Spend Less Time on Social Media and Still Get Results

Many people get overwhelmed by spending so much time on social media that it takes away from other important tasks each day. Here I share some of my tips on how to spend less than an hour a day on social media. The key is to focus on the most important aspects of social media: Observe. Participate. Grow.

First, spend 15 minutes a day observing your network. See what others in your professional network are saying. You will often find useful information just by looking at updates within your network. Plus this will give you some opportunities to engage communication with those in your current network.

Next, spend 15-20 minutes participating in your social media network by updating your status or adding information to your network. Impossible you say—not if you know how to take shortcuts! If you haven’t yet check out Ping.fm. This is a wonderful application that will automatically post your updates to all of your social network sites at once-yes all at once. Meaning you type it once and it sends out your update to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Here are some other things to keep in mind when you consider what you are going to post. It is never a good idea to send out meaningless posts or pointless messages-this may make people skip your meaningful posts later. Always try to post substantial information on your network that will actually be worth reading. It is also a good idea to separate your professional and personal contacts on your networks—that way you segment the information appropriately to each group.

Finally, spend 15 minutes a day developing new relationships. This will help you to continue growing your network each day. This can be accomplished through participation on social networks, through reading new blogs and commenting, or participating in group discussions, etc.

P.S. Don’t forget it is okay to say NO to requests for access through your networks-you don’t have to accept every application request people send you-especially when you use your social media network professionally—this can end up being a real drain on your time if you let it.

For more tips on social media marketing check out this article Starting a Social Media Marketing Campaign.

Drowning in Social Media? A Social Media Virtual Assistant Just Might Rescue You!

The growing popularity in social media has created great anxiety among many businesses about how to use them and how to create a profitable ROI using them. Social Media is the buzz in many marketing departments these days, and the biggest concern is how to spend time and resources wisely when using Social Media. So how can you build your company's social media presence when it seems like the next hottest thing is popping up every few seconds? One way is to utilize a social media virtual assistant, someone who is knowledgeable and can help you optimize your return on investment while promoting a positive image for you and your business in social media networks.

Creating a successful social media marketing strategy is a very complex process and often times leaves you frustrated and overwhelmed if you really don’t know what you are doing. In order to achieve a profitable ROI it is very important to strategically plan your social media campaign. First, you need to research your current industry to see where your consumers are already gathering online.

Once you have established key locations to engage your consumers you need to then establish a plan to generate interaction with them. This is the hard part. It is sometimes difficult to determine whether you should engage in a conversation that's happening about your company, products or services. It is also usually a challenge to develop quality content—a common misconception is that quantity is more important when it comes to social media—this is false. People have trained themselves to ignore those little ad-like posts and simply skip over them while browsing. Think about it—when is the last time you actually read a post that looked like an advertisement? You also need to choose content that is easily shareable-but how do you decide what type of content to use with so many options? A social media professional will help you weed out time wasting tasks while helping you focus on generating quality content that will get you results.

How do you calculate your ROI? This depends on the investment of time and resources used in executing a social media strategy and the actual costs of any targeted advertising within social media platforms. A successful strategy will create new leads and drive new sales while building customer loyalty at the same time for repeat and referral business. You have to really consider the amount of time you are actually spending on these tasks.

Can you research on-line and read countless how to guides for Social Media marketing? Yes.

Can you spend hours working on social media instead of running your business? Yes.

Can you struggle with learning new platforms and technologies in order to promote yourself on-line? Yes.

The real question is why in the world would you-when you can easily and affordably outsource this work to trained social media virtual assistant who could handle it all for you?

If you really want to achieve a profitable ROI it may be well advised to use professional support for creating your social media marketing strategy. A social media virtual assistant will know how to best use the tools and platforms to optimize your strategy. If you are overwhelmed with the tasks involved in implementing your social media marketing campaign, then outsourcing to a social media virtual assistant may save you valuable time, resources and money. With the demand increasing daily for your market position on-line can you afford to start a New Year without a fresh marketing campaign?

With the increased demand for social media services we are now offering a Free Social Media Marketing Consultation to help you get your marketing in gear for New Year. Just complete the form and we will contact you for your free no obligation consultation.

GET YOUR FREE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING CONSULTATION HERE