So how much time SHOULD I spend on Social Media sites each day?
Having worked in the SME world for a little while now, I have become familiar with numbers of executives wanting to shift into the online space but are fearful of the time spent doing social when really their conscience is telling them that they should be concentrating on generating revenue.Â
When I sat down with them initially, I Â would always make it clear that social was not for the faint hearted and like the success of any relationship, it required an investment in time, listening, patience, collaboration, equality and a genuine approach. After all, no one tends to let false friends stick around for long.
We would advise them that they cannot pay lip service to this and as my colleagues always say, there is nothing worse than a blog or a Twitter account that had its first flurry of activity in 2011 and posted nothing since then. What does that say to people that are keen to follow you? Â Well amongst other things, that they are not really that serious about collaborating with their customers online.Â
After some head scratching, they would take a deep breath and ask...."So how much time should I spend on Social Media sites each day?"
In 2009, CEO of Human Business Works, Chris Brogan, gave really great advice which very much applies today. Â
"The way I’d do it is to break it up into 4 chunks, and then you decide the amount of hours to devote (2 hours a day is a minimum for MOST efforts).
 •               1/4 for Listening – Start your day by listening and finding what the world is saying about you, your competitor, your marketplace, etc. Need help with listening? In this space, I also count reading (reading other people’s blogs and other online materials).
•               1/2 for Commenting/Communicating – Spend time commenting and replying back to people on the various channels where they reach you. If that’s Twitter, email, or wherever you hang out, fine. In the commenting timeframe, I also include sharing. Be sure to tweet links to great articles, use StumbleUpon, Delicious, Facebook share, and all the other various tools that help people find the good stuff.Â
•               1/4 for Creating – Your efforts in content creation are every bit as important as your connectivity and communication. This might include blogging, making video or audio, creating email newsletters, and anything else you’re building to contribute something to the space. It might be posting those event photos in Flickr and on Facebook."
 But what if the thought of spending two hours a day dedicated to developing your online brand is still far too overwhelming? Here are three simple steps I tend to pass on which hopefully make the journey more comfortable.
Start by allocating 30 minutes of your day to devote to online brand building. That means blocking out time in your diary so that it becomes a habit.Â
Spend 15 of those minutes listening in on a couple of communities - This could be your company's social media pages, your Twitter feed or one of the LinkedIn groups.
Make one posting on your Twitter feed (this could be a fresh Tweet created by you or you can re-tweet someone else’s content) and one into a group (if there is an appropriate conversation to join) and see what happens.
Before long you will want to be engaging for at least two hours a day.
Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions @melanieheath Â
