Social Media is powerful.  Not only in the results you can achieve, but in it’s innate ability to suck you in and steal precious time from your already time-limited day.  I know some business owners who sense this and are wary to start something they can’t keep up with. 

So, to help out, here are a few tips to help you get your social media groove on while maintaining your daily schedule.  Feel free to print these out and tape them next to your computer in case you feel the social media pull too great to resist.

Twitter

• Twitter is like a river. You can’t monitor the water running by, but you can dip your toe in it 3 times a day and tweet, retweet and reply appropriately. 
• Turn off the notices (under settings) so you don’t get an email every time someone follows you or send a DM (which is mostly auto-crap). 
• Take those moments to find new followers and follow back those who follow you on a daily basis.  Just click on “followers” and follow those you aren’t already.
• Friday’s are a great day to find new folks to follow because of the weekly #followfriday event. 
• Tweetdeck is a great way to organize your tweet data, but don’t keep it open all day, unless you don’t have anything else you need to get done.

Facebook

• Facebook has the benefit of threading the conversations, so you can tune in once per day and still be relevant in the conversations.
• No time?  You can set up your tweets to go directly to Facebook. The benefit is that those who reply to your tweets in Facebook end up as a thread you can follow.

LinkedIn

• LinkedIn has a nice weekly email they can send you with updates.  Very easy to respond to. 
• If you’re involved in groups (and you should be – that’s where you meet new people), don’t opt for daily digest updates, they’ll drive you nuts.  Just periodically check in with the groups you follow and chime in with your two cents.

Now I must provide a disclaimer here…do as I suggest, not as I do.  Remember, I follow this stuff for a living, so I’m not a “normal” user.  But rest assured I will keep up with what’s new and report back here so you don’t have to.

Social networking is not a direct sales function.  It’s about building exponential relationships.  I’m amazed at how many Twitter folks will set up an automated DM when you follow them that tries to sell you something.  Bad Twitter etiquette!

There is much more to gain in the exponential factor than a quick sale. It builds your brand, credibility and the chance to meet friends of friends.  Once you establish a new follower, the key is to follow back and then tweet good stuff!  Illustrate what you and your brand are all about according to your business objective.

So keep your eye on your objective and tweet smart!