Welcome to social media week here on asmithblog.com. The whole week will focus mainly on twitter, but that’s because I spend most of my time there. I hope you learn something from my online experiences and I know I will learn something from you as well. I am no expert at social media by a long shot, but I have had some good things come from it. I have made numerous connections online and have also increased blog traffic. Social media has been very beneficial, but let me tell you something –
Social media takes time.
Right now I spend about two hours a day working on building my online brand. When I first started twitter I was spending approximately 4 to 5 hours per day growing my community. But, if this is what you’re determined to do, then by all means make it happen. This next week I will share just some of my insight on social media. But, if you don’t care about having more traffic to your website, then don’t bother reading this guide to help you make time for social media.
SCHEDULE TIME PROPERLY
I have found this to be extremely important for twitter and blog users. When you post to twitter or your blog, you are wanting to reach all time zones to maximize tweet and blog viewings. My premium time to tweet in the mountain time zone is 8-11am. This is because I am hitting California, which is one hour behind me, as well as central and east coast time zones at a maximized viewing time. Between 7am-12pm is peak traffic time for twitter. If you can reach all time zones between these times, then you will see optimum traffic to your twitter profile and website. No matter where you are, 1pm-5pm are twitter’s slowest times of the day. Traffic drops off by almost 45%. After that, you hit twitter’s night rush, 5pm-10pm. This range of time goes for any time zone. This being said, I save the material I want to get a lot of views for twitter’s morning and night rush.
PLAN AHEAD
Always think about what you are wanting to tweet or blog about next. This way you are maximizing time, because you already know what is going to happen. Also, set aside time to reply to the people that respond to your blog or tweets.
SCHEDULING TWEETS
Hootsuite makes it easy to schedule tweets via desktop or through their iPhone app. It works great for people with busy schedules who can’t find the time to tweet.
TWEETS TO FACEBOOK
Something that can also save time is the ability to send tweets to facebook instead of copy/paste. Here are the directions on how to do that. If you want to only send some tweets to Facebook, here is how you can do that.
As you can see, social media needs to be done strategically to accomplish the results that you want to see. But, I can guarantee that it will pay off to put thought into everything you do online.
What do you think about these tips to help you make time for social media? Is there anything you can add to this list?
Yeah, I'm looking forward to this week. I know I'm seriously lacking in the twitter department. I'm more about blog commenting right now – that's where I spend a lot of time online.
The main reason I've not gotten into twitter is because I haven't seen much conversion. Right now, comments have a better ROI for me. There's a ton of twitter tips out there, but I'm looking more for an overall strategy that will convert.
So yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing what you have to say. Thanks so much.
-Marshall Jones Jr.
My recent post Top 10 places to find your ministry
awesome man. comments do have good short term return but growing a community on something like twitter is something that has given me more long term traffic.
this is probably my longest post ever