What is your social media process? I’m letting the cat out of the bag. I want to share with you what my social media routine looks like on a day-to-day basis.
I'll come out when I want to.
To be clear, I have a work flow and a personal flow. Today I’ll be letting you in a bit to my personal social media productivity habits. This is how I get things done and make sure that I’m moving things in the right direction.
Posting Tools
These simple web apps build the framework for when I post and how I post. I simply could not execute on a strategy without these precious tools:
BufferApp:
- I make no bones about it: I love Buffer. The creators have made a dead-simple, intuitive way to populate links and content over the course of the day, optimizing each post for reach. We’ve all fell victim to the Twitter Barf, when someone floods our tweet stream with dozens of links, all at the same time. Buffer helps to remedy that.
- With pre-assigned times, I never have to worry about over-sharing links and content. I simply plug it into Buffer, and they do the rest.
- Added Bonus: You can connect a bit.ly pro account for customized URL link generation. Key.
Ifttt.com
- Ifttt has made my life easier. I’m a fan of easy. I’ve written on this service before, but basically it’s like an automator for web-based tasks.
- For instance, whenever I star something in Google Reader, ifttt takes that article and sends it to Buffer. I don’t have to go through the process of manually updating my schedule, ifttt just does it for me.
- I do the same thing with favorited tweets, too. Ifttt takes the tweet I star, adds a (via @username) to the end of it, and sends the whole tweet to Buffer, creating another update for me. Like I said: Easy.
Conclusion: These tools make up the building process for my social media process and strategy. I could not do what I do, in the time it takes me to do it, without these wonderful apps!
Link Generation
At the heart of my social media strategy is link generation and curation. I want to find the best social media, blogging, and productivity links available to share with you, my community. There are a few different ways I do this.
StrawberryJ.am
- I’m still figuring this service out, but so far, so good. It works like this: You type in a subject, StrawberryJ.am scours the social web looking for the most popular and most recent links available.
- It’s simple. If a headline catches my eye, I’ll give it a quick read and then send it to Buffer.
- Heads up, though. SJ is by invite only, yo! (If you want an invite, let me know in the comments. I have two to give. First come, first serve!)
Twitter Lists
- I swear, Lists is the most underutilized feature on Twitter. (It doesn’t help that with each redesign, Twitter seems to bury Lists deeper and deeper into the UI, but that’s a different story for another day!)
- I’ve got about five lists set up that delivers everything from Des Moines news, to social media content, to what’s being said about some of my favorite TV shows, to the tweets I can’t miss. I don’t know how any serious Twitter user doesn’t leverage the List.
- If you’re looking for an easy way to get started, compile a list that has the people you can’t miss in it. Family, friends, Snooki … Whotever. Just get going and get familiar with the service. It’s there and it’s free!
Interaction
You simply must build time into your strategy to interact with people. It’s the “social” part of social media! If you don’t do this, you simply don’t get it. That simple. Here’s how I do it:
Build a Twitter list
- I have a list of people that I want to get to know. Less stalker, more interested. These good folks create great content, know their craft, and have shown a propensity to interact on Twitter. I put them all in a list and try and touch base with a few of them once per day.
- I know Lists makes a double-mention on the post, but they’re that good!
Use Hootsuite
- If you’re not using the Hoot, you need to be. You can throw all of your social networks into one spot, saving precious time. If I need to go on an “interaction binge”, Hootsuite is where I go.
- Facebook pages and profile, Twitter, LinkedIn – it’s all here. See who’s responding to your content and let the interaction begin! Which leads me to the next point…
Batch response times
- Seth Godin once said you could spend all day updating and commenting on various social networks, effectively doing nothing with your day. Update, comment, share, comment, retweet, rinse, repeat. Bad idea.
- That’s why you’re going to set a time for responding. Literally time yourself with your response times.
- Have a large following? Give yourself 25 minutes. Smaller online clan? Try five. The trick is to make the effort but not spend all day responding. It’s a time-suck that you need to avoid.
Go to Google
- Lastly, one of my favorite places to interact is Google+. I get VIP access to some of the people I enjoy reading most, mostly because not many people are actively using it! People seem to respond better to the content I share, as well.
- As far as I’m concerned, Google+ is low-hanging fruit that savvy social media users know how to pick.
- The traffic isn’t anything to write home about, but the interaction and SEO value is off-the-charts, yo.
Conclusion
The process I’ve outlined to you today is not rocket science. This isn’t some complex formula derived in a laboratory somewhere. It’s the rhythm that I use each and every day to build my platform, share great content, and build an online community of go-getters who want to do something with their lives.
If I can do it, you can do it.
Spend a little time setting up a strategic flow and you’ll be off to the races in no time. Build a process so you don’t have to think about. Don’t waste time guessing. Set yourself up to win!
