Here’s a question that I get asked a lot – how much time should I spend on _______ (insert Twitter, Facebook, social bookmarking, blogging, etc). You can easily get overwhelmed by the mirad of tasks and changes required to keep up with social networking and marketing online.

I’ve always struggled with that question. Why? Because the answer depends on you, your stats and your working style. I’m a person who works in spurts. I have inspiration and I try to drop everything and go. If not I forget what I was going to do or I lose the passion of my ideas that drives me.

You on the other hand may be a very organized person who organizes your day and likes routine.

Either way my answer is to do what you like doing the most first and establish a pattern. If you love writing, blog. If you like it quick and easy, tweet. If you have a loyal following of fans, start a Facebook Page. If you have video start a YouTube channel or group. If you have pictures, start with Flickr. If you have a lot of content that needs more traffic,  start with social bookmarking.

Spend time every day learning, building and testing marketing on the site. Give it a month and look at your stats. Yes, you need to have Google analytics installed. Do this now. Hire it done. It’s free it’s so valuable that you shouldn’t be online without having it. If you have a WordPress blog the easiest is using the plugin Ultimate Google Analytics. You sign up, get a certain number, enter it in the settings (GA Settings) and save it. It does the rest. You can now see how people find your blog – from search engines, other web sites and keywords.

Ask yourself, what is working? How do you know what is working? I look at the top web sites and keywords that bring people to my blog. Then I see how much time each source averages per visit. The ones that are working will not only find your content but stay on your site (a sign they like what they see and want to learn more).

Then try another social networking or marketing activity. If it’s press releases, give it 6-8 months of regularly sending out news before you give up. Most marketing is going to take that long to start seeing results. If you want something faster, paid ads (PPC) is best but what a learning curve!

Next I’ll go over ways to guage your time and align it with what is working best for your business. Then you’ll be able to answer (not guess or listen to an “expert” tell you) how long to spend on social media marketing.

Leave a Reply