Online Time Management: Scheduling Time for Social Media


How often should I blog? How often do I tweet? How often should I update my Facebook status?

These are among the most common questions I get. For most, I answer an indefinite, “however often feels right” or “however often you have something meaningful to say“.

For most business owners, this answer is not concrete enough. So, here’s an example of how you could manage your social media time:

Every day…

  • Digg something of someone else’s
  • Bookmark something on Delicious.
  • StumbleUpon something of somone else’s
  • Twitter
    • Add something of value
    • ReTweet someone
    • Engage with someone
    • Promote something of your own
    • Follow someone new
  • Facebook
    • Add something of value
    • Comment on something (friend’s/business’s status, photo, etc.)
    • “Like” something

Every few days…

  • Write a blogpost (and ping it)
  • Update your LinkedIn status
  • Add photos to Flickr
  • Comment on a blogpost
  • Facebook
    • Friend someone new
    • Update your business status
    • Promote something of your own

Every week…

  • Check your Google Analytics
  • Digg something of your own (and ask others to digg it)
  • StumbleUpon something of your own (and ask others to give it a thumbs up)
  • Check in somewhere on Foursquare
  • Participate in a forum or LinkedIn thread
  • Do one “Please RT” on Twitter
  • Answer or ask a question on LinkedIn

Every two weeks…

  • Create a new YouTube video

This schedule won’t work for everyone and, as it’s generalized, certain social media channels might need to be tweaked.

Nicki Hicks
It’s all about Time Management

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  • http://www.cumalu.com Nate Chastain

    I’ve just started a new business, and right now I’m operating under a schedule like this:

    1. Co.mments Tracker, 40 Minutes – Tracking conversations outside of the Disqus platform
    2. Disqus panel, 90 Minutes – Tracking the conversation within the Disqus platform
    3. Facebook in Morning, 30 Minutes – comment on Wall posts and reviews and discussion topics, start discussions, start polls, add photos, add events, edit bio information, adding other links and resources to your page (such as promotions and links and other things like that)
    4. Facebook at Night, 30 Minutes – See #3.
    5. Twitter in Morning, 60 Minutes – post a status update, reply to any @replies, reply to any non-bot DMs, comment on some things from people you follow (if you find something interesting), search for tweets about productivity, personal development, certain products, et cetera. Update your bio and your followed list.
    6. Twitter at Night, 60 Minutes – See #5.
    7. (on Wednesdays and Sundays) Gmail/Tumblr, 40 Minutes – Writing, brainstorming and editing Tumblr posts
    8. Google Reader with Google Alerts to follow my brand, 30 Minutes – Checking to see everything that’s been written about my name and my consulting group, by putting those searches into Google Alerts and reading through them in Google Reader.
    9. Gmail, 480 Minutes – Reading and responding to all e-mails
    10. Technorati, Google Blog Search, Delicious and Stumbleupon, 60 Minutes – Finding new blogs and articles, commenting on them, add the comment to co.mments and add the blog’s RSS to Google Reader
    11. Google Reader Collected Blogs, 60 Minutes – , browsing the collection of blogs that you’ve created and commenting on any articles that pique my interest here.

    It’s about a 17-hour workday, but I love everything about it. More businesses need to focus on having conversations with their clients. I’m in an industry (consulting) where that relationship is the lifeblood of a firm, but virtually every business could benefit from spending more time talking to their potential clientele. I want to get to know these people, and Twitter and a Facebook Fan Page just happen to be the most streamlined channels to do so (in addition to e-mail.) I don’t pay very much attention to analytics, and I don’t see a lot of relationships being formed on Digg or Delicious, so I avoid those.

    Nate Chastain
    http://www.cumalu.com

  • http://www.flyte.biz Nicki

    Nate,

    That’s a great schedule – thanks for sharing!

  • http://www.davidgregorywells.com David Wells

    Good post Nate,

    I think you are right on the money with scheduling out your social media activities.

    I do this too and I would suggest using Hootsuite or Converse ( http://bit.ly/smconverse ) to help with scheduling out posts to various social media platforms ahead of time.

    They are life savers!

  • http://elseinc.com/kanban-presentation.html Cristal Mcmeans

    Well detailed! I usually do it with kanban-style cards on my desk, telling me how much tumblr re-blogs I can do for a day. I started doing it after I started losing sleep from too much blogging. Thanks for a presentation about time management, I was able to manage my own style of time management, not just for blogging and social media, but for the whole day!



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