How to organize your time online
Have you ever watched Hook, the Peter Pan take-off starring Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman? In the movie, there’s a great scene that explores Hook’s immense fear of time. You see, Hook fears his own mortality, and he is surrounded by the boys from Neverland who never grow older. You can’t really blame him for hating the sounds of ticking clocks.
The thing is, I think we all kind of hear that incessant ticking, especially in our online world. There is so much to do, and our online reality, for many of us, is just a small portion of how we spend the time of our lives. There is so much pressure to do everything perfectly, get everything done, and it can all seem a little overwhelming. How do you prioritize this stuff?
If someone tells you they have an answer to that question, be very cautious. Alert system: Orange.
How to spend your time if you want to emphasize engagement
Since we are talking about engagement here, let me offer some suggestions on how to prioritize your time for that channel of Social Media activity. These, by the way, are just suggestions that work for me.
1. Try to have regular person-to-person conversations with at least a couple of people every day. This does not have to be an exploration of War and Peace, by the way. Checking in with people, saying a quick hi – that’s what I’m talking about here. I try to allot 30 minutes at least to this activity a day.
2. Try to make sure you respond to as many comments as you can. I try to get all of my comments answered before I write my next post. I don’t always succeed, and I apologize for that, but I try to keep it pretty close. This of course depends on how many comments you’re getting, but I try to allot 30 minutes at least to this activity a day.
3. Make sure you take some time to promote other people. This means reading blog posts, paying attention when people post big news, and then promoting on Twitter, via your blog, or on Facebook. I try to dedicate about an hour a day doing this.
4. Comment on other peoples’ blog posts. Again, the number of comments and the length of your comments will determine how much time you should dedicate, but I try to spend 30 minutes commenting on posts every day.
5. As you know if you come here often, I feel Tweet Chats are very important. I try to pop in on 2-3 a week, though I don’t always stay for the whole thing. For a week, I’d say I dedicate about 2.5 hours.
So, that’s about 2.5-3 hours every day. I try to do 15 minutes before I go into work, 15-30 minutes at lunch, and the balance after work.
This might sound totally stupid to you
It’s entirely possible that you are looking at how I choose to spend my time and you are thinking that I really don’t know what I’m talking about. Half an hour commenting on other posts? Half an hour just talking to people? Surely there are better ways to spend one’s time. And let’s face it, sometimes conversing online can seem so…ordinary. Talking about food or the weather or your pets or your kids – there’s really no value there, right?
Here’s the thing though. Allotting my time in this way has already paid dividends for my own online experience.
Through chatting on Twitter, I have befriended wonderful people like Danny Garcia, Suzanne Vara, Maya Paveza, and Lisa Alexander.
Because I make sure I promote other people as often as possible, I have gotten to talk to great folks like Jay Baer, Amber Naslund, and Amber Cleveland.
Because I comment on other posts, I have met wonderful people like Mark Schaefer, Dawn Westerberg, Rufus the Dog (!), and Judy Helfand.
Who have I met because of those people? Amber Cleveland introduced me to Kay Whitaker. Amber Naslund introduced me to Tamsen McMahon and Matt Ridings. Maya introduced me to Cate Colgan, who in turn introduced me to Estrella Rosenberg.
I can’t put a dollar sign on the value of meeting these people, but boy, I don’t know what I’d be doing online if I hadn’t met them and many other fine folks. And guess what, there have been doors open to me just by knowing people. Because I know Chris Brogan, I got introduced to the Third Tribe Community, where I met Tommy Walker, who wrote a series here. Because I went into Third Tribe, I got to meet Christy, who is a shining ray of sun in my community now. And because I got to know people like Jeannette Baer, Judi Knight, Joe Ruiz, Kenny Rose, Anne Saulovich, and Ann from Ozio Media, I’m getting a chance to put together a fundraiser for Japan.
That doesn’t seem too dumb to me. But then I’m biased.
Why prioritizing engagement is important
Let’s say you decide that you want to spend a lot of your time working on an e-book. You decide to cut some of your time online to work on it. Fair enough. But if you don’t have solid relationships waiting for you, who is going to want to read your e-book? Who will help you promote it?
Scott Stratten and Lisa Petrilli both have discussed how they brought their Twitter community to their blogs, and that helped them find success with their blogs right out of the gate. To me, that seems like proving the point.
Maybe you have other ideas
I don’t think there’s a right or wrong. My goal is to engage, and I’m passionate about that. But maybe your goal requires you to do things differently. So let’s hear from you now. What are your objectives? How do those shape how you spend your time?
I’d love to hear your thoughts!
This is post #20 in The Engagement Series. If you feel like you might be missing posts here and there, please feel free to hit that “subscribe” button. I promise not to stalk you š
Image by Billy Alexander. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/ba1969
15 Comments
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Just do what I do, spend all your time on Twitter then moan when you can’t move after 8 hours have flown by and you’re still there.
That’s also an option š
Dear Margie –
This is an special post. You really summed up what communication means.
Answering comments is especially important.
As fast as possible. People who take the time to share want to know they are important.
Also –
Do you remember?
We met on Twitter.
Of course I remember š
Glad you liked the post!
nah, this doesn’t sound stupid.
This sounds connected. It’s all too easy to let ourselves live on an island with our work and this is just a good way to remind people to get back out there and spend time with other people… otherwise all that effort you put into creating awesome work falls on deaf ears. (or is it blind eyes?)
And nobody likes that
It could be deaf eyes and blind ears š
Thanks for the comment, Tommy. I agree – connection is the name of the game. Otherwise, you could just write in a paper journal and never share it. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Just sayin š
Stupid? No. The best sales people are the ones that have listened to their audience/target and provide them with something that they need. We buy from people we trust. We gain trust from communicating. So, when we think about it, engaging is the smartest tactic. We can think about in our own lives when someone comes in and tries to sell us before they know us. It infuriates us. So if we are the ones that are running into a crowded room and asking them to buy from us, we are going to be shown the door. Same concept online. If we do not try and get to know people, how they interact with each other, us how can we ever ever achieve our goals?
That’s a great analogy, Suzanne. The traveling salesperson or the cold call on the phone drives us nuts, but if you know someone well and they say, “Hey, btw, you may be able to use this,” well, that’s an entirely different situation, isn’t it?
But how do you get to know that person? You can’t start off with your salesman hat on. You have to start as your own human self. If the person digs you, then step 2 is not far away. If not, they probably never would have bought from you directly anyway, unless they were highly pressed to do so.
Very good analogy indeed!
Margie,
I would think 3+ hours a day “engaging” online sure beats 3+ hours invested in figuring out how to grow one’s business, how to attract more customers, how to improve one’s product/service so that we can put food on the table for our families (those that have them, like myself) and pay our mortgages. But I guess just saying that we met Brogan and Amber, and Scott are worthy returns on our investment of time, yes?
That’s the problem I have with your post and this type of thinking – it ain’t geared towards anything. Engagement seems to be enough. The fact that these people don’t contract your company to provide a service to them nor refer your company to others doesn’t matter. Oh, I know what you’re thinking: “It’s about relationships.” Yes? Well let me finish that sentence for you, because one day you’ll realize this: “It’s about relationships that lead to business.” Friends? That’s gravy – and you only need a few real good ones to get through your whole life.
Maybe right now, where you are in life, engagement is enough. You can write about all the “great” people you’ve met and all the other “great” people they’ve introduced you to and you can “engage” to your heart’s content. But for those of us that run a business, that have families that depend on us, have kids that need to be dropped off at school, picked up then dropped off at coccer practice, etc – engagement for the sake of engaging is a poor investment of time. “My goal is to engage, and Iām passionate about that.” Hmmm…this post really isn’t about organizing your time as much as it is about mismanaging your time.
I’ll bet you a shiny new nickel that if you (and all the star-struck social media enthusiasts out there who live for a Chris Brogan RT) spent your time with the “not-so-social-media-fabulous” people in your own community, using the same “engagement” skills that you display online, you’d find yourself with people that will one day approach you with statements like these: “You know Margie, my company is rolling out a whole new line of skincare products and I think we’re gonna need help with marketing. I’d like to sit down with you and discuss how we can work together on this.” That’s real. That makes you feel good. That other stuff? Castles made of sand.
Maybe your goal is simply to be a blogger. In that case, disregard all that I’ve written because it won’t matter who you know, you’re not gonna make a living blogging anyway. But knowing the “A-Listers” will surely help – for all that’s worth.
How do I want to spend my time? Developing relationships with people who need, can afford, or can refer me business. Along the way, I make plenty of friends. Know why? Because I’m an overall nice guy š
Nuff said.
PS – I know what you’re thinking: “What a meany head!”
Hi Dan,
Thank you for taking the time to write all of that – I appreciate it!
Here’s the thing. Everything that you just said – that fits into the opportunities that engagement can open for you. The opportunity for someone to want to work with you comes from having met them, established a relationship already, and earning their trust.
For example, let’s say that I’m in the business of environmental preservation, and I’ve decided that it would be truly great to have a documentary made about my reserve. Don’t you think the chances are good that you would be in the running right off the bat because I know you? Of course you would.
On the other hand, if I slap up a “help wanted” ad and get 75 documentarians saying, “Pick me,” what reason do I have to pick any of them?
The gift of Social Media and engaging therein is that you can build relationships so that when the opportunity does come down the line, you’re there for it. Does more exposure to more people help? Sure, but only if it’s the right people.
I’m not sure your comment about living for an RT is fair – I think you know me better than that, but in case not – I don’t, and don’t advise it for the reason I just stated above.
Also, 3 hours a week is a pretty puny amount of time, all things told. If you make the most out of all of the rest of those hours, you can do everything you and I are talking about with time to spare to actually watch the kid’s soccer game.
I would never call you a meany head after taking all of that time to comment š
Dang! Did I just write all this?!!!
What I really like about this post Margie is that you’ve clearly outlined one strategy and how much real time you are investing in it. I ran a couple of sessions on Twitter with a local Chamber group, and the question folks inevitably asked was “how much time do I HAVE to spend doing this?” Well, I think it has a lot do with how engaged you want to be (or at least appear to be-lol). Moving forward I can just give them this URL. š
I find the online equivalent of cold calling (the spam DMs and such) to be very crass and they make me cranky. I’m all about promoting the work of the people I meet and talk to, and buying their products/services if I need them. I feel like that sentiment is reciprocal. But it all starts with the relationship. So engagement is high on my priority list on a daily basis as well.
Margie,
thanks for the mention, my time management skills are a bit out of whack right now.
I appreciate the advice. I am having a great time working together on #care4japan, thanks for creating the opportunity.
Best
joe
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