The big topic out there is still social media. Whether it’s business or pleasure, everyone is talking about Twitter and Facebook and YouTube etc etc etc! The one question I hear over and over again is, “How on earth am I supposed to find the time to do all of this stuff?”
This is an excellent question because even though social media is “free”, the time needed for a successful social media campaign is the real hurdle. So where do you start?
It is really just about time management! There are different approaches to this obviously, one being just hiring someone to do it. Fair enough! But if you don’t have that kind of budget, there are a few things you can do to get it under control.
Once you have the strategy in place – I need to pause here for a moment and just stress the importance of the strategy step – you need to decide how to move forward. Are you going to be the one in charge, Tweeting, YouTubing and Facebooking your way to business success??
OK, so once you have that figured out and have decided that it is in fact you that will be in charge of all of this, take a deep breath and put together a plan and FOLLOW it! Here are a few little tips that I use:
1. Dedicate one hour every day to social media. Whether you spend that time updating your blog, tweeting, or brainstorming a new video for YouTube is up to you. But don’t let anything distract or interrupt you unless it is an emergency. Sit down and do it.
2. Part of the strategy step would involve figuring out your message. Of course you don’t want to just blast your community of followers or friends with spammy, pitchy sales stuff so come up with some clever ideas to give out information that is interesting and useful to the ‘user’. You would be amazed how many people will stop following you on Twitter if you just blast sales pitches out there. It is bad form!
3. If you have some down time, use this time for social media. Come up with ideas etc so that on days when you are REALLY busy, you can just grab an idea, post it up and be on your way!
4. Use the tools available online – TweetDeck, HootSuite – the list is endless of great helpful tools.
Those are a few of my suggestions. I found a great blog post with some of the same ideas and some new ideas. Have a read here! It’s a pretty helpful post!
-Stefanie-