Many people struggle with time management, whether it’s just not prioritizing their life properly or juggling multiple projects. This can be disastrous for anyone trying to complete a big project because they seem to be unable to stop procrastinating. These types of people are usually constantly distracted by other projects, even if they are not very important. They will keep on doing things that are not very productive in the long run and grow increasingly frustrated because they don’t seem to get anywhere with their life.

As Dr. Jordan Sudberg points out, time management is something you are going to have to learn to do if you want to be productive. If you want excellent grades, whether they’re in school or at work, then good time management is a must. As the saying goes, “if you fail to plan then you plan to fail.”

What Are Some Good Time Management Hacks

The main idea behind time management is that there are so many activities and responsibilities that crowd your life. If you don’t know how to organize them or prioritize them properly, then they will pile up and become overwhelming.

Dr. Sudberg, shares some useful time management hacks for you to employ so as not to be overwhelmed.

1. Prioritize your tasks

If you have a lot on your plate, and most people do, then you need to prioritize. This is not to be confused with rushing through tasks, but rather it means making sure you know what needs to be done first. When you know what’s most important it becomes easier to work around everything else.

2. Know your goals

It’s always a good idea to know exactly what you want out of a given day, or even week. The more you plan for, the simpler it will be to manage your time. If you are lacking specific goals then it will be difficult to organize your life around them and make sure they are all done on time.

3. Always have a schedule

Having a schedule is essential and very important if you want to get things done in the right order. This means creating your own unique schedule that works for you.

4. Get rid of distractions

If you have any, then now is the time to identify and eliminate them so they don’t bog you down during the course of your day. Sometimes these distractions, even if they are small, can build up and overwhelm you, creating problems for your time management.

5. Set goals for yourself

Dr. Jordan Sudberg stresses to readers to set goals on a daily basis so you can see where you stand and what you need to accomplish in the future. This type of constant goal setting will help organize your activities as well as create an overall plan that will work for you. It’s also important to monitor your progress so you can make sure that everything is working out properly.

Summary

Organizing your schedule and keeping in mind your goals are the two most important aspects of time management. By making sure you have a plan for both of these aspects, you can manage your life perfectly.

The post 5 Time Management Hacks appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Many of us probably wish that we had someone that we could send on errands and help us double our capacity. But we don’t have budgets to cover that, of course—either at home or at work. And if you go, go, go, and go, you won’t necessarily get everything done either. So what recourse do you have?

Well, there are a number of tactics that you can use so that it seems like you do actually have a personal assistant. For starters, taking a break is actually good for productivity. If you keep moving and doing, you’ll quickly hit a wall  and your results will suffer. Regrouping and re-approaching the problem may be a great way to improve your efficiency.

Email is also something that can reduce your productivity, especially if you attend to it all the time. That’s not the best way to deal with all those messages; in fact, what you should do is schedule email times. Otherwise, don’t worry about it and don’t respond to it, either.

If you deal with a lot of contracts in your business dealings, try using contract templates instead of reinventing the wheel every time you need to engage someone in a deal.

Frankly, too, saying no is something that we don’t do often enough. You may not have enough time to do something, or you may not have interest in it. If both or one of those exist, you have to learn how to turn things down.

In addition, pay attention to when you work well. If you’re a morning person, churn out the work then and move on to tasks that require less mental acuity later in the day. If you’re an afternoon person, don’t fight that. Do what works and what helps you make the most of your time.

How else can you make your day more in tune with what you can do, so that you can feel like you have an assistant? This infographic explains:

This infographic originally appeared on Salesforce.com, and was republished with permission.

The post Boost Your Productivity With These Tips appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

I have written several posts this year about podcasts; most of them are in support of specific shows, episodes, or genres that I think you will enjoy and learn from. This post, however, is all about the listeners. If you are a podcast host, you might not dig everything that I say here, but put your audience-cap on, and I think you’ll understand where I’m coming from.

Desire

Let’s start with the obvious. If you are listening to podcasts for any reason other than that you actually want to, it’s going to be hard to keep up. If it’s a chore, you might feel the need to just opt out entirely. Before you do, however, I’d encourage you to find your podcast-zen: find the right shows, limit your subscriptions, and stay in control of your listening habits. Keeping up with an ever-growing list of podcasts takes want, not work.

If you can’t wait to hear the latest episode of [best podcast ever], you will find the time. However, if you find that listening into [not best ever] is a chore, you’re doing it wrong. Find what speaks to you, and you’ll be hooked. And once you’re hooked, the rest is all about management.

Timing

Find your ideal listening time. Driving, exercising, and doing chores are ideal times to consume podcasts. Bonus: I will often exercise longer or run a few more errands if I’m all-in on a specific show. Also, experiment to find the right shows for the right times. I focus much better while walking, so I keep my “smart” podcasts for then. Entertainment shows are my favorites while driving, and storytelling is best for me during chores or while shopping. You’ll have your own breakdown, but try different shows at different times. Once you find your fit, keeping up with your favorite shows will feel much more natural.

Buttons

There are numerous ways to consume podcasts, including several mobile apps, websites, and even car integrations. Depending on how you are listening, find the buttons; they are an important part when taking control of your listening experience. I particular, get familiar with the skip buttons (forward and rewind). Sure, no podcaster wants to hear that you are skipping the ads, but we’re all adults here; it happens.

Personally, I find the backward button to be the most helpful. There are constant distractions, and sometimes you’ll find yourself lost during your listening. If you’re rewinding incessantly, don’t get discouraged; either save the show until later or pause it until you are able to focus. The marker of a great podcast is that you want to hear every word. If you just missed 9 minutes and you don’t really care, there’s your clear sign to move on.

Pause

It would be great to be able to start and finish every podcast in one sitting, but it’s very rare to time it perfectly. And when you add someone like Joe Rogan or Dan Carlin to the mix, it’s near impossible. So get comfortable pausing your listening experience. Hit the rewind button a couple of times to get back into the flow, and pick up where you left off.

Bonus: Sometimes you’ll unpause a show and find out that you’re just not into it anymore. That can be an added benefit of taking a break. If you fire the podcast up an hour or a day later and you’re still excited, perfect; if not, delete it and find something else. Sometimes a break is just what you need to seek out something that’s a better fit for you and your time.

Unsubscribe

I rarely unsubscribe from a podcast, but it’s about time for some curation. And you need to be open to it, too. When something newer or more interesting comes along, you likely will need to lose a show or two to make room. It happens. If you aren’t super passionate about the shows you are listening to, move on.

Also, the OCD among us will freak out as we watch our playlist grow and grow, unable to keep up. Sometimes, unsubscribing is your best option. If it’s particularly hard for you, keep the podcast in your library, and when you have more time, download the shows that you have missed and catch up. Yes, podcasters will absolutely want you to subscribe, but do what’s best for you and your time. If you need to unhook for a bit, do so. Then see which shows you come back to. Those hosts will have a listener for life, and they will be appreciative to have you back.

Tool(s)

I am not going to spend time here reviewing all of the podcast apps that are available, but just know that you have choices. Me? I have stuck with the standard iPhone Podcasts app. But I’d encourage you to shop around and find the tool that works best for you. My guess is that new ones will continue to be released with additional features, functions, etc., so keep your options open. We have yet to see a truly social app dedicated to podcasts; my guess is that will win the day if it is created well. In the meantime, podcasts will continue to be a 1:1 experience ,for the most part. (Note: if you are a podcaster, I am creating a couple of resources around podcast marketing; hit me up on Twitter, if you are interested: @mhollowell.)

Choosy

This is another tip that podcasters might not appreciate, but every podcast isn’t for every person. If you aren’t sure if you will be hooked or not (and how can you be before you sample), download a limited number of episodes first. Listen through three or four, and then decide if you are in for the long haul. There is no such thing as “must-listen” or “should” when it comes to your own playlist, so be choosy. You’ll be happier with your show line-up, and the hosts will be happy to have you as a passionate listener.

Being choosy also applies to individual podcasts. There are some shows that I will not miss a single episode of; others, I pick and choose. That’s okay. Again, in order to keep up and not be overwhelmed, you need to be in control of your listening experience. Be choosy, and you are much less likely to disappear entirely.

Binge

If you can handle having a backlog of shows on your device, embrace binge-listening. Every now and again, I hit the road for a solo road-trip or a long plane ride, and I look forward to having the time and space to get caught up on my favorite shows. The same can be true for a day of mindless tasks. I am much more likely to volunteer for chores or run errands knowing that I have the space to listen, learn, and get lost in my playlist. Embrace the binge, when you are afforded the time to do so.

Speed

I rarely listen to a podcast at 1.5x or 2x speed, but it can be done. If you have the brain and focus for it, try speeding up a couple of shows to maximize your time. I find that this works better with solo or interview shows than with highly-produced storytelling shows, but you’ll find your own peace with speed. If you can master the tactic, you can essentially double your intake. Whether that’s a good thing or not depends on the show and your purpose, but it’s worth a shot if you are feeling behind.

Hopefully, some of these nine suggestions will help you keep your head above water if you feel that you are drowning in the podcast ocean. Regardless of what tactics you subscribe to, I’d encourage you to try to find your zen with the medium. Podcasting is rapidly growing in popularity, and learning to manage your time/playlist now is the best way to set yourself up for success. Remember to keep your options open, your podcasts fresh, and cheat when necessary.

Similar to books or TV shows, we tend to get behind quickly. And that’s okay as long as you have the tools to manage it. Just don’t get overwhelmed or stressed, and be open to new shows as you navigate the waters. Sometimes you need to find more time, sometimes you need to speed things up, and sometimes you simply need to let go.

And all of that is okay.

How do you manage your podcast listening? What tips do you suggest? Or on the flip side, what are your pain points around keeping up with your podcasts?

The post The Podcast Playlist Overhaul: How to Systemize your Listening appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Schedule All Your Appointments for One Day

Do you need to meet with different department heads? How about a variety of clients? Set up all of your appointments for one day in the week. This will condense the amount of time that you’re spending running around to meetings. If you can schedule them back-to-back, this is best. Do everything you can to condense the amount of time you spend in meetings. Checking in with other departments and clients is important, but it’s not necessarily the focus of your job.

Prewrite Your Posts

Using a service such as Hootsuite, pre-write a week or months’ worth of updates all at once. Hootsuite allows you to connect with a variety of social media accounts, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. From here, you can write and schedule your posts, insert links and pictures, and even comment on the posts. This social media management tool will save you a large amount of time. Instead of having to log into each account individually, you log into one account and have access to all of your company’s social media.

Set Aside Time for Each Task

You have a lot of tasks on your to-do list. The best way to manage your time is to schedule your tasks and stick to your schedule. Figure out what exactly you need to get done to stay on top of your job. When setting a schedule, set aside of specific amount of time to each task, giving yourself more time for tasks that require more of it. Use your BlackBerry 10 to schedule your time on the To Do Matrix Professional or any other time manager app. This way your schedule is always with you. You’ll never forget what you’re supposed to be doing, and you’ll always be able to stay on top of it.

Don’t Obsess

Unfortunately, many social media managers get a little too obsessed with their positions. While it’s great to love what you do, this doesn’t mean that you should always be worrying about that last post or spend your off-time checking in on the social media accounts. If you’re a freelancer or constantly on the go, it’s important that you learn to separate work time and free time. Once you’re done with your tasks, that’s it for the day. If you want to stay connected with your social media habit after your work day is done, check in with your personal accounts.

If you’re working as a freelancer or if you’re only in the office long enough to grab some coffee from the break room, learning to manage your time becomes crucial. With the help of a few apps and online programs, you can get your social media accounts updated quickly and efficiently.

The post 4 Time Management Tips for the On-the-Go Social Media Manager appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Still, we try to fool ourselves with a mental sort of “creative accounting.” Instead of budgeting dollars, we’re budgeting minutes and hours of our time as if we were accountants for the mafia. We try to convince ourselves that we can “find” or “make” time for all the things we want to do.

Perhaps we can be excused for letting this basic math escape us, since most social media managers I know are writers at heart. But we’re also business professionals. Or we’re supposed to be. So if we consistently keep missing deadlines, breaking promises, or just have a section of our To-Do list that deep down, we know we’re never going to reach.

In some ways, social media has been the greatest thing to happen to professional wordsmiths. The content revolution has created a lot of new career opportunities. But with each new opportunity comes a cost.

Only so much content will go through the pipeline without protest

Adopt the attitude of a traditional media Traffic Manager

When you manage the company Facebook page, part of your responsibility is knowing when to say “I’m sorry, I can’t fit that into my editorial calendar this week.” Or even “That promotion/idea doesn’t work with my content strategy for this channel, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.” We have to be gatekeepers for the social channels we manage, which can be especially difficult when you genuinely want to be a resource.

In this sense, you have to adopt the attitude of a traditional media Traffic Manager. The pipeline is only so big. Only so much work can fit through at a time. The audience will only stand for so many ads during afternoon drive before they revolt. You can’t let things get to the point where your fans and followers start changing the channel. Playing traffic cop isn’t fun, but it’s a necessary part of the job.

You’re a finite resource as well

Social networks, and even the tactics within them, have a lifecycle.

There’s a similar dynamic at work when it comes to evaluating new and emerging channels, or experimenting with different promotions and strategies. Social networks, and even the tactics within them, have a lifecycle. If you’re not thinking about your post-Facebook strategy, you run the risk of getting caught unprepared when your audience migrates. But if you spread yourself too thin, you’ll end up with a bunch of half-starved, lackluster efforts and you’ll never really know what could have worked, given adequate focus and effort.

Your time and energy is a limited resource, too. Being unrealistic about how many different tasks you can manage effectively is like offering a product your company can’t actually deliver. It isn’t a sustainable strategy.

Give Yourself a Capacity Audit

Tracking your time diligently for a week can be a highly enlightening experiment.

People hate time tracking. But tracking your time diligently for a week can be a highly enlightening experiment that can help you determine if you’re working at peak capacity already. Assume the 50/30/20 ratio for your workday. In a perfect world, you’d spend 20% of your time concepting, brainstorming and ideating new strategies. You’d spend 30% of your time planning, coordinating and measuring your current strategy. And you’d spend 50% of your time executing the plan.

That’s a perfect world. So let’s be wildly optimistic and assume you only really get 75% of your workday, after you omit “unavoidable nonproductive time”: meetings you can’t get out of, administrative duties, and general miscellany.

If you find that you are currently spending 70% of that remaining 75% executing, 20% of it time reacting to the unexpected, and 10% of it fixing things that were broken because you were rushed, guess what your available capacity is? A negative number.

If you find yourself in this situation, it’s time to review your current efforts and decide what can stay and what must go. Like cleaning your closets, it’s not a pleasant task. But also like cleaning your closet, you’ll probably feel like a 100 lb weight has lifted with every item you eliminate. Ideally, what remains will benefit from your increased focus and attention.

And that’s an opportunity too good to miss.

The post The Opportunity Cost of Opportunity appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Sure, I can blog. I can write a book. I can write silly emails to friends (and sometimes do for fun). It manifests itself in multitudes of ways, but regardless of what other labels people want to put on it, I’m best described as a writer.

As a creative type, though, I’m also quirky, often disorganized and overburdened with things I’ve said, “yes,” to. Finding the time to write, even when therapeutically the action is needed to keep me from going bonkers, is sometimes a challenge. Fortunately, I have people around me like Kat who can see when I need a kick in the pants.

She brought me Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art recently and told me I should read it. When Kat tells me I should read something, I should. So I did. And now I’m recommending it to you should you be a creative sort of any kind — writing, music, art.

The War of Art is an instructional manual for those needing to overcome Resistance. It is the force that keeps us from not only sitting down to commence work, but believing in our work, delivering it to an audience and putting that craft in its proper place — above most all else in our lives — to empower us to be more productive, fulfilled and successful.

I’ll leave the finer points to your reading, but here’s what I learned from The War of Art:

• I am a writer first and foremost. I knew this, but the reaffirmation was nice.
• Resistance is not just procrastination, but self-doubt, busy-ness, family needs, personal care and more. Anything that keeps you from practicing your craft and producing your art is Resistance. You have to fight it, always.
• You can prescribe, schedule and force creativity. It’s all about developing the habit of doing so, which can’t be forced instantly. It takes time to build the habit. Once the habit is there, the creativity shortly follows.
• Your writing doesn’t define you. You define it. The other way around and you’ll be miserable painted in that box.
• It’s perfectly fine to spend hours, days, weeks, even months crafting something that doesn’t sell, succeed or even get consumed by another human, so long as it satisfies your need to create.
• Success is measured best in the journey, not the destination. For the destination (sales, royalties, speaking engagements, etc.) will probably change, setting you on different journeys.

There’s a damn good chance that you have some project hanging over you. Maybe it’s professional — like the 2013 plan or that RFP for a new web design — but it could be personal — a touching short story you want to write about your mother or finally sitting down to sculpt the outline if your first novel. The only thing stopping you is Resistance.

Read The War of Art and you’ll not only understand, you’ll overcome.

The post The Pursuit of Writing appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

To-Do lists are great for keeping us organized and helping us get through our busy days, but do they really help us accomplish creating the image, person, and character needed to run our business or live our lives more successfully?

What would happen if we turned that TO DO List into a TO BE list? What if at the end of that busy week, we could look back at all the things we accomplished that helped us discover our strengths, foster important relationships, and live a more balanced and joyful life?

‘Being’ and ‘doing’ are inseparable aspects of the human condition and attention must be paid to both, so I’m giving this a shot in 2011. I have started my TO BE list detailing the kind of person, business, and organization that I am willing to work hard on becoming and developing in the next weeks and months.

It is not complete by any means, but here’s my start:

To Be List -January 2-January9, 2011:

• TO BE more open and willing to share content that will empower and engage my customers in new and innovative ways. Tools like Shareaholic and Friendfeed make this easy and simple.
• TO BE more engaging on line. Comment more, share tweets of value, and extend the conversations beyond the chit chat. TwitLonger , Tweetalot, and Plurk are great ways to take your connections to the next level.
• TO BE more aware of my impact. Monitoring the velocity and reach of my contributions can help me be more targeted in my efforts. I love TweetReach and Klout as they give me insight into how I can be better impacting and influencing the conversation.
• TO BE more intentional; acknowledging publicly the contributions I see others making. Add members of Your Dream Team to a Twitter List or let your Top Followers know why they matter. I use the #WF-Why Follow to add to my #FF Follow Friday picks

At the end of this week, I hope to look back and see how much I have accomplished in these specific areas. (I have a sneaking suspicion, that if I can accomplish this; my “To Do” lists will be impacted as well.)
If you value being number one, increasing your market share, creating a more loyal following, or developing more powerful relationships, then you need a TO BE list and action strategies to ensure success.

What will  your TO BE  be in 2011?

Written By AngelaMaiers

Related articles

• Best of 2010, the Year Social went Operational (conversationagent.com)
• In Defense of Klout (newcommbiz.com)
• Trackur Gets More Klout, Adds Twitter Influence Metrics (marketingpilgrim.com)
• Klout is a Good Start But We Need More Ingredients for an Influencer Recipe (lifestreamblog.com)
• My 2011 Social Media Wish List (markevanstech.com)
• Brand Review, Anyone?… (Before Ringing in the New Year?) (personalbrandingblog.com)

The post My Social Media 2011 TO BE List – What’s Yours? appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

“How do you choose which social networks and channels to focus on?”

I heard the same thing from a small business owner in LaGrange, Ky., last week. I heard it the week before from the brand manager of a major consumer products company and the day before that from a marketing manager for a bank.

There are three main focal points you need to concentrate on in order to manage the volume of it all. And they’re not nearly as foreign as you might think.

1. Play Where Your Audience Plays

Think of your ideal customer or conversation partner online. Who do you want to connect with? Now find out where they are. Is Facebook their thing? Twitter? Are they more apt to dive into more granular communities like forums or message boards? No matter who your ideal consumer is, be they for your blog or your product, there are places where they and people like them congregate online. Find out where by doing some cursory research which can certainly start with asking them.

It turns out Craig and Sam need to keep a finger on the pulse of the Ruby On Rails development community since they develop in that language. Ruby users are Twitter freaks. Those guys need to be on Twitter to accomplish that connection.

Ask around. You’ll find out quickly where your ideal audience is. Prioritize based on which networks can show you the biggest impact and develop content and participation there. Sure, having a home, or at least a place holder, on as many social outposts as possible is probably not a bad idea. The notion you have to be there to participate 100-percent of the time, however is ludicrous. Fortunately, your audience will understand that so long as you tell them. Just drop a little note on your MySpace page saying, “Thanks for visiting. To connect to us faster, find us on Twitter,” and you’re probably set.

2. Do What You’re Comfortable With

No matter how hard you try, you may just not get Twitter. That’s okay. If you can find a strategic reason to use it for your business, great. If Facebook is more native to you, then focus your efforts there. Obviously, prioritize the networks where your audience is most often, but don’t force yourself into an uncomfortable role. Not everyone is cut out to star in their own TV commercials (namely any car dealer ever). You may not be cut out for off the cuff conversations on Twitter. And that’s okay.

The good news is that if you tell your customers where they can find you, they’ll find you. If they discover they can get you on Twitter quicker than commenting on your blog or website, they may even go sign up for an account just to get to you. Find a network or two where you’re comfortable then let folks know that’s where you’ll be.

3. Find Tools To Help

There are a number of social tools that can help you communicate across several networks. Broadcast options like Ping.fm have been around a while. I don’t advocate their use because the temptation to blast the same message out to multiple networks is high with these platforms. If you do that regularly, you’re spamming the communities in which you don’t participate often.

However, there are ways to go about using these tools that protect you from being a spammer while also helping you communicate in multiple places with relevant messages. The biggest rule of thumb is to be sure to jump into Facebook and participate there when you can, don’t just auto post your Tweets there.

A new tool I really like is one called Minggl. This makes communicating on the big six (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Digg and Flickr) super easy by giving you a browser sidebar tool complete with tabs for notifications, an in box and people tabs. You can broadcast a message to all six (or any number) at once by checking a few boxes. Or you can filter messages by network and concentrate on one at a time. It also allows you to post Google Sidewiki-type annotations on pages your friends can see if they’re also using Minggl.

Just be sure you don’t blast to certain networks and forget to participate in them genuinely and you should be okay.

There are a number of other thoughts here. You need to monitor all of the social web to not miss out on conversational opportunities to defend or promote your brand. Google “social media monitoring” to find more articles on that. You’ll probably also want to learn to use RSS feeds to your advantage. But the three tips above can help you participate in social networks for yourself or your company in a more efficient manner.

I’m sure you have more ideas. Drop yours in the comments and help your fellow readers manage their social networks.

Now go download some funky techno tunes on ResonantVibes and have a great weekend.

IMAGE: By Doruk on Shutterstock.com. Used with permission.

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The post Three Tips For Social Media Management appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Everywhere you turn someone is talking about how bad the economy is. From the housing markets to the stock market, optimism is a trait that you would be hard pressed to find. Depending on which news channel you watch and what economist you listen to, the prognosis is that before it gets better it probably will get worse. With the job market shrinking and budgets becoming tighter, it’s vital that you have a strategy in place especially if you’re hoping that social media will play a role in career advancement or new business.

As social media has become the mainstream buzzword, individuals and corporations are looking at social media as a tool to find jobs as well as provide new business opportunities. However, approaching social media without any knowledge or strategy could be more harmful then helpful.

Here are 5 social media strategies that you can implement immediately.

1. Start with a Blueprint
Make sure that before you jump out and “go for it” that you have a plan in place. Know what communities you’re going to engage in as well as what that engagement will look like. Having a blueprint in place will keep you from wasting time, money and energy as well as serve as a reference point if you find the interactive space to be intimidating.

2. Engage in Conversations
Utilize this time to maximize conversations. Don’t be anxious to promote yourself or business at first, find ways that you can add value and expertise to the conversations going on around you. I guarantee that if you provide value and expertise it will open opportunities for your voice or pitch to be heard.

3. Monitor your Brand
Use tools like Google Alerts, Scoutlab, and Radian6 to monitor what’s being said about you, your company, your competitors and the market in which you’re targeting. Knowing what’s being said about you and/or your brand can make you aware of the your brand evangelists as well as your brand assassins. Knowing what’s being said about your competitors and market can also make you more competitive.

4. Filter the Noise
There are so many conversations taking place and content that is being distributed that this is where having a plan can be extremely beneficial. Instead of being swept in to the hype around social media, you can streamline the individuals and communities that you need to be a part of. It also helps as a time management tool that keeps you on target as outlined by your plan.

5. Optimize Both Online and Offline
Maximize both your online and offline interactions. Make every effort, campaign, and initiative count. Utilize online tools to generate offline meetings. While others are pulling back, use this time to step forward and engage potential employers, future customers and new partnerships.

Here are a few additional resources from Social Media Explorer that will also help shape your social media strategy.

Related Resources:
1. A Quick ‘n Dirty Guide to Setting up Social Media Monitoring
2. Job Searching With Social Media
3. How to Grow Your Personal Brand
4. The Bonsai Method of Social Media Management

How are you using social media in light of the what’s taking place with the economy?

The post 5 Essential Social Media Strategies for a Bad Economy appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

But damn, if I wasn’t irritated by his post.

I tweeted the link and asked my friends on Twitter to read the post, then promise never to use any of his tips. Of course, I use two of them — one, TweetDeck, has nothing to do with blasting spammy, pseudo-personal greetings; the other, Twitter application in Facebook, does post your non-reply Tweets as your Facebook statuses. Like John, however, I monitor responses in Facebook and converse with those people, too. That dissolves the impersonality of the act in my mind. (Feel free to tell me I’m wrong.)

That said, the other suggestions John made were essentially contradictory to the essence of why social media exists in the first place. His point was to say something like, “Sometimes you should automate the messages you send because the amount of time you have to spend on social media doesn’t scale with your audience.” But social media evolved because people were tired of being blasted marketing messages and not treated with individual care and attention. What Jantsch is recommending is a reversal of the personal and a reversion to the noise.

The next morning, he responded to my Tweet, and some playful poking from Shannon Whitley, with the following:

PRACTICAL TIP NO. 1

As-you-can is better than being Mr. Spamalot.

His first response (keep in mind they appear in reverse chronological order) offers two extremes — automate or do nothing. While I agree with John that as your network or audience scales, you have to manage your time wisely, I whole-heartedly disagree that automation — in essence, spamming — is the answer.

What John fails to see is that there’s no requirement for a business or an individual to respond to every single query from their audience, customers, followers or fans. We all know huge brands have millions of people to communicate with. We all know small business owners only have so many hours in a day. But because conversations on blogs, Twitter, Facebook groups, message boards and more are archived, indexable and public, just participating when you can shows your audience you’re there. And often times that is enough.

When an issue is in need of attention, you address it. When you have time to banter about with less urgent topics, you do. The fact you’re consistent is much more important than whether or not you’re ubiquitous.

I have two children. Often times, my social media activities go dark on the weekends. If someone asks me a specific question, I’ll see it Monday and respond. If not, I move on.

Social media conversations aren’t email. They aren’t support tickets. They’re personal communications. And they should stay that way.

PRACTICAL TIP NO. 2

If you can’t take the time to personalize the greeting, then don’t send the greeting at all.

Jantsch asks why a “warm greeting like when someone gets an email newsletter,” is consider spam. Show of hands. How many of you have ever thought of a canned, “thanks for playing” auto-responder or an email newsletter was, “warm?” I subscribe to social media email newsletters from Chris Brogan, a friend, and Paul Gillin, someone I’ve met, but not someone I know well. I don’t consider either of their email newsletters warm. I don’t consider them spam because I asked for them. I know they’re blasted to hundreds of people but the content is interesting to me.

However, sending an auto-response DM on Twitter to me is spam. I didn’t ask you to say, “Hey person who just followed me! Thanks for thinking I’m super cool. Looking forward to your Tweets! XOXOXOX.”

While Jantsch makes a point of saying you need to be careful not to self-promote in an auto-responder, I wonder how hard it is for him to not include, “Buy my book!”

For more on this topic, check out Amber Naslund’s, “Thanks for following. Now click my junk!”

Jantsch’s last response to me is one for the ages:

“The trick is to do it all — personal and automated.”

I’m hoping he means do personal and then do automated and not, “make the automated personal.” If it’s the latter, that might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s like saying, “The trick is to have kids but maintain your virginity.”

Maybe I’m being irrational (please tell me if I am) but by definition anything that is automated is NOT personal. Automation means you don’t have the time or inclination to do it personally. Thus, impersonal.

PRACTICAL TIP NO. 3

Participate in the communities you communicate with.

An audience member at Tuesday’s Social Media Club Louisville meeting asked me what I thought about PingFM, a tool that enables you to update your status on multiple social networks at once. I tried it soon after it hit Beta and set it up to post my updates to both Twitter and Plurk. But just a couple of days into the experience, I realized I wasn’t participating in the conversations on Plurk and was missing out on several on Twitter because the service (I used it via IM) disconnects you from those separate communities. What I was doing was blasting one-way communications, not monitoring or participating in responses on either Twitter or Plurk, essentially making me a spammer on both networks.

While I will again say that using the Twitter application on Facebook does mimic this spam-like function, if you monitor Facebook frequently and respond to those conversations based on your status, you’re fulfilling the obligation to participate in that community.

PRACTICAL TIP NO. 4

Never, never, never blast anything to people who haven’t opted in.

And yes, this applies to Twitter direct messages. Your canned, semi-personal response is a blast message because you have it set to send to anyone who follows you. They didn’t ask for your auto-response, so it’s spam.

More broadly, there’s a reason text messaging regulations require opt-ins and double opt-ins in some cases. Yes, the end user has to pay for the text, but the principle of the regulation is to ensure the customer or audience isn’t unduly inundated with crap he or she doesn’t want. There’s also a reason we have a do-not-call registry. People shouldn’t have to tolerate broadly targeted messages, marketing or not, they haven’t asked for, at least when it comes to “personal” communications in the social media space.

Now if we can just get someone to regulate non-opt-in spam email, we’ll be set.

The bottom line is that I’m a purist when it comes to what is spam and what is not. If you don’t have to think about it, put no effort into it and you’re sending it to people who didn’t ask for it, it’s spam. Even if you run a script that places their first name in the greeting and the name of their company or website in the body. Jantsch’s tips aren’t wrong, I just philosophically disagree with the premise.

But to his points, personal contact does not scale. The time and attention one person at a small business has to give to social media is going to be the same today with 10 followers as it will be in six months with 1,000. While there’s no silver bullet, the practical tips above will keep your voice both relevant and appreciated among your audience members.

And a special thank you to James Burgos for a direct request to write this post. Or at least the practical tips part. I’m sure James probably didn’t want me to pick on Jantsch.

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The post The Practical Guide To Managing Social Media Overload appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

[flickr style=”float: left”]photo:2700727956[/flickr]”When can we get that done?” said in a tone that suggests tomorrow morning is too late is a popular question fielded by those in the advertising, marketing, public relations and social media industries.

This isn’t a bitch session about my clients. They’ll know this is all true. Bear with me.

While some of the best communications ideas in the world were created in that hyperventilation chamber of death that is client deadlines, the one thing lacking in most approaches to market is the appropriate amount of time to ensure the program, campaign or effort is done right, or at least well.

“Everyone is competing for time,” Ben Worthen of the Wall Street Journal said Wednesday in the Vocus webinar I moderated. He was referring to public relations professionals competing for the time and attentions of journalists. But the statement can be made as an umbrella for the world.

I’m competing for time and my clients, agency, family, blog, extra-curricular activities, friends, fitness and personal hobbies are competing against me. (Note that I didn’t put sleep in that list. It is currently drawing the short straw.)

As a result of the cacophony of buzz that is our lives, we seldom have or even think to take the appropriate time to ensure what we’re doing is done well. Look closely and you’ll probably find a misspelling or awkward sentence here I would have cleaned up had I taken enough time. We do it with our clients or company. We do it with our meals or sleep. We do it with our friends and family. Some of us do it there too much and too often.

Bad PR pitches? Not enough time was taken to carefully craft them. Bad social media execution? Not enough time was taken to fully digest the possible challenges and outcomes or not enough time was spent being responsive to the audience. Bad advertising? Not enough time was set aside for quality checks, audience testing or research to ensure the strategy matched the collateral.

But good bourbon can’t be rushed. Many bourbons have age statements on the bottle. Knob Creek, for instance, is aged nine years. Nothing anyone does can hurry the aging along. Nine years is nine years. If it isn’t nine years, it doesn’t go in that clever little square-ish bottle. Other bourbons, like Maker’s Mark, is bottled to taste rather than age, so there’s no age statement on the bottle. But it still has a sweet spot window of aging that can’t be changed because more bourbon is needed.

In order to craft an ideal product, bourbon makers know the most important ingredient is time. We should all take a lesson from that philosophy.

[flickr]set:72157606357501036[/flickr]

The post Good Communications, Like Good Bourbon, Takes Time appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

If you don’t have time to watch the video, I am essentially wondering how much microblogging is too much for you. Do you use Twitter? Do you use Jaiku? How about Utterz? Seesmic is a video version of microblogging. Are you there?

In addition to the Facebooks and MySpaces of the world, social media users are inundated with options for their time. People love to sign up for the latest thing, but who has enough hours in a day to keep up with more than two? Three? More?

It’s my job to play with social media tools, to understand them and the communities around them, so I have to juggle a lot of community commitments. But what about you? Where do you spend your time? How many communities are you a part of? How do you manage that time and how much more can you handle without dropping the ball elsewhere?

Please discuss in the comments. And everyone leave your profile links on Twitter, Jaiku, Utterz, Seesmic and others. I’d love to introduce members of my circles in one tool to members on another and vice-versa.

You can find me on Twitter, Utterz and Seesmic, among others.

[tags]microblogging, Twitter, Utterz, Seesmic, Jaiku, time management, community, community management[/tags]

The post How Much Microblogging Is Too Much? appeared first on Social Media Explorer.