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A lot of people that I meet tell me that they simply “don’t have time” to be successful in personal branding or social media. In fact, they don’t even have time to read this post so I’m going to make this fast.
You think you don’t have time because you’ve chosen labor intensive outlets. Facebook, communities with newsfeeds, and especially Twitter take time to cultivate and succeed at. Reading through a million blogs and news items takes lots of time (and isn’t actually social media technically) If you only have 20 min. a day to allot for your online presence – you might not have time for a Facebook Fan page, and a brand Twitter feed, and a few other random things.
If you have 20 minutes a day -
(8 min.) Choose the 1 thing you want to talk about today or this week. Think of it like speed dating. You’re only going to be able to have the briefest of conversations. Just look at Seth Godin. His blog posts are short and to the point. Although he puts his idea of the day out there on his blog you can say it anywhere you want (short video, Twitter, LinkedIn group). For example, I wanted to talk about being busy today so I wanted to provide something helpful for busy people and maybe even talk to a few of them today. Don’t spend your time thinking of something to say on Facebook, 5 Twitter updates, reading 18 blogs, etc. Just think of 1 thing you want to say and then say it.
(5 min.) Save up cool stuff. I have an open document all the time to copy and paste interesting things that I might want to talk about at some point. I spend time in the evening going through some of these so I have a few things to talk about the next day or the next few days. It really helps to have a little cache of things up your sleeve for the day when you have only 5 minutes to devote to social media.
Don’t continue to use outlets that don’t have ANY return. If the friends you have on your brand Facebook page are your employees and their families then that is not a good place to spend your 20 minutes a day. This is what makes people think they don’t have time for social media – throwing time at strategies that aren’t really working. It’s extremely important if you don’t have a ton of time that you determine which things are working and which are just time suck. For example, maybe you tweeted something about your business 10 days ago and it got 10 retweets. Write down the topic of that tweet and try to write a little post for your blog about it, or tweet on the topic again. I watch brands spend a lot of time updating certain channels and when I ask them if they are getting anything out of it they tell me no. This isn’t good time spent. It’s ok to put away the Facebook fan page in favor of something that works better until you have time to find a strategy for Facebook and make it really work for you.
(7 min. ) Don’t forget to actually…. converse a bit. You don’t need to respond to everything but if someone takes the time to email you, comment with something thoughtful, or retweet you a few times you should reach out and respond. It can be a few days later but you should take 7 of your 20 min. to do this. Take the ENTIRE 7 min. to respond or otherwise converse. Building these relationships are the whole point of social media.
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Comments
05.26.10
Love the minimalist approach to social media. It's like Tim Ferriss's Four Hour Work Week. It allows you to focus on the methods with the best ROI for your specific situation.
Also great idea about storing up discussion points. Evernote works well for this too.
05.26.10
Brianne - thanks for the compliment and the Evernote suggestion - I think I just replaced my "open doc"!
05.26.10
I'm on the social media team at work and am having a difficult time getting our sales force over the "time" hurdle of social media. When asked if they have fb profiles the first immediate response that I receive is, "I don't have time for that!!!". Great tips here. I will be sharing them!
05.26.10
Caitlin you make a great point about being on channels where nobody is listening- probably why I don't go on MySpace anymore.
05.26.10
Dude, I'm actually totally bored of the "I just don't have the time for social media" excuse. While I realize it's totally legitimate (because it IS time consuming) it's also the new way of the world. It pays off to use Twitter/LinkedIn/Facebook/blogs. I really love this post because you give some GREAT and actionable steps. Sometimes, however, people need to actually spend all day getting started because it DOES work!
05.26.10
Cassie - It's funny you mention the sales team because a lot of the people who talk about the "time" issue are people who could truly benefit from it (cough.cough.salespeople.cough) Glad I could help!
Patrick -ha, Myspace is still online? :)
Marian - It IS really frustrating to hear people say that. Especially when the next thing they say is that they need more business.
05.26.10
After testing which channel to speak on -- Facebook or Twitter -- I've noticed neither are working for me. I'm probably not talking about topics that others are interested in. Thanks for the 'open doc' suggestion.
05.26.10
An excellent post, Caitlin. Just about to retweet it
05.26.10
Farrell - That's not terribly uncommon. Some people in industries that require a little more information do better either blogging, creating a short video, or you could always look for a more specialized community. Things that are really self explanatory (like Pepsi or Toyota) work well on Facebook / Twitter. Things like accounting (and social media for that matter) sometimes need more space (and attention span) to be well received.
06.16.10
Really enjoyed reading your post, Caitlin. Just read an article on Martha Stewart's Twitter Tips http://bit.ly/dgvKd9 and she only allows 5 minutes per day and has close to 2 million followers just in 5 months. Authenticity is very important to her so she does all her own tweeting.
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