How to Avoid Social Media Burnout

Using social media to promote your practice has proven benefits, but may consume too much time if not used properly.  So what can you do to maximize your time on social media and avoid “social media burnout”?  Client development coach, consultant, and attorney Nora Riva Bergman offers the following insightful tips, followed by commentary from my personal experience:

• Create a social media plan, and budget & block your time depending upon your objectives.

Just like any other marketing tool, its important to set a goals and implement steps to achieve that goal. Social media is no different. Most people chose not to use Twitter because they don’t know what to write about. Before using a social media tool, identify who your is audience, and what you want to tell them.  Creating content for social media is akin to writing an article for a legal publication or trade journal, just in smaller chunks and to a personal audience. Once you know what to say and who you want to say it to, schedule time in your calendar to create content, post online, and interact with others.

• Use sharing tools on your sites, and utilities like www.HootSuite.com to easily generate and share content.

Most internet sites (including this blog) having sharing buttons that accompany articles that allow you to quickly and easily share content you believe your social media connections will find interesting or related to your practice area.  These buttons provide you the ability to immediately share content via email, or on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  Applications also exist that allow you to post your own content on all of these major social networking sites at one time. I personally use HootSuite to schedule my tweets through out the week from my computer and iPhone (you can read my tweets at twitter.com/ethanwall).

Efficiency makes any meaningful marketing activity more effective.  Applying this tips will help you use social media more efficiently and effectively, while helping avoid social media burnout when building your online relationships.