Many people have asked me how I manage to be so visible on social media – and still get any work done! The answer is a combination of tools and habits.
My favourite tool is Hootsuite.com as I can manage all my Twitter activity here as well as posting into Facebook, Linked In and other social media platforms, either directly or via Ping.fm (a distribution tool that can be linked to about 30 different social media platforms).
Hootsuite gives me flexibility; I can choose whether I submit a message to Twitter only, or two my Facebook account or my Facebook business page, for instance.
I use it to share tips, information, knowledge and free documents with my followers, friends and connections. This is automated and done weekly. It took several months to generate all the information, but now takes about half an hour a week to upload that week’s material (and doesn’t even have to be done by me).
Then there’s the habit: 20 years ago, few of us did email daily, but we’ve developed the email ‘habit’ now, so my take on this is to add 15 minutes social media activity to your email habit. This way you develop a system that is consistent and doesn’t get forgotten.
If you do email first thing in the morning, lunchtime and at the end of your working day then add:
- 5 minutes looking at your Twitter activity and responding, retweeting and commenting at each email break.
- 10 minutes reviewing your Linked In groups and adding your comments, including at least once a week reviewing the current Linked In questions and answers and aiming to help at least one person with your responses. This works best for me around lunchtime on the grounds that business people may be browsing during their lunch break.
- 10 minutes daily looking at your Facebook page and seeing if there are any comments or questions to respond to (I feed tips into my FB business page so sometimes people respond to these), then taking a look at the personal feed and responding, commenting and interacting here. However, I usually ask people I don’t know (or only know for business reasons) to join my Facebook page community, rather than ‘befriending’ them on my personal account.
Pinterest is the latest tool – and it’s very popular today, so probably worth investing a little time in. If you haven’t discovered it yet, it offers your the facility to build ‘picture boards’ and ‘pin’ images you like to them, with your description or comments. Remember to use some of your key words and phrases in the descriptions you add to the pictures. It’s also fun!
Then there is, of course, Google+ which is rapidly gaining ground as a new social platform – and there are many more, Ecademy, FriendFeed – the list is endless.
My advice is to explore a bit, find out where your target market and people who work with your target market hang out – then make yourself useful. People will come back to you if you are willing to help, know your stuff and share it generously!
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You can contact us on 01245 473296 or take a look in the Treasure Chest for lots of free ‘how to’ documents.
