The amount of time we spend on social media can be daunting. With Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and so much more, it’s nearly impossible to get in, get out and get on with what you’re really supposed to be doing.
Twitter is an integral part of most of our social media strategies; however, like the other platforms, it’s easy to get caught up in the “social” aspect of the platform. Try this system to spend less time managing Twitter.
All it really takes is about twelve minutes a day. It’s best to break it up into a few segments.
Beginning of the Day
- Respond to new followers (a quick thank you) and “real” direct messages. If you’re like me, I completely ignore the spammy “Buy my stuff” direct messages. Time – 2 minutes.
- Scan through your timeline or lists and retweet four of five tweets from your network. Time – 1 minute.
- Schedule a tweet for your most recent blog post or other content that you’re posting for the day. Time 1 minute.
- Total Time – 4 minutes
Afternoon
- Acknowledge @you tweets. Time – 1 minute.
- Favorite a few tweets and retweet other important content (like Indies Unlimited!). Time – 1 minute.
- Find four to five new people to follow from your timeline. Time – 1 minute.
- Total Time – 3 minutes
Evening
- Acknowledge @you tweets. Time – 1 minute.
- Scan your lists and engage in any interesting conversations. Time – 2 minutes.
- Schedule a few tweets to go out later in the night or first thing in the morning. Time -2 minutes.
- Total Time – 5 minutes.
There you have it, Twitter on twelve minutes a day. The key, of course, don’t get lost in your feeds.
As with any activity, if you have a schedule and an objective, you’ll be more efficient and productive—what we do on a daily basis to promote our writing follows the same laws. With this type of schedule, you’ll prevent those times that you look up at the clock and realize you just wasted 45 minutes.
The beauty of this is you’ll acquire new relationships daily, share other people’s content, converse with others and share your own content without being spammy.
Take twelve minutes a day to increase your followers and watch your platform grow exponentially with the perfect balance of sharing your own content while promoting others.
This sounds very manageable. I end up on too many roads sightseeing, maybe this will work for me. Thanks Jim, you still have a lot of noodles in the pot. I know weird, just something my mom use to say to me??
Thanks Aron. I hope my noodles aren’t all wet!
Good info. Thanks.
Thanks, Phillip.
You make it sound sooo easy. I’m afraid I’m not so disciplined and am too easily side-tracked. I will try, though. Rather than your 12 minutes, I might try for 30 minutes, which would still be a lot less time than I spend now.
That’s the problem, were way too easily sidetracked. If you shoot for 12 and end up at 24 minutes, not so bad. If you go in without a plan and end up at an hour, that’s where the trouble begins. Thanks for sharing.
The non-stop book promos kind of annoy me. I’m deleting these people. I’d rather be a fleeting glimpse someone catches hold of than a massive wave of eye-mudslide.
Of course, I bet these constant book pounders are selling a ton. Good, I hate their faces anyway, and I never asked, really, to see them.
That was a semi-rant. It is now over.
I rant with you, Kenyon. I completely ignore the constant book promo’s. Don’t count on the fact that they sell a ton. Most people who do don’t spam your social media feeds. They spam because they aren’t selling.
Interesting conversation to have, though. I use twitter to promote my book. I hope I do it in such a way that I’m not annoying people, and if I am, they are more than welcome to unfollow me. That being said, I’d MUCH rather see tweets about fellow authors’ books, promotions, signing events, etc. than drivel like what someone had for breakfast, details on someone’s errand list for the day, or (worst of all) political rants. Just my humble opinion, though, and I completely respect differing views. 🙂
I wish it was that easy for me, Jim. With sometimes more than 300 @ notifications a day, I’ve been forced to flee Twitter Monday through Thursday, and Sunday. It all went downhill when about 20 of my Twitter supporters started using automatic retweet services which retweet everything I tweet, including thank you’s to other tweeters and often even conversations. In addition, there are Twitter friends who voluntarily tweet my book every day for no reason other than their incredible generosity. Authors have to be the most generous people in the world, but I’m drowning in generosity. On Friday and Saturday I spend at least two hours each day catching up – even after occasional visits to reciprocate during the week. Is there anybody else who is experiencing this?
JP, thanks for your insight. I use “Mention” to help me get through the numbers. I can click through and find what I need to very quickly. Sure, the numbers can be daunting and many times I don’t get back to everyone. I’ve experienced the same thing with the auto RT’s and quite frankly, if it’s coming to me automated, I usually ignore.
Thanks, Jim. Never heard of Mention before. I’ll check it out. Glad you brought this topic up. Hope you forgive my little rant. 🙂
Sounds like a great plan, Jim, thank you. I’ve been looking for better ways to make connections on Twitter.
Thanks, Laurie!
You must be a really speedy tweeter, Jim, if you can do all that in the time you say. It would take me five minutes to find most of that stuff, let alone read and process it.
It strikes me that Twitter, FB and interest are the biggest time wasters in my life.
Ian, you might want to use a free tool like Tweetdeck, Hootesuite, or Mention to help you save time. With those systems, you can quickly identify who’s talking to you and respond quickly. You’ll be surprised at how fast you can handle the volume.
My downfall is getting absorbed by the content and going on tangents.
Great advice, Jim.
Good stuff, Jim, thanks. I signed up for Hootsuite but I forget to use it, and for some reason Mention has been sporadic about sending me notices. What I end up doing mostly is checking the @ notifications on my phone periodically during the day — which means I’m not using Twitter to its potential.