How Much and For What Reason?
Social media has become an indispensable tool for networking, and it can be the fastest way for you to either spread the name of your company or get the attention of industry professionals from around the world. Sure you can spend time stalking Ashton Kutcher, but if you want to effectively use social media to help you professionally, you’ll need to first set some goals on how to spend time on social media.
Figuring out what you want
The first step to integrating the wide world of social media into your daily life is to figure out exactly what you want from the greatest invention of the “now” generation. Life is a full plate, from kids to work to play to self-improvement to basic hygiene, you’ll be scant to find time to Twitter or Pinterest regularly. But the greatest criticism of social media is also your greatest ally in routinizing the medium into your day-to-day. This, of course, is that the goal of all social media is to be able to grab the attention of those with even the most minimal attention span, so you don’t have to spend a great deal of time getting updates. Know what you want before you spend time on social media.
Spend Time on Social Media, How to get it done
The easiest way is to go mobile. If you have a smart phone then anytime you’re on a bus or waiting in line at the water cooler, you’ll have time to check out the latest updates on Vine or Instagram. You’ll be surprised at how many seconds of the day you spend waiting, and you’ll be even more surprised when you realize how much time you’ve wasted staring at walls during which you could have been networking with industry experts and working on your own personal brand. Of course, this is a great option for the social media wallflower, but what if you want to get your hands dirty and create something worth uploading? Now that takes a little more time.
Uploading doesn’t mean creating
While creating something yourself is wonderful for your reputation and you should definitely try your hand at it sometime, social media isn’t always about generating new content. Much like other media, the main purpose of it is to share ideas, or even videos of angry cats being angry. If you find something funny or interesting online, share it with a friend. It takes less time to post a link than to send a full Tweet, so don’t worry about not having anything to post on that day. Post a link on your profile to some breakthrough made at the latest SIGMA 6 conference, or send a query with a back-up link to an industry professional. There’s already a lot of new information out there, and it doesn’t fall on your shoulders to be the forerunner of bringing new information into the world, this is an effective way to spend time on social media.
So the goals are to figure out what you want from social media, get mobile with it, and then start sharing as much as you can. Creating is difficult, but sharing regularly builds your reputation as a source and can not only get you a following but grab the attention of industry professionals, too. Spend time on social media, however have a plan or you day will vanish.
How much is to much? How much time do you spend on social media in a typically day?
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