LA Mastermind

Social Media is great for many reasons (I think that you'll agree). No? But heck, we're all addicted to some extent. Sometimes to the point that it becomes a productivity killer and keeps us away from the day-to-day work that we have to do. With that said, here are…

• Write More Than You Publish. Get in the habit of writing daily (whether you're scheduling 15 min., 30 min., or an hour of your day). If you write more than you publish, that's ok; that's the point.   

• Only Check Email Once. I don't mean like once per day. See, when we check our email(s), we have a tendency to scan back through emails more than once. Get in the habit of checking emails only once. When you open that email, either: 1.) respond, 2.) delegate, or 3.) delete it. I use tags to filter my messages. I also use AwayFind to manage my time spent answering emails (it's a GREAT service!).   

• Perform Social Media Triage. We've talked about this before. This is the process of prioritizing and identifying what tools are going to be most beneficial/resourceful to you. For me it's the blog and Twitter. For you it might be Facebook and your email newsletter.   

• Learn To Scan. I'm subscribed to well over 400 blogs. There isn't nearly enough time in the day to read every single  blog post out there, every article posted on the web, every email and piece of correspondence that comes in the mail. So, learn to scan/skim and look for important bits of information. Categorize your content (I use Google Reader and have folders for different types of blogs) and give yourself a process. For example, I skim through my "Social Media" and "Technology" blogs every morning for 30 minutes searching for new golden bits of information.    

• Read Fewer Blogs/Feeds. I'm not saying that you should go an unsubscribe from a ton of blogs (you could miss out on good information that way). Instead, as noted above, I'm suggesting you learn to skim but also that you spend more time creating your own content (point number one) and less time reading other people's content. 

• Let It Go To Voicemail. This almost seems counterproductive. I've written about this before in a post titled: Answer the Phone! I hate it when people screen their calls and let them go to voicemail. But you know what, it's ok to let it go to voicemail so long as you respond within a reasonable amount of time. What's more, services like Google Voice offer voicemail transcripts (a major productivity win if you ask me). 

It's easy to let social media become nothing more than a time-suck that keeps us away from work and family obligations. My recommendation is to find the tools that make it easier for you to do things, time-block and set boundaries.

REALTORS® often ask me: "How much time should I spend on this social media stuff?" 

My recommendation is 1 – 1.5 hours per day (if that). If you're spending more time than that, you're either doing something wrong or you could be doing something better (in my humble opinion). 

What do you think? 

Any other ideas you'd like to add that I might have missed? How are you managing your social media usage? What works for you? 

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