Perhaps the biggest argument against social media is how time consuming it can be.
Can you relate to questions like these: “Who has that kind of time?” or “When am I supposed to do all of this?”
To be totally honest with you, social media does require some of your time. It may very well qualify as being the greatest of hidden costs when promoting your business online. Many of us could end up losing a lot of valuable time if we don’t exercise some care.
It’s good to have a clear agenda when setting out, and to keep close tabs on how your time is being spent. The following list will give you five ideas on how to work towards your goals.
#1: Keep Your Goals In Sight
Social Media is full of opportunities to become distracted. Chatting, games, and endless content can all give us the illusion of accomplishment without actually getting anything done. Interacting with social media can be useful, but much interaction is potentially a waste of time, so it’s important that you are able to tell the difference.
For a point of reference, try to imagine a company party or other event. How do you spend your time at those sorts of functions? Do you socialize with one or two people about mundane things or do you try to distribute your attention more evenly and strike up conversation with new contacts? Are you there because you have nothing better to do, or is it because you are representing yourself as a professional and utilizing the opportunity to network?
It’s necessary to have a plan and also know a good means by which to measure your success.
You might be wondering how this helps you find extra time? The majority of companies already budget their time spent on marketing, PR and research. If you are confident that your efforts spent on social media fall into one of these groupings, and will be equally or more effective than other efforts towards these projects, then you actually already have a grasp on how to divide up the time you should spend using social media as an alternative to your current methods.
#2: Use Social Media in Areas Where it is More Efficient for You
What if you could say, “Due to the work I’ve invested in social media, I have eliminated having to make pitches, compose proposals or attend sales meetings. I never place cold-calls for my business, nor do I bother with competitive bids.”
Think about all the time you would suddenly end up with if you were spared having to pursue leads and sales closings!
My last job in Sports Marketing would sometimes require me to be in a car for three to six hours in order to attend a half hour sales presentation up against other companies competing against us. Even more important than how unbearable it was, it simply did not work very well.
Realistically, I am not trying to convince you that it’s possible to use social media as a replacement for your current business practices in all circumstances. I don’t believe it’s a smart choice to rely solely upon it, even if it could be done. What I do believe is that it will be worth your time to set aside a couple hours each work week to explore what social media has to offer and test it out. You will find that it may be a great tool in combination with other techniques, and can work smoothly within a greater business model.
A great benefit of social media is the accessibility of it and freedom of choosing when to use it.
#3: Take Advantage of Slow Times
Do you spend a good amount of time simply waiting? I recently attended a conference in Nashville and between travel time and staying alone at my hotel, I put it all towards social media. If you travel for business, how much of each trip do you spend actually doing business? Now, how much of the time are you…
On a plane?
In a cab?
Waiting in line?
In an airport?
Dining out?
Meetings?
At a hotel?
As long as you are equipped with a device that you can connect to the internet through, you have all that is needed to turn some of this down time into something somewhat productive, like adding an update or interacting with people online. Even if you don’t get as much done, staying connected to others will be refreshing.
Ask yourself how much time goes into checking your messages and posting a tweet or status update? Or maybe to investigate a link or answer a simple inquiry? It’s no more than a few minutes, is it?
You will be surprised if you take an inventory throughout the day of how often you get as much as 10 minutes at a time where you are on hold for some reason.
When I’m at my desk, I still oftentimes am waiting, whether it’s for the PC to boot up, a print job, renders or uploaded files. Those are some of the best moments to take a peek at your social media profiles!
Thinking in these terms, what could be accomplished with MORE than only these few minutes a day?
#4: Change Your Surroundings, Create Future Content and Focus on Structure
Whenever you find yourself with an open block of time, spend an hour of that time expending your maximum level of effort on generating content. Some great ways of doing this could include:
Creating an outline and compose a series of blog topic entries to post at a later date when you won’t have the time to write them.
Experiment with your ideas, visualize them with mind mapping tools, form headlines and lay it all out in a way that you can later reference.
Think ahead by adding important events to your calendar, make a list of contacts who you would like to touch base with, whether they are prospective contacts or ones you’ve fallen out of touch with.
Organize and increase efficiency for the next week by sorting tasks and filing messages.
Make a week’s worth of tweets that will spark interest, which will mean only having to check in and respond every day.
One of my friends in Georgia visits an internet cafe a couple times each week for a change of “scenery”. On these visits he spends a few distraction-free hours doing all of his scheduling and content creation for the following week. Sometimes an environment outside of the office allows for more concentration and you will end up with higher quality work in a relatively short period of time.
#5: Try Not to Stress Out
The last point I will make is that none of this should feel like a chore. No one will penalize you or judge how well you are doing. The idea behind it all is to make use of a great resource and ideally to enjoy yourself while you accomplish this.
Luckily, most people will not demand perfection if you are sure to offer your best assistance, and if you’ve built a strong reputation by providing great value. With these things all in place, you will have some room for mistakes.
Don’t panic if you haven’t posted an article on any given day. Your followers on Twitter may begin to wonder if you disappear for several days at a time, but being too busy to tweet on some days will hardly cost you anything.
Personally, I use social media in a very social fashion. It takes the place of a coffee break in my day. While I do manage to use social media very effectively for work, I also appreciate the real people behind those avatars as well. Do your best not to approach social media as an obligation, but instead place more importance on developing relationships within it. A mindset like this is optimal for greater success!
What are your thoughts? Is it a challenge for you to find time? How do you fit social media into your daily schedule? Feel free to tell us in your comments below…
