and often mind-numbing new media world.

Perhaps, 'talk' isn't even the right word. It's more like exasperated, overwhelmed cries for help. And, it always seems to be roughly the same conversation. They love social media and all the new opportunities to connect and expand their social and business network online. They see huge opportunities that social media provides for their businesses. But, they have also begun to realize that with all the time they have put into developing relationships and learning the use of new electronic tools, social media is FAR from free!

So, they call me, at wit's end, pleading for me to help them get the maximum benefit from these powerful resources without losing their sanity and family lives in the process. They're frustrated that most of the social media experts they listen to are trying to get them to conduct their business as if they, too, were social media experts and were paid to be online, accessible and interactive almost 24/7.  Can you relate?

Well, being a "fellow-pilgrim" on this journey, I don't claim to have the definitive answer for ensuring productivity and profitability in social media, but I have dealt with enough different types of businesses and personalities and I have found these 4 tips to be universally helpful to all who've applied them:

Thom's 4 Tips For Maximizing Time On Social Media:

1. Decide On Your Outcome - Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.. are communications tools. Just as you wouldn't pick up a phone and dial a random number and not know what you were going to say, you shouldn't do that on social media either. Have an expected outcome, even if it's just to take X amount of time to see what's happening with some people in your Tweet stream or what's being talked about on Social Media.
2. Plan Your Time - Decide exactly how much time you'll be spending at each session and set a timer and stick to it. Then, "close the door" on your electronic office and focus on your core business. To do otherwise would be like having a full day of open office door time at work. It may make others feel good to be able to connect with you constantly, but it sure doesn't help you get things done.
3. Be Consistent - Do more blog posts and a greater volume of time on social media help you build a loyal audience quicker? Sure - if done correctly. But, just as important as the amount of time is the consistency of that time. Simply put, whether you put in a half hour a day on social media or 1 hour, 3 times a day, if you do so consistently (including roughly the same times and days) you will attract a following much quicker than if you were sporadic in your approach.
4. Get a 'Rhythm' - Just like having a 'rhythm' (or routine) for how often we maintain our cars, care for our lawn or change our air conditioning filters helps us proactively maintain our things, having a 'rhythm' for our social media activities helps us build and maintain a vibrant network. So determine, what are the things you do daily (like birthday wishes, FB and Twitter posts), weekly (like blog posts and proactive list building) and monthly (like friend/follower list review and 'scrubbing'). 

There you have it ... not a definitive guide by any stretch of the imagination. But, if you got really good at incorporating these mindsets/actions into your daily social media time, you will find yourself far more productive and less frustrated.

Do you have some tips that would help others with their social media time management? I'd love to hear about them.

About This Chart: For those who haven't been following, I created this daily chart for the purpose of communicating and tracking some of my more important goals - publicly. You can read about it in THIS EARLIER POST.