Social Media Marketing On 45 Minutes A Day

Social media marketing takes time. From the business owner or CEO to staff at all levels, done right everyone has a role to play so your business can cover the most ground and have the largest impact. By the way, this routine will have a very positive effect on your business in many ways.

One of the biggest issues we hear from our larger clients, and the Surefire Social DYI customers alike, is the time they think it takes to do social media marketing. Let’s break this down and create a workflow that is manageable and sustainable for everyone. Here are 5 tips to a 45 minute per day routine that will pay off bigtime:

1. Set up workflow so you have all you need prepared in advance- Profiles, Pages, RSS Reader, URL shorteners, microblog distribution platform…all need to be set up and understood how to work them in advance. If you are a senior exec in the company, we also recommend that you have someone on your staff responsible for social media marketing keep track of all the content you are going to publish including articles, blog posts, videos , PR Releases etc in a Google Docs file that can be shared by all stakeholders. This provides stewardship and content that can be directly shared by you all in one place.
2. Develop a social media routine and put it on your calendar- You need to participate on a regular basis so put your routine on your calendar and stick to it.
3. Identify the pulse of the conversation and join in- You can’t be everywhere, but make sure you are where people are congregating and discussing topics relevant to your product or service. Make sure you understand the “pulse of the conversation” so you are posting comments and blog posts that are relevant and add to the discussion. Having the tools and workflow outlined in point 1 will help.
4. Spend and equal amount of time listening and posting- As business owners and executives we are naturally inclined to talk about our products and services and “sell”. Don’t do it. This is about education and nurturing potential customers. Even better, this is about a great opportunity to listen to the dialog among potential customers, competitors and partners so we better understand how to meet needs and sell more stuff!
5. Don’t get caught in the black hole of social media- It is easy to get caught up in the blogs, Tweets, forums and social networks because the opportunities and ideas can be endless. It’s important to stay structured and with purpose in your routine so you do not over invest time in social media. Having others in your organization also contribute will help your business cover more ground without over burdening any one individual.

If you follow these tips you should be able to invest 45 minutes every day to commenting on a few blogs that are highly visible, listening to the pulse of the conversations and posting a 250 to 450 word blog post. Even better, you will have a better feel for your market than you ever did. That is the key here. Social media mareketing makes you a better business person because it forces you to stop, listen and write down your thoughts.

No excuses…go do it!