As always, I’ve been reading and staying focused on educating myself in the world of social media. This can be a very daunting and time-consuming method of one’s business. If you are in an ever-changing industry, like social media marketing or traditional marketing, staying on top of ALL of the articles is almost impossible. Social Media changes almost daily. If you use social media for your business and are managing it yourself, here are some tips I picked up to help my clients’ marketing campaigns stay fresh and to the point.
1. Set up Google Alerts for keywords based on your industry. This is a great way to have great content in your industry emailed to you daily.
How it works for me: I set up Google Alerts that are targeted to EACH one of my clients…Tons of emails, yes, but I focus on many different industries at one time. If you are in one industry, this is a very effective tool that you can use for blogging, tweeting and facebooking!
2. Allow yourself only one hour in the morning to read articles or blogs first before diving into Facebook or Twitter. Otherwise, you can get side-tracked easily in the very addictive world of Facebook and Twitter. Before you know it, you’ve just spent your hour breezing through other people’s profiles and status updates. Stay focused.
How it works for me: I’m a mom of three kids. I get up earlier than the rest of my family. I make my coffee and go to my office and I devote my one hour to research and reading blogs/articles that pertain to each client. After all of that, THEN I focus on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
3. Use downtime effectively. Almost everyone has a smartphone and you can bookmark webpages on your phones. Use time that you spend in waiting rooms of doctor’s offices, sitting in the bathroom while your kids bathe, etc. etc. to read the blogs and articles that you’ve bookmarked on your phone.
How it works for me: Over the last 6 weeks of bringing a brand new baby into our family, I’ve used feeding times to read. I know I should be spending that time looking into my newborn’s eyes and soaking that all up, but I have two businesses to run, so I use a lot of that time to read. I also have two other children under the age of 5, so I get up earlier than the rest of my family. I make my coffee and go to my office and I devote my time to research and reading blogs/articles that pertain to myself and my clients for one hour.
4. SCHEDULE BLOG POSTS, TWEETS AND STATUS UPDATES! This is a fantastic use of time!! With technology at our finger tips and the ability to outsource almost anything, there is no excuse to blog once a month. Outsource this to someone that can do all of your blogging for you and schedule everything so that you can focus on client satisfaction, retention and development!
How it works for me: I use Hootsuite and WordPress to schedule everything. I manage a ton of social media networks for clients and if I didn’t have the ability to schedule posts, tweets and blogs, I would be lost! This is the best thing since sliced bread! There are still some tricks that cannot be done on Hootsuite, so there’s still a ton of work that goes into effectively managing people’s social media marketing campaigns, but I don’t give away all of my secrets! 
These 4 tips should better prepare you for time management. Most of us know these skills, but need a reminder..so here is your reminder!
Stay focused or outsource it!
