Photo credit: Rebecca Bollwitt, courtesy of Flickr CC 2.0
A long-admired editing colleague of mine, Katharine O’Moore-Klopf of KOK Edit fame, allowed me to post the schedule she regularly follows to keep up with each of her social media accounts and blog. I wish I were this disciplined!
She’ll be in Baltimore on October 1, 2011 at Communication Central’s Build Your Business conference, leading the session “Using Social Media to Enhance Expertise and Attract Clients.” If you can be there, you should–Katharine’s experience is always worth benefiting from.
First, let me say there’s no universally accepted schedule for engaging properly in social media. This is my own, and following this schedule, I spend approximately 1.5 hours on any given weekday on marketing activities, excluding e-mail. That time is spread out in bits and pieces.
Back in the olden days, I’d have spent about that much time going to the library and researching potential clients, and then coming home to type up inquiries on my typewriter to snail-mail. These days I rarely see the need to send snail mail, prospecting e-mails, or make cold calls.
As they arrive: Answer messages that require reply (e.g., from clients). Keep your e-mail program open during the workday but use tools to control how much time you spend on e-mail. (For example, I have set up an e-mail rule to play a certain sound when a message from any of my clients arrives, and another rule to play a different sound when my husband sends me a text message. Messages from colleagues, friends, and other people arrive unheralded by sounds so that I can ignore them until I take a work break.)
Your business web site
Each day: check that your web site loads properly and hasn’t been hacked.
Once a month: check that all outgoing links work; consider using an automated link-checking service if your site is large.
Once a month: read all site text for needed updates. (If you maintain a page or section of resources on your site, as I do, check it once a week for needed updates.)
Your blog
Post at regular intervals.
Once a day: check to make sure that it hasn’t been hacked.
Your LinkedIn profile
At least once a week: update your LinkedIn status, read the digest-style e-mail about updates to your LinkedIn network, comment on some people’s status updates, and answer questions in your areas of expertise or in your LinkedIn groups.
Your Facebook profile (if you use one to market your business as I do)
Once a day or once every two days: update your status.
At least twice a week: post an interesting link to your wall with a little commentary.
At least twice a week: check your Facebook friends’ or fans’ statuses by clicking Home on the toolbar atop your profile. Post to their walls.
At least twice a weekday: Tweet something.
How do I remember all this? I live and die by calendar reminders. Without them, I’d never remember to do the more infrequent tasks. The rest becomes habit after a few days or weeks of calendar reminders.
Katharine O’Moore-Klopf, ELS, has been in publishing for 27 years. For the first 11, she was a production editor for various publishers. Since then she’s been a full-time freelance copyeditor. She is a medical editor with a specialty in editing manuscripts written by non-native speakers of English. Her editing has helped researchers in more than 20 nations get published in more than 30 different medical journals. She is also creator and curator of the Copyeditors’ Knowledge Base, which is housed within her business web site. On Twitter, she is @KOKEdit.
Learn to earn online! You asked for it, so here it is: a crash course in how to find the good-paying online writing gigs. My next webinar will be How to Make Good Money Writing Online. It’s scheduled for May 24 at 2 pm PST/5 EST. My co-presenter is the lovely Carol Tice of Make a Living Writing.
I don’t know why all these is so much exciting news yet each time I read a post, I am left with a feeling of being swamped. It is like those dreams that start out so well then somewhere a locomotive in full speed emerges from no where and rashes at you; and there you are: immobile and voiceless, powerless to make a move!
This proves one thing to me. I still have a lot of leg work to do before the precious dollars begin flowing in. Well, I set out to be a writer twenty years ago, I am not about to throw the baby out with the bath water NOW. I just must tighten my belt, pull up my socks and roll up my sleeves to do battle in social media
Tom Mboya recently posted..Ever More No More
Social media certainly can be overwhelming, Tom, but it is doable–and don’t worry, it’s not as difficult a battle as it may appear. I wish you well on your writing journey.
T. Shakirah Dawud recently posted..An Interview With The “Comment Queen”
Tom, diving into something new can definitely seem intimidating. I developed a schedule for using social media exactly because it seemed that there were so many things to remember to do. A schedule takes the “Oh my goodness–where do I start?” feeling away, along with the “Oh my goodness–where do I stop?” feeling.
Thanks. How did you know I struggle with this? Never even thought to check my pages for hackers. Now I know!
Hi, Carol,
When I saw that tip from Katharine, I thought guiltily about the amount of time I let slip without even glancing at my own website. I wonder if there’s any applications out there that function as checkers and alarms for invasion (I use WordPress).
T. Shakirah Dawud recently posted..An Interview With The “Comment Queen”
Shakirah, I don’t know about apps that check for site hacking. But I do have computer calendar alarms set to remind me to go check my web site and my blog right after I start up my computer each day.
Great article with good advice! Been wondering what a social media and blogging ‘schedule’ would look like!
I was excited to see this, too, Robin, because Katharine seems so busy and engaged on the various social media groups–and in other lists and groups that predate Twitter and Facebook. But I know how family oriented she is, as well. Seeing how she broke down the tasks and set reminders for herself to do at least the minimum requirements regularly was so helpful for me.
T. Shakirah Dawud recently posted..An Interview With The “Comment Queen”
Calendars and schedules are so important in terms of keeping up with social marketing tasks. It’s really nice to see how someone else maintains their social networking schedule. This is definitely going to help me to refine my own. Thanks so much!
Krissy Brady, Writer recently posted..Writing Tips for May 23- 2011
Happy to share, Krissy; I needed it, too. Thanks again to Katharine!
T. Shakirah Dawud recently posted..An Interview With The “Comment Queen”
Im new to the writing profession, and I love it. its the only thing that motivates me! and im happy to say I was blessed with that talent. I want to pursue it full time. Im happy to have found this page, and I absorbing all your tips! marketing was a scary thing for me, but my passion gives me motivation to do it cuz i love what i do and want to share it with the world. so thanks to you, I can use all your tips to better structure my day.
Hi, Maria,
All of us here hope to continue to be useful. Thanks for your comment!
Shakirah Dawud recently posted..The Same 7-000 Words- But Different
by the way this is my site. and would love you all to check it out.