Everyone always asks me how much time I spend on Social Media, and is it worth it. I Am here to tell you that it definitely is worth every minute I spend on tweeting, blogging, updating, etc. I probably spend fifteen to twenty minutes a day keeping up with social media. If I am adding in a blog post, I might spend more – if I have a heavy load of commitments to clients and training meetings I might spend less, but on average I spend fifteen to twenty minutes a day.
What do I get for my time spent on Social Media you ask, I have a community of people on Twitter, that when I have a question, they will answer for me, they have amazing insights into things I might not, and best yet, they refer business to me. By posting interesting tidbits and links to articles of relevant information, I make myself a useful resource on Twitter. Yes, they refer business to me! My fans on my Facebook Fan Page, while few in number, have access to a portfolio and a “sampling” of my thoughts and posts. Not to mention that Facebook, if it were a country, would be the fourth largest country in the world, don’t you want to be “listed” as a part of the “country”?
Plaxo and LinkedIn are interesting places to be a part of, I admit, I am not that active in Plaxo. I tend to post a status update once a day, and check the status e-mails every week to see what is going is new and to send out birthdays (I love their birthday card feature!). LinkedIn is great for not only keeping up with what is going on with all of my contacts, but for the Groups feature, where you can either run a Group or join a Group. Either way you can easily become known as an expert in your field by replying to discussions that are posted, starting your own discussion within that group or submitting a news item for that group. LinkedIn also let’s you answer questions, posted by other members which let’s you establish yourself as an expert in your field.
