Don’t Be Overwhelmed by Social Media

Bewilderment, frustration, fear, and a general sense of being overwhelmed is common to those attempting to understand and utilize social media.

The assumption is made that because I do this for a living, I have the time to understand social media. Nothing could be further from the truth. What I do for a living is run a small marketing agency.

That means at any given moment I have to change hats and play many roles. Roles for an entrepreneur range from salesperson to customer service representative, from CFO to director of HR, from operations manager to gofer.

Not to mention that there is the actual work our clients have hired us to perform. So I balance the operational, creative and strategic aspects of Bumblebee Design & Marketing along with the social media, blog writing, and so forth.

And you thought I sat around tweeting and blogging all day – HA!

When you are a soloist or a small business, having full time people in these roles is often not an option and there is only so much you can outsource. When I get time I need to explore outsourcing more but for now let’s look at social media.

I don’t outsource our social media and generally recommend to my clients that they don’t either. Maybe for a short while until they get the hang of it and develop a strategy and plan, but overall, to keep their voice genuine, I believe this should be an in-house job.

There are times that I do think about hiring someone to handle some of this work and there are times where my stream of tweets slows down or I might even be off the grid for a day or two, but all in all I have developed a system that seems to work. And note that the day or two that I miss on an occasion does not send my social standing in the gutter. I might slip a little on my Klout ratings but that is about all that happens.

As with any job there are pieces to this process you can outsource but for the purpose of this post I would like to respond to the most common two questions I get:

1. Where do I start?

My answer is a question: Well, what do you want to accomplish? Without goals it is difficult to set a plan and without a plan it is likely you will be neither efficient nor effective. Early adoption might mean that you don’t know enough to set goals that are measurable and achievable because you don’t yet really understand the possibilities. So a good place to start is with who you already know.

Create a schedule and stick to it. Pick your first social media property, be it LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or what ever feels right for you. I say right for you because it is personal. Think about this as buying a suit for business: you have to try on several before you find the right fit.

2. How much time do I have to spend?

Now that you picked the property you are going to start with, set an appointment within your routine. A good place to fit this in might be with your morning coffee or your evening wind down or maybe even your lunch break—wherever you have already organized your life to have a focused set of time to accomplish things.

Day 1: To get started with any of these social media platforms, begin with your profile. Make an appointment for one hour to work on your profile. First, sign up then search for some people you already know, especially a competitor. Take a look at what they are doing to give you some ideas as to how you can best present yourself. Make sure you have typed out your profile information into a word document and completed a spell check, then copy and paste into your profiles.

Day 2: Schedule 30 minutes to explore the site. See what is trending and how others are using the site. Learn the ins and outs such as how to search, and how to message. Don’t do anything, just explore.

For the next 30 days: Take 10 minutes and scan the news, blogs and other information that you routinely get. This will trigger some ideas of what you can share with your new and growing community. Pick topics that are either relevant to your industry or meaningful to the type of people you want to attract.

For the next five minutes, scan your news stream to see what is going on. Depending on which property you are in, comment, like, or share something from someone in your community.

For another five minutes, invite or follow five to 10 people. I suggest that you start with people that you already know since they will be more likely to reciprocate. Either send them an email or search for them and request to connect. With LinkedIn and Facebook you need to ask, with Twitter and Google+ you can just add them and they will be notified and you can hope that they follow you back.

I recommend only a few at a time, otherwise you could begin to look like a spammer. Trust me when I tell you that building up slowly will pay off in the long run but be open and honest and let the people you are following and inviting know that you are new and looking to them for suggestions and engagement.

That’s it.

Stick to this plan and you will begin to not only get the hang of things, you will also start to build a following. Once you have established a solid footing you can then begin to understand the platform and how you might be able to leverage this to grow your incoming leads, strengthen your relationships with current clients and prospects, and who knows? Maybe you’ll corner the market.