Alright, already, you say.  I give up. I am now convinced that social media is here to stay and I need to be actively involved if I want to be an option for potential clients.

But how do I add social media to my already jam-packed day?

You are not alone. Many people feel that social media is a "time suck" and at the end of the day you feel you haven't accomplished anything. So how do you effectively add one more thing to your day?

First: determine your goals for social media. What do you want to accomplish? Connect with customers? Build your brand? Drive traffic to your website? Establish your expertise?

CMO.com offers a great chart that outlines the four most common goals and shares which social media sites are the most effective in helping you achieve those goals. Select the social media vehicle that best suits your needs and determine to learn all you can about that one website.


Second: Put social media on your calendar. Socail media participation requires a consistent commitment to be involved. You don't have to spend a lot of time but you do need to spend some time. By putting it on your calendar you are more likely to follow through.

If your goal is to use LinkedIn to connect with leaders in the industry and build your personal brand, commit to spending 15 minutes each morning:

• Visit your Home page and read the latest actively in your network.
• Click on "more" and then "answers" and search for a question in your area of expertise that you can answer.
• Visit one of your groups and start or participate in a discussion.
• Don't have any groups? Spend 5 minutes reviewing the Group Directory for local groups and industry specirfic groups. Join one.
• Once a week, review the LinkedIn Status Update email and find one person in your network that you can connect with. Someone who has changed jobs, profile pictures or made a connection.

Fourth: Put your strategy in writing. I have developed a FREE workbook that helps you organize and create a strategy that helps you with your social media participatoin. In fact, I'll be teaching the workshop on building a strategy April 14th at Lakeland CC - there are still seats. In the meantime, check out the website with the workbook and explanation that can be found at Policy for Social Media.

Fifth: Use social media time saving tools like Tweet Deck and Hoot Suite. Hoot Suite  allows you to combine LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook so you can catch up on all your sites in one visit. You can leave status updates once and communicate on all your sites. You can schedule future status updates and you can keep all your search/research activity in one place.

Yes, social media participation is one more thing to add to your to-do list but you'll find that effective social media use can reduce some of the other projects you currently do. Be focused. Have a strategy. Put it on the calendar. Follow-through.

Before you know it, you will wonder how you ever lived without it.