Let’s talk about social media time management. This is part one of a two-part series (Part two will be next week) talking about how to best use your time for social media marketing. Think about your…
- Blog
- Flickr
- Forums
Each of the tools listed above (plus others) can potentially bring you new business or keep you in contact with your existing clients and colleagues. Fortunately, we have 74 hours per day so it’s not a problem to devote quite a bit of time to each of these ventures.
What? You don’t have 74 hours per day? I guess I don’t either, which means we need to make some choices about where to focus. How do you decide where to allocate your time? There’s not a single right answer, but consider the following factors:
Audience (Clients vs. Colleagues): Are you trying to reach new clients? Or do you want to keep up with others in the industry? Photography forums are a lot of fun but they probably won’t lead directly to new clients. Depending on your blog, it could go either way. The same goes for Twitter, depending on how you network. Facebook is generally going to reach your existing contacts. Flickr will reach photographers, but not the general public.
Audience, Part II (Clientele): Does your clientele organically gather on a particular website or service? If you’re shooting senior portraits… you NEED to be on Facebook. The same applies for weddings. If you’re aiming to produce annual report photos for large companies… Facebook might not be the best place to focus.
Permanence: Are you wanting to create content that will be around for a while, picked up by search engines, and lead to longer-term traffic growth? Your blog and Facebook page will give you the opportunity to create more permanent work, while Twitter posts and many forum discussions are more transient. Publishing work to Flickr, SmugMug, Photoshelter, or other portfolio sites is generally a good way to have your images gather some traffic long-term.
Time “Chunks”: Twitter (and Facebook or LinkedIn status updates) allows one to post and interact in short time bursts. In just a couple minutes one can post an update or respond to others. A well-crafted blog post will require more time. Even if you write it in a few sittings, you’ll generally want a dedicated block of time to pull it all together. Where you participate might be dictated by the amount of time you have before interruptions.
Without knowing everything about your business, your goals, and your clients, it’s hard to give you a magic formula of what is the best mix for your online ventures. The factors above should provide some guidance.
Tell me about your split… where do you focus your time?
Photo by nDevilTV, used under Creative Commons licensing
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