Managing Time With Social Media
New social media sites pop up every few months now. There are so many to keep up with so how do we do it?
Do we need to join them all?
No, there are too many. If you only want to keep up with family and friends you already know as well as networking for employment you can get by with just joining Facebook and LinkedIn.
If, however, you are online for business reasons and are marketing your work as a writer, salesman, actor or other field of work requiring networking you will want to join as many as you can keep up with. Changing up your marketing mix is important.
How do you manage your time and still get work done?
That one can be tricky but is doable you just have to be consistent with your schedule and keep to a plan. It’s easy to get sidetracked if you aren’t careful but a few tricks will work.
Set a schedule
Break down the sites you frequent and decide how much time to spend on each one. You can choose different days for each site depending on your schedule and how much time you want to devote to each site.
Of course when you've written an article or blog you want to post it right away to as many as you can. This schedule is for socializing and networking.
Set a timer
Not only should you post these in your day planner but it’s helpful to set a timer on your phone or other device so you don’t get carried away and find yourself on a social media site much longer than you had planned.
Take time for chatting
The keyword in social media is “social.” Don’t forget to get to know your friends or followers. This helps you to get even more followers and in turn hopefully more customers. You don’t want to only push products in their face and never have any interaction, that’s too impersonal and not good business.
Think about your favorite insurance salesman or other business associate you enjoy buying from. One of the key elements that makes your experience a pleasure is feeling like you are a friend, he cares about your opinion and that you have a happy transaction experience. That’s good business.
Facebook has some groups you can join. Just put in a search for HubPages or whatever site you write for and you will find several groups. Once you’ve found a site you are interested in just click the “ask to join group” button. These groups can help you even more with advertising your latest article or blog.
There are groups for freelance writers, bloggers and just about anything you can think of so if you are a niche writer you can also put in a search for that topic. You don’t have to be a current friend of any of the people on these sites so it’s another way to gain more followers. Be sure to read the groups rules, be polite and don’t over post.
Some people opt for a fan page. This can work if you have many friends however if you are just starting out and only have a few it might not be to your advantage. I've seen people create a fan page, sit and wait and never have anyone come like their page. You have to advertise.
Twitter limits the amount of text you can post but if you use one of the websites that reduce the size of a link like Bitly you can squeeze in a bit more text. Using hashtags “#” you can help highlight your link so more people will visit your website.
Friends retweet each other’s tweets (posts) which helps advertise your updates even further.
Google+
Google+ is growing and has more new people all of the time.
There are circles of people you can be added to as well as make your own similar to groups on Facebook.
You can post an update and only have it visible to certain circles although I advice you to make article posts public if you are looking for publicity and want the most views.
If you use hashtags “#” in front of your keywords in comments after your article this helps in Google’s search as well as Google+ users. Since Google owns this social media site there is a great potential for placing higher on the search rank.
This site is basically an interactive scrapbook. It's mostly women but I see more and more men joining all the time.
You can post a picture from your website by adding the link and scrolling until you find a photo you want to add. When people click on the picture they will be taken to your website so you have potential for selling as well as blog traffic.
This one is more for networking with other people to find work. Many business professionals like it.
They have a posting limit and don’t like you to get too carried away. It's a social website as well as getting back links and free advertisement for your work.
Different sites work better for different people so experiment and see what works for you.
Digg
Not only do I post some of my articles here but sometimes I read the latest updates and find material to write about. There are all kinds of articles and blogs posted everyday with interesting information.
Which social media sites do I use?
Everyone has their preferences and you should use the ones you enjoy best and get the most use from. Try a few and see if they are working to gain traffic to your website, if it’s not working try a few more. Some are better for certain subjects than others.
There are new ones starting up all of the time.
Websites change all the time and so does my favorites. What works now may not work in a couple of years so do your homework and see which ones you like. Don't take on too many at once and make sure you can manage the ones you sign up for.
How I use social media websites
After writing an article here on HubPages or a blog on my Blogger site I post links to Redgage, several groups I am a member of on Facebook as well as my main wall or timeline as it’s now called. I also post a link on Diggs, Zurker, Twitter, and Google+. Every now and then I post on StumbleUpon.
I pop into Facebook, Google+ and Twitter for a few minutes most days but if I have a lot of writing to do I will skip them all.
I try to come up with some clever saying on occasion or share something I’ve found somewhere for Twitter so it doesn’t appear I’m only there to advertise my writing. People don’t like spammers and if that is all you do on a social media site you are in fact a spammer.
Which social media sites should you use?
They are all different and what works for me may not work for you. I’ve read some people have had no luck with Google+ but I get quite a bit of traffic from there. I think much of it depends on what you write and what kind of people you become friends with.
Everyone is different and our tastes are all varied so do some test runs on a few and see what happens.You need to choose the one that has what you are looking for.
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Have you ever written a story and felt it had a lot of good points and information but you didn’t have many comments or readers? Here are a few tips we need to remember when posting a piece.
