Effective social media marketing requires strong multitasking and solid organizational skills. Without these two key requirements, a small business owner can easily become overwhelmed and consumed by a “beast” hungry for zealous attention and fruitless work. Social media marketing is a “beast” that doesn’t promise success or feel the need to apologize for poor results, despite the best efforts of marketers. In fact, Social Media Marketing makes the strongest possible case for planning to work smarter, rather than simply working harder…and longer.

Everyone has a plan. What works best for you?

blogs are full of “What” lessons on “taming the beast”, which we call Social Media Marketing. You don’t have to look far to find blog posts that promise great results from an hour’s daily engagement on social media. Isn’t this possible? I think it is; depending on a number of unique variables starting with having a realistic set of goals and expectations. What works well for some may not work so well for others. So don’t be disappointed if what he read somewhere wasn’t the panacea he hoped it would be. Your situation may require a completely different approach.

Let me tell you what works for me. I can’t guarantee that it will work for you, but it can at least be a starting point for your own social media effectiveness tests. Along with the advice of others, some personal adjustments can result in creating a workable plan uniquely for you and your business.

In my role as the Director of Social Media for a growing web design company, I am charged with directly contributing to the corporate marketing effort, as well as assisting the many small business owners who purchase their new websites from my company. My primary goals are to increase awareness of the company’s brand, as well as “chat” with our customers and prospects, to better understand their needs and assist them in their own social media marketing efforts.

These are fairly modest goals with an expected ROI measured primarily in customer smiles and business compliments. For a company that is young and relatively new to social media, my company is confident that it has started in exactly the right place with the right approach and a reasonable set of expectations. Let me explain more about our use of social media.

Limit your options to broaden your appeal

We find that Facebook and Twitter work particularly well for us. We focus most of our attention on these two sites, in addition to the regular blogs we do. If you know where your general target audience is “spend time,” you have to go there and invite everyone else to join you. These places, along with your own website, become your “home base”… your primary residence, so to speak. If one has too many houses to maintain, it becomes very expensive and time consuming. This is also true on social media for those who try too hard. So if Facebook is your primary choice, you don’t need to apologize for not participating in MySpace as well. Just make sure you direct everyone to where they can usually find you (on the Web) and they will eventually get there, as long as you offer them some real value.

Once you’ve established your “home base,” consider what your presence will look like once there. In other words, “when can you most often be found at home?”

They say the best time to tweet is 9:00 am PST (Pacific Standard Time). They also say that the best time to re-tweet is 4:00 pm EST on Fridays. These recommendations offer an educated framework to consider for “planning when to be home” in social networks. In fact, there are plenty of free automation software available, such as “twitter” Y “Hoot Suite” to schedule tweets for when you’re not physically available on the web. However, my recommendation is to use these programs very sparingly. They are increasingly seen as very impersonal. They are often presented more as annoying sales tools than true relationship builders.

Every day, I schedule about three Social Media sessions for myself. Each session lasts about thirty minutes. I base my activity on user peak times reported in online studies. My online sessions are often supplemented by additional tweets and posts throughout the day as I receive interesting news and tips. That’s why I keep Twitter and Facebook minimized on my laptop all day.

Every morning after calling up my web browser, I open four screens before minimizing three of them. In operation at the same time are:

1.Twitter

2. My Facebook Group (Social Media Marketing for Small Businesses)

3. Bit.ly (a URL shortener tool)

4Google.

Next, I search Google News for a short list of topics to share with our audience.

Provide value to your audience and they will give you (their) attention

My company shares the latest news and tips on social media, small business, website design, and charity programs. Searches are refined to “breaking” results to help ensure we’re among the first to tweet and post this news. In fact, rather than burden followers and “friends” with article links, I carefully review each item to determine its content value and any citable quotes from the editors in the article or post. Often the best quotes come from people we haven’t heard of before and what they have to share, in just a few words, sums up the entire article containing their views. Make no mistake, quotes are highly retweetable. Just be sure to give each quote a related category with a hashmark up front (ie #smallbusiness) so others can search for it, easily find it on Twitter, and attribute it to you, like your original Tweeter.

Beyond the sound bytes, any article or publication we read has intellectual value. We agree or disagree with its content. It’s a definite learning experience for us and often the source of good discussion. So, we gain something to internalize and share with others in the form of a Tweet; retweeted; a Facebook post; an email to someone we know; or it could even become the subject of our next blog article. And, while we’re at it, we can comment on the article or post we’re reading; leaving behind our professional footprint and a valuable backlink to our own website.

With the aforementioned four screens available on my desktop, I essentially become a social media production company. I can create split screens and multitask with the information I’m working with in several different ways. At the same time that I may be tweeting some memorable quote, I may also be amplifying the same thought with an insightful, and sometimes provocative post for my Facebook group audience. The social networks of the thinking man at its best.

If a link is particularly long and takes up too many Twitter characters, Bit.ly is also open and ready to create short URLs. Keeping these few platform screens and tools open throughout the day saves time and allows for a smooth and constant flow of content from reading to analysis to posting to commenting. Since much of this also influences analytics, measurement is also possible through Google Analytics and other similar programs.

Common sense wins the day

None of this is rocket science. It is mainly based on the individual and collective user experience. All the technology is here and we just have to consider how best to use it to achieve our unique goals. There are even better ways to do the things I just described. I’m sure you and others will find them through your own exploration, trial and error. Meanwhile, my system works for me. There is no right or wrong, only satisfaction. If you’re comfortable with a plan that gives you the results you’re looking for, that’s three-quarters of the challenge.