Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace … I sometimes wonder what I did with all my time before these existed. (And when I want to really get creative, I start to wonder what I did with my time before email existed – but that’s another story.)
As great as these sites are, I sometimes regret how much time they take away from everything else. Entering these sites can be a little bit like entering a black hole. They can suck you in all too easily.
Apparently, 11% of us use social networks and I expect that number to grow rapidly. As social media becomes more prevalent, it makes sense for us to develop a strategy on how to manage this time.
People often ask me how much time they should be spending on these social sites. Like any good consultant, I answer them in a very specific way: “It depends.”
It depends on 3 Simple Things.
1. What are your goals for each site:
Clearly, we use different social media sites for different reasons. Our goals may include one or more of the following:
- Connecting with friends and colleagues
- Having some laughs
- Promoting our business
- Developing new business
- Learning something new
- Networking
2. How do these goals compare to other goals?
Let’s say that your primary goal with social media is to develop new business. You may have several other activities focused on the same goal: meeting people for coffee/lunch, preparing for a presentation, attending networking events, etc.
It’s important to have a sense of how these different activities contribute to our ultimate goal. I know one professional that attributes 50% of the business she generated last year to people she re-connected with on LinkedIn. Impressive. Clearly, spending time on LinkedIn is worthwhile for her.
But the other 50% of her business was generated through other activities – activites that also need her time and attention.
3. How much time do you have?
As much as I’ve tried to challenge this fact, we only have 24 hours to work with each day. Social media sites are just one thing we’re trying to fit into our busy days.
I encourage people to determine how much time they want to dedicate to each of their key priorities. Building on the example above, let’s say that we’ve allocated approximately five hours per week to business development. And perhaps of that time, we decide that it makes sense to dedicate about one hour per week to social media. This gives us about 10 minutes per day. Wow – doesn’t sound like much when we break it down, does it?
4. What is your ROI?
We can always add more time, but it takes away from something else. As busy people, we always need to ask ourselves whether the trade-off is in our best interest.
Professionals are constantly asking themselves what the ROI (return on investment) is for financial investments. The same should apply to ‘time’ investments.
When we find ourselves spending a great deal of time on something – like social media sites – it’s important to periodically assess whether we’re satisfied with our ROI. This should help to tell us when enough is enough.
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