If you have been learning more about social media, you know that it can be incredibly valuable for growing your business. You've probably also realized that, while inexpensive, it can take a tremendous amount of time...and time is money! At MatchedMarketing, we recommend that even small businesses looking to generate leads from the internet attempt to “be social” for at least 1-2 hours per day. Companies with a highly-competitive market will require even more time.

First lets talk about why you should spend time on social media. For the answer, remember these three C's:

• Connect – You want to use social media networks to build your own personal network. Treat the time you spend on these social networks the same way you make time to attend chamber events, tradeshows and seminars.
  
  
• Credibility – It is important that your prospects see that you “know your stuff.” In the traditional world of marketing, you would have accomplished this goal through public speaking, writing a book or making presentations. You do the same on the internet through posting articles on your blog and e-books on your site.
  
  
• Capture – In terms of building your presence online, it is probably important to you that your website rank high for certain search results. By spending time on social media, you will not only find that your comments are now indexed on search engines like Google, but you will also be building links into your site which are a tremendous factor in search engine rank.

Now lets talk about the main point of this article, how to really maximize your time spent on social media. Here are 10 tips to help you save time on social media activities:

1. Bookmark your favorite blogs so you can quickly find good places to comment and generate ideas for article topics you want to add to your own blog. Search for blogs that accept comments by adding “comment” to the tail end of your keywords blog search.
   
   
2. When you write a blog, keep it short, 250 words is fine.
   
   
3. Skip the picture. Blogs that have photos may get a better response, but if you are spending hours looking for the right image and it prevents you from blogging again, it is better to skip this step. You'd benefit more from having three blog posts with no pictures, than one with a great picture.
   
   
4. When in a pinch for blog content, choose an article you found interesting and just write a summary of the article as your blog opener, then link to that article to give your reader more information.
   
   
5. Use onlywire.com to bookmark your blogs on multiple sites all at once.
   
   
6. Use HootSuite to set up and schedule your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter status updates for the week.
   
   
7. Use other tools like Ping.fm (similar to HootSuite) that can be accessed through your cell phone for updating on the go!
   
   
8. Set-up a private Twitter list to watch what your competitors and favorite Twitter people are saying and ReTweet their messages when in need of good, quick status updates.
   
   
9. Search LinkedIn Answers on LinkedIn for a topic you know a lot about and answer questions to build credibility and find prospects.
   
   
10. If it's easier for you to express your knowledge verbally rather than writing it, GREAT! Get a video camera (maybe your computer has one built in) and record yourself speaking for less than 3 minutes and post the video on YouTube, then write a 1-3 sentence opening summary and post the YouTube video's HTML code into your blog so visitors can watch your message instead of reading.

There are many more great tips we could share for ways to save time with your social media, but the best time saver of all? Hire MatchedMarketing to manage your social media for you! We work best with small to medium-size companies and would love to help you get started on your way.

Remember, the best way to find clients is through building your network connections. Use these time-saving internet marketing ideas to realize more internet connections with less effort.

Photo provided by Aaron Geller