Do you find yourself being sucked into the Social Media Vortex?
Do you worry that you are not maximizing your Social Media Marketing ROI?
Many people find that as they add online social networking to their business activities, efficiency and time management become more and more challenging.
Although social media is free for the most part, it is not necessarily true that using it for marketing purposes is going to be free. It can be a huge time hog and add more cost to your business than you realize.
We all know it’s about relationships. We know that marketing online increases our exposure and creates a new warm market.
But if you are new to social media it might seem quite like you’ve gone down the rabbit hole, into a wonderland of new experiences, people, relationships and business opportunities. Entertainment begins to wind its way into your business activities.
You might begin to feel overwhelmed to the point of distraction, following every interesting Tweet and blog you find, until your distraction outweighs your productivity.
Stop the Social Media Vortex from Taking Over Your Business.
As it has been said, the best thing about working for yourself is that you have no one to tell you what to do. But the worst thing about working for yourself is that you have no one to tell you what to do.
But your social media marketing requires a certain involvement in the many networks in order to connect with people, syndicate your content, and build relationships.
But this may all turn into the social media vortex if you are not careful.
Here are some tips and reminders for you if you feel yourself sliding down that slippery slope:
1.) Limit Your Marketing Efforts to Your Target Market
Once you have determined what your what your target market is, join the social networks where you are most likely to connect with these people, and join groups or participate in forum discussions providing value over promotion.
2.) Keep it Simple
Start with just one to three social networks, and stay away from the likes of Facebook applications and games, they are time wasters and can be addictive.
Budget your time in Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or social bookmarking sites, as these can be an enticing vortex. While it is very tempting to look at a dozen links, videos and pages, the next thing you know an hour or two is lost (although you may find an occasional nugget to use to add value for an upcoming post or video).
It is cordial to respond to messages, write messages for friend requests and check out content that your friends send you, but this quickly becomes burdensome. Learn to prioritize your response messaging according to contacts you have qualified as being in your most targeted market.
And for goodness sakes, limit the links that you follow to those from people you have built a relationship with first, as these can be distracting and even hazardous! Peoples accounts often get hacked, so only click when having confirmed your friend really sent it, especially when received on Skype or IM!
3.) Use Tools that Increase Productivity
Do use social bookmarking sites such as Stumbleupon.com, Digg.com, and Del.icio.us to increase your exposure and SEO. Just be careful of surfing the always interesting content there, and if you do make sure it’s something that feeds into your ideas for your own content.
A great way to get your content syndicated automatically is to use TribePro, and connect with people there, exchanging auto-syndications with people whose content you feel is valuable. This definitely keeps the social media vortex at bay while you work on your content syndication.
Make tagging your blog to social sites easy using clickable buttons (many plugins provide these).
The best software tools I have found is TweetAddr that you can run locally on your computer and automate your tweets and follows on Twitter.
Learn about and use account management application sites such as OnlyWire.com, Socialoomph.com, and Ping.fm to consolidate your postings.
But first and foremost, in order to know what to be communicating to your target market, you must……
4.) Listen!
Remember you are in a relationship business first and foremost! And that means your primary focus should be on your prospects, your potential customers or business partners.
Don’t be a ‘false networker’ or just accumulate friends for the sake of gaining numbers.
Your most important skill when face to face, listening, carries into the realm of social media. Learn about your contacts, and find out what it is that they need.
Spend just a few minutes a day perusing the updates of your contacts to learn their current interests and needs.
The Social Media Vortex is Useful in Tiny Chunks
If you can learn to control your time spent in the activities of making real connections and listening to your audience, you’ll make the best of the richness of social media.
Just be yourself and let people get to know, like and trust you you while you get to know them and understand their needs, and if you master your social media marketing vortex with a good schedule, and you can’t go wrong!
Coach Freddie (28)
Oliver Tausend (28)
Amy Hagerup (24)
Gabriele Maidecchi (24)
Chris Fairchild (21)
Jennifer May (20)
John Engle (18)
Ryan Yokome (17)
Audrey Ross (15)
Steve Nicholas (15)
I’m very impressed with all of your content that I’ve seen. I greatly appreciate your recent post about avoiding the social media vortex.
It’s a real challenge for people to keep up with all of the tasks within a online business. Social media is a massive undertaking and finding a way to manage that within your business is a challenge.
Your practical advice and solutions on managing social media within your business is an excellent resource and guide. I really enjoy your content!
Thanks so much Jim! I really appreciate your support! And yes the social media vortex is quite powerful, especially because it does offer such a vast amount of knowledge and wonderful relationships, and so it requires us to be all the more diligent in our pursuit of our organizational skills and time management.
Wishing You Awesome Success!
Hi Vicky,
Oh, I know that vortex well. It is easy to get overwhelmed and carried away on social media sites. It is a valuable skill to be able to manage one’s marketing strategy efficiently and effectively. Thank you for this article.
Garth
Thanks Garth!
I know, I think that it’s a constant challenge for anyone even being experienced at social media. Especially being that business is about relationships, and you create relationships on social media, and when you have hundreds how to you stop!
Wishing You Enormous Success!
Hey Vicki,
Thanks for the reminders and suggestions, especially the marketing headline analyzer. I’m going to start using that tool.
Thanks,
Coach Freddie
.-= Coach Freddie´s last blog ..Rules For Being Human =-.
Thank You Freddie!
Yes that analyzer is a cool little tool! I use it faithfully. We might as well be as effective as possible in our efforts!
Thanks for stopping by again!
Wishing You a Brilliant Day as Always!
Thanks for sharing this information, I am going to share this with my list as i find great value in it. Have an Awesome Day!
Chris
.-= Chris Bernardo´s last blog ..Main Dish Fish and Shellfish: Fish in a Red Sauce | Submitted By: Sara =-.
Thank You Chris!
I appreciate your stopping by again, and thanks for the shares!
Wishing You an Awesome Day!
Thanks Vicki for these words of wisdom. It is especially challenging to manage this if it is all new experiences. It is difficult to plan the time while you are just learning the skills and do not know how much time to plan for each of the activities. I know the rewards will be great as we gain experience in our skills and planning.
For those of us with the personality styles that are more easily distracted, this is even more challenging. Thanks for your reminder that we must develop and maintain discipline in this area.
I really appreciate your sharing with us.
Connie Harmon
.-= Connie Harmon´s last blog ..Creating Wealth Through Network Marketing =-.
Thank You Connie!
I believe I am one of those who is easily distracted, and even having experience in this area I still find that I have to keep my attention on my focus as I tend to go of in different directions! It’s almost as if I need someone to pinch me each time I go to retrieve one thing and instead follow another trail!
I appreciate your stopping by to comment!
Wishing You a Brilliant Day!
Hi Vicki,
Thank you so much for this really informative post! Your vortex analogy is perfect! Social media is so captivating! As for everything, when we treat our business like a business, we need to regulate our time and efforts to maximise results! A little bit of discipline with social media goes a long way! Thanks for the great tips and resources you shared here – I will definitely use them!
.-= Justine Simard´s last blog ..The Mechanics of Positive Thinking – The Limbic System. =-.
Thank You Justine!
I couldn’t help but think of the vortex analogy, I felt I was always being sucked in almost to the point of not being able to get out! It does take continuous focus on FOCUSing!
Regulating time is essential and yet very difficult with social media. However, building relationships is part of the business and so much of that does take time it is difficult to know when to draw the line. I think a timer alarm might be another great tool!
Thanks for stopping by to comment!
Wishing You Every Success!
Hi Vicki,
What a great post. Well… were you talking to me?? I exactly know what you mean. SocialOomph and Hootsuit have made my life a lot easier, but it is a challenge.
Love this “As it has been said, the best thing about working for yourself is that you have no one to tell you what to do. But the worst thing about working for yourself is that you have no one to tell you what to do.” – Exactly true…
As you said we think it is a free marketing, unless we are vigilant of the time we spend on these media, we can get lost & our business will turn into a hobby.
Thanks for sharing your wisdom.
Damayanthi
.-= Damayanthi´s last blog ..Attraction Marketing – Lesson from Nature =-.
Hi Damaynthi!
Nice to see you again, thanks for stopping by! I appreciate your addition here, I think as a group we can become more vigilant as we are more continually aware. As I did write that post, I still continue to find myself struggling not to get sucked into the vortex!
Wishing You a Brilliant Day!
Hi Vicki,
it’s true: Social Media Marketing can be very time consuming without a clear plan and schedule. Thanks for sharing your experiences and advice with us.
Take care
Oliver
Oliver Tausend´s last [type] ..Are You Able To Say “No” To People Questions- Only Questions
Thanks Oliver!
Yes if we don’t watch our plan and time we’re suddenly aware that a huge amount of time could have slipped by almost unnoticed!
Good to see you here as always!
Wishing You Awesome Success,
Hey Vicky,
thanks for sharing your experience with us! Our priority should be to be asbolutely passionate so that other people will read our post/watch our video! You know there are thousands of distractrions out there and it´s not always easy to ignore them. What helped me quite a lot is a to-do list that is created by priorities!
Enjoy your day,
Gerald
Gerald Gigerl´s last [type] ..Hot Tip- Creating A Trustworthy And Empowering Brand
Hi Gerald!
Thanks for stopping by and for you comment, always good to see you!
You are so right, if we are not passionate about our goals, then our priorities are unclear, leading to being easily distracted, and made VERY easy by social media! But practice makes perfect, in that if you keep that focus on your priorities then you’ll be able to trim down your social media time more easily without losing it!
Wishing You Brilliant Success!
Awesome tips Vicki!! Great reminders for me to make the most of my time while on Social Media. Really helpful here. Keep it up!
Philip
Philip Blackett´s last [type] ..Is Marshall Sylver the REAL DEAL!
Hi Philip!
Good to see you here, thanks for stopping by and for your comment! It’s a reminder to keep myself in line, staying diligently aware of any time vortexes!
Wishing You the Very Best in Success!
Vicki,
Excellent advice, especially to the newbie networker. There are still so many that are just not getting the relationship building concept. All it takes is that 1 or 2 times of giving value that helps someone and immediately the trust begins to be established and the sharing of your content, because of it.
Keep it coming!
Joe Young
Joe Young´s last [type] ..Think- Before You Copywrite Or Don’t Copywrite At All!
Hi Joe!
Good to see you, thanks for stopping by! You are right, it seems to take some people a while to get the concept that relationships are king especially online. Just because computers can be used to automate tasks does not take away from the value of trust in a relationship, nor the value of relationships. They are just as real online as offline, and providing value is definitely a great way to build trust!
Thanks for your comment!
Wishing You Massive Success,
Hey Vicki,
This is fantastic! I cannot even tell you how many times that I’ve fallen into this trap and wasted countless hours on activities that did not produce any results. I think the biggest take away here is to find activities that can be either outsourced or put on auto-pilot by some piece of technology which can save you countless amounts of time.
Thanks so much for sharing this
See you at the top,
Michael Stead
Michael Stead´s last [type] ..Questions Are The Answer
Hi Michael!
Thank You! I think it’s an ongoing challenge for any of us working on line, it’s like a huge playground with all sorts of cool stuff to see and learn and do. Therefore to really focus becomes more difficult! I don’t think I’ll ever find it really easy, no matter how much practice I get at it! (so in part, I write this post to myself!
At least I don’t have any trouble staying away from silly facebook games LOL!
Wishing You Brilliant Success!
Vicky, I really enjoyed reading this post today
It’s so true so much time can be wasted doing things that don’t matter by getting distracted on Facebook, twitter,etc. I have a checklist that I use now to stay on track.. and I use a few other tools to assist with keeping in contact with my friends in the various social media sites. Incredible content! Sye-
SyeWells´s last [type] ..How To Generate and Upload a Favicon To Your Blog Must Have Tool For Branding
Mrs. Vicki, dammit woman, you’ve done it again, another awesome post!
Funny thing is I was just on Facebook and I said to myself, “Ok time to sign off, you’re starting to waste time.”
Keep delivering the great stuff Vicki.
Later,
Anthony McNeil
Anthony McNeil´s last [type] ..MLM Leads- A New MLM Lead Generation Tool
Hi Anthony!
Thanks once again, you make me laugh!
You know I say that to myself all the time, I need a timer that will DING when I’ve been on a site for my allotted time, its’ so easy to extend your stay!
As always, thank you for stopping by, great to see you again!
Wishing You Brilliant Success,
Hi Vicki,
As usual, your information is priceless… I have been weak in the area of Social Networking. I just created my blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Digg and Stumbleupon accounts just a couple of months ago, so you can see I am not up on all the latest and greatest sites.
If someone reading this post knows me and knows about my Search Engine Optimization background, they would probably ask how have I done SEO without social media? My past hasn’t included Blogs… it was static HTML websites, so my strong point for SEO has been On-Page SEO, Pay-Per-Click ads, etc to gain traffic. Nowadays, to get followers to your site, social media is pretty much a required tool.
Thank you again for this insightful info!
John Engle
John Engle´s last [type] ..A Must Have SEO WordPress Plugin to Help Skyrocket You to the Top of the Google Ladder!
Hi John!
Great to see you again, thanks for stopping by!
Your background gives you tremendous strengths that are difficult to some who might have started out in social media (as I have) and moving toward trying to be smarter about SEO! I would rather be coming to social media from your background! I think you’ll be caught up completely in no time at all, and you’ll have a strong advantage. Keep up the great work at sharing your SEO expertise with the social media community! I think both are important working together!
Wishing You Massive Success,
When you see how many businesses, from multi-national to mom-and-pop, are hiring dedicated social media managers these days, it’s clear that savvy businesses really value the hands-on approach. Absolutely key to be participating, not just present, in social media. Great tips Vicki, thanks for sharing.
Ruby Rynne´s last [type] ..Buying Social Media Services
Thank You Ruby!
You’re right, participation is KEY because it’s ALL about relationships, just like forever in the history of business! It’s sometimes the thing people forget the most though
However, once you get that, the race is on, nowhere to go but up, at least it you manage your time correctly! Be careful to be getting some return on ‘engagement’ in other words, don’t be spending too much time with networks that are not in your target market!
Wishing You Wonderful Success!
Hey Vicki,
excellent post and reading it a few times is doing me a lot of goods.
There are so many traps and distractions out there, that once we fall into one it seems to be natural for us.
Discovering those traps, such as hanging out on Facebook for hours can be deadly.
Thank you for sharing again.
Keep going.
Gerald
Gerald Gigerl´s last [type] ..How To Optimize Facebook Marketing Part 2 – Why Fan Pages & Groups
Vicki,
You give a lot of great information here. I think it’s far too easy to waste a lot of time on social media and not have anything to show for it. Like you said, relationships is key.
I also feel it’s important to stick to just one or two marketing strategies and not jump from one thing to another. Putting blinders on is a good thing.
Keep up the great work!
Karen
Karen Marrow´s last [type] ..Your Subconscious Mind And The Reticular Activation System
Hi Karen!
Thanks, I’m glad you agree, relationships are the key to success with marketing or business of any kind!
And you’re so right, a focus on no more than two at a time is crucial. But as you increase your width and breadth, it’s still important to continue evaluating your results and taking stock of the time you invest.
Thanks for stopping by and for your comment!
Wishing You Fabulous Success,
Vicki,
Such great tips and reminders! Social Media can be so very overwhelming and definitely time consuming. I think we all fall into the trap many days since time just seems to fly by when we’re reading and chit-chatting with people.
Having reminders such as these really helps in re-focusing what our objectives are.
Thanks!
Erika
Erika Olson´s last [type] ..Personal Branding Tips
Hi Erika!
Thank you, yes you are right, social media is sooo overwhelming, even when you know better than to get sucked in, the clock seems to speed up and before you know it you’re waay over budget for your time spent! Relationships are king but we have to learn to be proficient with our time.
I remind myself every time I write a post like this or converse about it as in our commentary here!
)
Wishing You Fabulous Success!
