Social Media Triage

How many social networks do you belong to? Ok, now many of those networks do you actively engage in? Interesting. But just remember, you don’t need ALL the tools, you just need the right ones!

PERFORMING THE ACT OF TRIAGE

In medical terms, the act of performing triage is the process of sorting through victims in order to determine their medical priority. It’s done to see who gets tended to first in order to maximize the number of survivors.

In the case of your social media business strategy, we’re performing the act of triage in order to assess which tasks and activities have priority over others. This process becomes especially important to the solo-practitioner since you’re the entrepreneur, the manager, AND the technician behind You, Inc. The day-to-day stuff still needs to get done for the checks to get cashed at the end of the day. So in short, time is money!

Breaking It Down

I’ve signed up for a variety of social networks but I only actively participate in a few. I allocate my time to the ones that are most effective for me and you should too. So here’s what you do…

1. Make A List: whether it’s a Word Document or Excel Spreadsheet doesn’t matter; just be sure you can print it. You want to list them in order of priority (with the highest at the top of the list of course).

2. Calendar Your Time: it might sound silly but it works! The more you budget your time, the better off you’ll be. Think about it, the day-to-day stuff isn’t going to get done if you’re on Facebook all day. Is it? What you want to do is determine how much time you want to spend on each of your *high priority* networks (whether it’s once a day or 2-3 times a week).

With a little discipline and some added time management, you’ll find you’re more productive. Don’t let this social media stuff become nothing more than a time-suck. Strategize and execute. Be tactful and make the most efficient use of your time on-line. And remember, it’s not about how many friends you have or how many networks you’re a part of. It’s more about “is any of this translating into business contacts for me?” If it is, keep doing it. If it isn’t, it’s time to rethink that strategy.

– Name the social network,
– How it relates to your business and/or niche,
– Are you looking to attract consumers or does it serve a professional networking interest?

3. Drop the Dead Weight: I should preface this by saying that your profiles across various networks needs to remain consistent andcomplete. When you have the opportunity to link back to your home blog, do so. Every network that you subscribe to will leave a digital imprint on the web. If and when you decide to dump a network because it’s not producing any results for you, at least the information you’ve published is up-to-date and directs people to “home base” (your blog).

– Just ask yourself: “how much time do I realistically need to spend on this network on a daily basis?” Then label your spreadsheet accordingly.

So, how many social networks do you belong to? How many of those networks are you active on?

Do you have any time management tips for the rest of us?

[Photo Credit: fredcavazza]