Is Social Media Just a Time Suck for Agents?

Social media time management is an ever-evolving environment. New tools are coming out every day, and it can be hard to keep up. Furthermore, many of us, including myself, have wondered whether all the hard work will pay off. Bottom line: Leveraging social media correctly in conjunction with the rest of your marketing/business plan will increase your revenue; I saw my income increase exponentially! I will give you five tested tips and tools that will help you efficiently manage your social media.

But first just a few stats for those data-driven agents out there:

• 50 percent of small-business owners reported getting new customers from social media. (CrowdSpring)
• Nearly 80 percent of active Internet users visit social networks and blogs. (Nielsen)
• 91 percent of online American adults (approx. 129 million) access some form of social media each month. (Experian)
• According to an analysis of 4,200 companies by the business consulting giant McKinsey Global Institute, social technologies stand to unlock from $900 billion to $1.3 trillion in value.

Now, on to the goodies.

1) You must be an “iAgent” — and by that I mean, an agent of the Internet. Mobility is key. You need to be able to work from anywhere from your “virtual office.” Whether it be on your laptop, smartphone or tablet, you must be on one of them. The operating system is your choice: Droid or iPhone or Blackberry. All have App stores where you can find Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare, etc.

2) Dashboards. Having all your accounts in one place really is a time saver. I use HootSuite and simply love it! I manage many of my accounts from this one platform (desktop and mobile). There are also others out there like TweetDeck, CoTweet, and Seesmic.

Now, if a dashboard is too overwhelming, try connecting some of your accounts together. For instance, you can use Facebook Connect to connect your Twitter account to your Facebook profile so when you post to Facebook, your posts will feed automatically to your Twitter stream.

And vice versa, you can go into your Twitter account and connect your Facebook profile. INSIDER TIP: Create a personalized #hashtag so you can build an audience around a specific theme, event or discussion topic, and then add that stream to your dashboard.

3) Create a posts bin. It is a very simple tool that many agents don’t think about. When you come across good content to share, save it for later in the posts bin. So, if you have writer’s block or have been busy with customers, you will have ready-made content.

4) Integrate a social media daily checklist. Go here for a great one (and free) via HubSpot to download and personalize. Simple, easy and efficient.

5) Take advantage of alerts apps and tools that go straight to your phone and/or email. Depending on your preference, set them up for daily or weekly timing. My favorites are TweetAlarm, TweetBeep, Facebook Page Weekly Insights Alerts, Repinly, Pinterest Weekly, and Unroll.me.

I hope these tips and tools help you. No more time “suckage” for you!