Managing your time and your Social Media

Managing your time and your Social Media http://ping.fm/eMKQk

Do You Need More Hours In The Day?

If I've been asked this question once, I've been asked it a thousand times: "How much time should I be investing in social media?" From small business owners to large corporations and managers in between, everyone wants to put a limit on how much time they're spending with blogging, Facebook, Twitter and more. It's natural to want to establish parameters. We have other things to do and, "playing on Twitter," doesn't seem to accomplish our departmental goals. So what's the answer? The answer is that you can be successful and not spend nearly as much time as you think. The answer is also, depending upon your departmental goals, the more time you invest, the easier it is to show value in the investment. Yes, you are going to get out of it what you put in, both in time and resources, but you can still be a fairly active participant and still do all your other stuff. This month's newsletter is totally devoted to helping you make 2010 the year of productivity. Before you read on, think of five people you know who might be interested in being more productive this year. Click that big, orange "Forward To A Friend" button over there (to the right) and email them. Then, to make sure you help more people in your network, share this newsletter with your networks on Facebook[~EndFacebook] and Twitter. The person who shares with the most people this month gets a copy of Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith on me. Thanks for spreading the love!

I Spend Less Than An Hour Each Day Managing Social Media Forget that I'm a social media consultant for a minute. Yeah, I do social media for clients, but that's my work. My business, though, is primarily marketed by social media means. I have a blog. I have a Facebook fan page. Then there's this e-newsletter. My personal Twitter account also drives interest in by business as well. Aside from those four mechanisms, my other social media profiles may produce some residual interest or clients, but not in a significant enough manner to measure. Set aside 2-3 hours per week and additional two hours per month I spend blogging and writing this newsletter. That's a category I'd call, "producing content." What's left is managing my social media marketing. This includes responding to blog comments, sharing content on Twitter and Facebook, providing quick content (questions, status updates, interactions) on SME's Facebook page and so on. Here's how that factored into a typical day last week: 8:15-8:45 - Open Google Reader and find good content to share on Twitter and Facebook. Pick 1-2 pieces of content for a beginner audience on the SME Facebook Fan Page. Drop links to the rest on Twitter, perhaps using Co-Tweet to space out the Tweets through the morning. If one has a particular relevance to a more professional business crowd, go share it on LinkedIn as well. 8:45-11:00 - Work on Client A strategy document. 11:00-12:15 - Visit CPA, bank and have lunch. 12:15-1:15 - Administrative tasks, bill paying, etc. 1:15-2:15 - Focus on Client B projects, send status updates, leave messages on current project. 2:15-2:45 - Upload video for blog post, write copy around it, set post for Wednesday go live. 2:45-4:30 - Two calls with companies pitching me for blog coverage; research some SEO ideas for Client C. 4:30-5:15 - Re-read Client A strategy document, revise and send with request for appointment. 5:15-5:30 - Respond to emails, Tweets, Facebook messages. Notice how there's little mention of Facebook or Twitter throughout my day. It's because, like Amber Naslund says, I treat each like a phone. Co-Tweet and/or Tweetdeck are open and on my desktop. I look at them every 15 minutes or so very quickly. If I need to respond to something, I do. But it's more like passing someone in the hall on the way to get a drink of water than stopping what I'm doing and spending a bunch of time on it. There are 45 minutes of my day totally devoted to managing my social media presence and emails. Sure, there's time to be spend producing content, but to share, interact and participate in a way that attracts people to Social Media Explorer takes just a little bit of time.

The Power Of Less If you do anything to help your productivity and time management this year, please go read "The Power of Less" by Leo Babauta. The author of ZenHabits, yet another great resource for your peace of mind, gives you a philosophical take on organizing and prioritizing your life, work and more in this outstanding book. I have implemented several of his recommendations (with even more to come) and am getting more done in less time. Just go buy the book. It's well worth the money. (Amazon affiliate link provided. The book's site is at ThePowerOfLess.com.) One guiding principle I took from the book was to eliminate the unnecessary. This requires the ability to say, "No." I've never been very good at that. To help me in eliminating the unnecessary, I developed a three-question test for any opportunity. I ask myself: Can I fit the time required to perform this within my work schedule (work meaning I don't take it home with me)? Is it profitable financially? Can I stand behind the product or organization involved? If I answer "No," to any of them, I just say, "No thank you." You should adjust your questions to your priorities, organization and so on. But it's a simple approach to minimizing stress and clutter.

Tools Make All The Difference Being productive while participating in social media without some handy-dandy software to help you is kind of like saying you can dig a ditch without a shovel. You can, but why would you try? Here are some tools that make managing your social footprint easier: Disqus - Manage your blog's comments via email (meaning from your smart phone) and be engaged anywhere, anytime. ReQall - Dictate calendar items, to-do lists or someone's contact info and it appears in your calendar, inbox and more. Pretty frickin' kickin'! Co-Tweet - Besides managing multiple accounts and assigning follow-up to team members, you can treat your Tweet stream like an in-box, archiving (turning off, not deleting) each message as you process it so it's out of view. Google Reader - Organize your favorite websites, monitoring searches and more by folder, prioritize them by topic, client and urgency, then skim the top priority items to low priority items whenever you have a few minutes. Bookmarklets - These are little one-click buttons you can drag and drop to your web browser's toolbar from various applications. (See the ShareThis Bookmarklet section at ShareThis.com to see what I'm talking about ... and install it while you're there.) Mine allow me to save pages on Delicious, into Evernote, on my Posterous (personal) blog, share with friends (ShareThis) and produce a shortened URL via idek.net. Look in the "Tools" section of your favorite website or utility to see if they have a "Drag this to your browser bar" button that makes them easier.

What You Said To get some ideas for this newsletter, I asked SME's Facebook Fans what tools or advice they use. Here's a list of what came up. You can see all of them on the post on Faceook. GTD (Getting Things Done) Method (see below) TouchToDo (iPhone App) Make lists; Review them often Hootsuite (for Twitter) Auto posting (Twitter to FB, LinkedIn, etc.) Google Calendar (share and access anywhere) Custom priority matrix (sounds sexy!)

Tool of the Month About the same time I read "The Power of Less" by Leo Babauta, I also read Getting Things Done by David Allen. As I began to explorer some software applications that would help me follow the GTD methods Allen promotes, I came acrossOmniFocus. While it is based on the GTD methods it integrates well with various other productivity thought processes. In essence, you dump all your to-do items into a list, organize the list by projects, apply due dates and priorities to them and the software keeps you on track. The negatives of this tool are two-fold. First, it's $80 for a license (the accompanying iPhone application is an additional $20). It does have a 14-day free trial if you want to test drive it, though. The second negative is that it is a Mac-only application. The good part of that, however, is that it syncs and fully integrates with Apple Mail, iCal and MobileMe. So, if you're a Mac-head like I am, and feel like the software helps you, it's probably worth the investment.