Treat Social Media Tasks As You Would Brushing Your Teeth

Why the analogy? As I was clicking reading and sorting through my Twitter account and deciding which people to follow and others to unfollow, it occurred to me that the task was something I really had to do or I would end up with a cavity in the number of followers. Often writers and others find that they will do the required work for a few weeks or even just a few days, then let the work slip. A little slippage at the beginning, then a little more, and finally not really paying attention to what needs to be done for the long-haul.

Does this seem familiar to you?

I have gone through this process many, many times and wish I had taken better control of my Social Media presence and did my daily tasks as a part of my morning routine, just like I do with brushing my teeth. I brush my teeth for several reasons, hygiene and I really don't like visits to the dentist that end up with a cavity or two. Social Media routines, like tooth brushing, are the only way to stay on top of your marketing efforts.

Sure there are best practices that make the routine easier, but the foundation is a regular set of tasks for maintenance, and another set of tasks for building.

Here are some suggestions for the routines that will help you maintain and build your audience:

1. Set aside time in the morning (or when it is easy for you to attend to the task).

I suggest at least 45 minutes but an hour would be better. This is the time when you will focus only on your Social Media platform maintenance and building tasks.

2. Choose one Social Media Platform to work on each day. If you have the time, you can work on

2. I would not suggest more because the tasks will become onerous and not likely to be done in the long run. One platform works well and once the tasks become routine, you will have an easier time with getting it done.

3. Make a list of what tasks need to be completed for each platform. I am not talking about regular postings here. I am talking about maintaining and building your audience.

4. Decide on which tasks are repetitive and put those into your morning routine.

For example, when I work on my Twitter audience, I do the following:

a) Login to Twitter

b) Click on my list of followers and follow back any new followers if I feel they are a good fit for my target audience. Note that I do not follow people back automatically as I want to build a target audience not a general audience. On top of that, I often get followers who are trying to sell me list building, buying followers, using their services and products, and other assortments of items that do not fit my overall marketing strategy. I am sure you have lots of those around as well.

c) I need use an application on the web called unfollower stats. So, my next task is to bring up the site and logon with my Twitter account.

d) This software has many benefits (all free) and I use a few of them. I go to the InActive Users menu and then unfollow people who have not used their accounts for the past 30 days. I see no point in following people if they are not active and I cannot reach them with my tweets. As you are limited to 1000 new follows a day, I limit myself to removing people and stay under my limit. My arm gets sore so I tend to unfollow around 400 or 500 at a time. This takes my only 6 or 7 minutes to achieve.

e) Now I spend time following people in my target audience. Sometimes I locate lists of my target audience and follow everyone on the list until my follows are exhausted and other times I follow people who have followed my competition. This is another set of lessons on how to do this but if you are using Crowd fire app or unfollower stats, the process is part of their service. There are many other places you can go to do the same thing. This generally takes me another 150 to 20 minutes.

5. Keep track of the time you are spending. If you go over the 45 minute mark, make note of it and try to cut down on what you do for the session. I find anything that goes over that 45 minutes will generally not get done in the long run. The goal here is to not overdo anything but to automate your tasks in some manner. If you wish, you can hire a virtual assistant, or find other ways to automate the tasks.

6. One final item on the list, take the time to respond to those that message you. In Twitter it is called a Direct Message. I always look through the messages to see which ones are automated and which ones are genuine connections. It is the genuine connections where I add a reply. This takes only a few minutes but well worth it.

Although I only talked about Twitter, you can use the same process with Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr and others. A word of caution, only put a routine together for the mundane tasks, the ones that are groaners if you had to do them all day. The other tasks such as posting your latest blog article, adding comments, etc. can be part of a routine, but I find that for me, at least, they happen when I finish an article.

Good luck on getting your Social Media routines in place.