Time Saving Social Networking Strategy

One of my fellow Entrepreneurs that I mastermind with has been very anti-twitter and social networking for business in general. And I do admit, social networking takes time to become a lead generation tool and it does require effort. But when done right, it can lead to new business, book deals, speaking engagements, strategic partnerships, and a multitude of other opportunities.

What is social networking done right? That is simple. You are social networking the right way when you:

• provide and share valuable and relevant information
• provide and share personal insights into your life that show your personality
• engage in conversation and interaction
• build a reputation as a giver and helper

Today, my mastermind buddy sent me a message and said, "I have a Facebook account and a LinkedIn account and I think I want to give Twitter a try. What do I do so I don't waste my time and do it right."  I sent back a reply outlining the exact startegy I use to manage my social networking. With this strategy, I am able to log on for about 30-45 minutes per day, spread out in small chunks of time throughout the day. And in doing so, I have gained new strategic partners, a new member of my virtual team, speaking engagements, new business and more.

After thinking about it for a while, I decided to share my strategy with you!

So here is my step-by-step strategy I outlined for my mastermind buddy.

1. Sign up for a Twitter Account at www.twitter.com. Make sure you post a good photo of yourself and a BIO that tells a bit about what you do and a few personal tidbits. Not many will follow you if you have no photo and/or no bio.

2. Sign up for a bit.ly account. This is a URL shortening service that tracks all of the links you create. For example, my url http://www.graphicdesignersbusinessblueprint.com would take up a lot of my 140 characters. So, I use my bit.ly account to shorten it to http://bit.ly/DuQYB taking up much less of my post.

Once you shorten a link, you can view its stats. So I can see that my link http://bit.ly/DuQYB has been clicked on 1,262 times and that breaks down to United States 907; Canada 56; United Kingdom 52... I can also look at all tweets using this url, where referrals to this url are coming from (Facebook, Plaxo, LinkedIn, twitter, email providers, Google, etc.)

3. Signup for a Ping.fm account and link all of your social networks together so one post updates everything. NOTE: Right now Ping.fm is having problems with LinkedIn.

4. Signup for a free HootSuite Account and link it to your Ping.fm account. This way everything you post in HootSuite will be sent out using your Ping.fm account and all of your updates will post to each social network you have added.

5. Post your "Tweets" 140 characters or less to your HootSuite Account and schedule them to post at a later date.

• For example, on May 1, I went in and prescheduled 2-3 posts per day for all of May, June, July, and August. Posts were a mixture of tips, quotes, links, etc. So, no matter what, I know that even if I do nothing again until September, my network will be "touched" by me every day at least twice.
• Now you want to be careful about this. Social networking is about interaction and building relationships and if you auto post and never login, your strategy will fail. Pretty much all of my posts fall within three time slots during the day, and I try to always make sure I login to my social networks at those times and be there to respond to comments and engage my followers.
• I recommend that each "Tweet" you send should be sent three times. 
  • Once in the morning 7-10 am
  • Once in the mid-day 10 am - 1 pm
  • Once in the afternoon 1 pm - 4:30 pm 
• This way you are more likely to hit people who login at different times of day or people who didn't see your post the first time because they follow a lot of people and your tweet/post got lost in their stream.
• OR, you can post them across different days. For example, the post schedule for tweet a may be:
  • Monday @ 8 am
  • Wednesday @ 11 am
  • Friday @ 2:30 pm
• OR, to hit people who have recently joined your network or recently started following you, you can space them out in different weeks. Such as:
  • Monday @ 8 am in week 1
  • Monday at 11 am in week 2
  • Monday @ 3 pm in week 3

6. Now, because the power of social networking comes from the RELATIONSHIPS that you build by interacting with your network, friends and followers, I also recommend you download the application TweetDeck to your computer. Tweet Deck allows you organize and manage your Twitter stream (list of posts made by people you are following). You can create groups of people you follow to help you keep track of posts too.

Separating and organizing your Twitter activity makes it much easier to Respond to people, send messages to people, stay on relevant topics, keep Track of what others are doing, etc. This will help you foster better relationships.

I also LOVE TweetDeck because I can CHOOSE which Tweets I post on the fly should go to Facebook as well, again saving time. AND, if you really want to get fancy, one of your TweetDeck columns can be Facebook status updates from your friends so you can respond all in one place!

In TweetDeck, my columns are:

• All Tweets (from people I am following)
• @replies (people replying to my tweets or tweets that mention me)
• Direct Messages
• VIP Entrepreneurs
• Graphic Designers & Creative Professionals
• Friends/peers/family
• Favorites

7. Login to your Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn Accounts or any others you have your posts going to each day to build connections.

• Check any replies to your posts or comments made and respond or thank the person
• Check for any forwards or "Retweets" (RT) of your posts and thank the people who helped spread your message
• Check for any interesting posts that you think your friends/network/followers may like and forward/retweet it.
• Check for links posted by others to good blog posts. Comment on the post, being sure to ADD VALUE and include your name, tag and website in your signature. Then forward/retweet the post. This way, everyone will see your timely and relevant comment when they check out the post.
• Check for any funny or personal posts you can relate to and reply to engage in conversation.