Do you have a bit of a social networking time crunch? Do not know where to start? Do you really have to listen to all these different gurus, clients, and partners who are telling you that you need to be on social networking every day? Well, let’s start with what you hopefully already know. You know that Facebook is not a book of different Faces, Twitter has nothing to do with the birds, and LinkedIn is not a bunch of chains connected to each other inwardly. Other than that, you have no clue what to do? How do you get started?

Social Networking Time Crunch Guide

First, get set up by checking out some of these posts that I did on starting up your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts. Instead of me blabbering on about how to set up your profiles again, check out some of my previous blabberings to learn the basics of social networking.

Facebook 101

Twitter 101

LinkedIn 101

Social Networking Time Crunch Relief

Now that you have your accounts set up and you understand how to use social networking, it is time to create a plan that works for you every day. So start by looking at our post Social Networking Plan. This will provide you with a good idea of what you need to do every week to begin attracting business from these major sites.

Additionally, keep in mind that you probably only need 15 minutes every day of social networking activity to get the ball rolling. In those 15 minutes you could do all of some of the following:

1. Put out a short 140 characters or less daily update on Ping.fm that goes out to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn all at once.  Ping will then automatically send out your info to these three sites simultaneously. What to talk about? News in your industry, links to important information, tell a joke (I hear people like to laugh), provide something of value, and last and maybe least the occasional offer (BTW, what do you think of my new temporary banner? Needs to be updated, because I got no Photoshopping skills).
2. Comment on 3 people’s Facebook posts (clients, not friends), Retweet three prospective clients posts and answer 1 question on LinkedIn (Assuming there are 365 days in a year and you do 1 answer a day 5 days a week that is 260 answers in one year).
3. Check on all your social networking sites to see if someone had a comment on your posts, tweets, and updates.
4. Search for 5 new friends, 10 new followers, and 5 new connections. Or just join a relevant group on Facebook and LinkedIn that will provide those relevant connections, friends, and followers. For Twitter use Twitter search to find relevant followers.
5. Give something of value. (I blog valuable information regularly. Unless you do not like my blog. Then you probably stopped reading a few paragraphs ago and I can tell you Nah! Nah! boo! boo! this info is valuable to you!)

Now, before you get overwhelmed, please realize that you do not need to do all of these steps every day. The social networking weekly plan lists how to break this down every week. The biggest issue is to just do something of value even with your social networking time crunch.