Yesterday I was emailed over facebook by a follower of this blog. I still get a kick when people touch base and tell me that they actually read everything I write up here. The gentleman that emailed (lets call him Frank) wanted to know how to manage all your social networks and still have a life afterwards.
Frank has stumbled accross a very important element of social media that is often under-rated. Social media is addictive and time consuming. Especially if you are marketing through social media. This only gives us a better reason to be ‘wasting or time‘ on our favourite network.
If you want to make sure you optimise your time on networks like Facebook and Twitter here are a few tips that may help:
- Give yourself a time frame to spend in social media and stick to it. After your time is up – Close the web browser/programme.
- Use a Twitter Client. This helps because twitter clients are designed in such a way that you can tailor the information you recieve from twitter. This means you get less distracted. Twitter clients are now starting to offer Facebook, Linkedin and Ping.fm integration.
- Have a social media free day – Every now and then, spend a day away from social media. This helps in many ways, but the most important one for me is clarity. When I leave social media for a day, I start thinking about the marketing exercises that really work.
- Don’t flog a dead horse – If your new social media campaign is not giving you the RIO you need, stop!! Rather spend your time focusing on what works.
- Automate – Automate everything you can without damaging you campaign. Be careful here because some automation could provide less return than if you did the marketing personally.
