Saturday, May 5, 2012

Reduce Time and Stress Spent on Managing Social Media


Most business owners and entrepreneurs have extremely packed schedules. If your calendar is already full to the brim, where can you find time for social media? How can you manage your Twitter account, your Facebook page and your blog without over booking yourself and stressing yourself out? The answer: To add social media to your lifestyle. Instead of viewing it as another task, integrate it into how you live your life.
Here’s how to do it.
Tweet or Facebook on Your Smartphone
Tweet-Using-SmartphoneYou’re going to have downtime during the day. Perhaps it’s while you’re on the bus. Perhaps it’s while you’re eating lunch. Perhaps it’s when you’re in the bathroom.
Wherever it is, there are going to be times in the day where you’re simply not doing anything else. Instead of wasting this time, use your smartphone or your iPad and turn it into social media time.
Use this time to write 140 character Tweets. Use this time to update your Facebook page. Use this time to come up with new blog ideas or to write the outline for your next blog post.
Replace Newspaper With Tweeting Tweeting-Icon
For most people, the first thing they do in the morning is grab a cup of coffee and read the newspaper.
But the reality is, reading the newspaper isn’t going to do all that much for your business and professional life. Instead, what if you made tweeting with coffee your daily habit?
This would allow you to reach out to your audience while you’re just going through your everyday routines. You won’t ever miss a day of tweeting, because it’s part of your daily schedule.
The 30 Minute a Day Habit
30-minutes-a-dayWrap-up the end of your work day with 30 minutes of work on your social media. The key here again is to make this part of your everyday schedule. If you don’t have to think about it, it won’t stress you out.
This 30 minutes can be spent on anything. You can use it to write tweets, or even schedule out tweets using HootSuite. You can use it to update your Facebook page. You can also spend it writing a blog post.
Just knowing that you have these 30 minutes at the end of your work day will help relieve the pressure or sense of obligation that you should be working on your social media. You know you’ll get to it. It also prevents you from wasting time on Facebook or on chatter, as you know you only have 30 minutes to get things done.
Put on Your “Share Goggles”
share-social-mediaAs you move through your everyday life, ask yourself: “Can I Share This?” Whenever you look at something, think about whether it can be part of a photo share. Whenever something unique happens, think about whether you can tie it to a lesson for your blog.
For example, let’s say you run a small investment firm. You recently got into playing chess. If you didn’t have your “Share Goggles” on, you might treat them as completely unrelated.
With your “Share Goggles” on however, you might start seeing correlations. You might see similarities in the learning curve between learning how to manage money and how to play chess. You might see similarities in how people think of risk. You might see similarities in how people handle loss.
You then write up a blog post, “9 Lessons About Investing I Learned from Chess” and make your blog popular.
Even if you have a completely booked schedule and feel like you’re working around the clock, you can still find the time for social media if you incorporate it into your lifestyle. Don’t stress about it, just make it part of your life.

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