Social media is great, but sometimes you get that sinking feeling that you can’t keep up with everything out there. First you need to log in to the main social networks, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Then you need to sign in to YouTube, Flickr, and Slideshare. Maybe after that you’ll start blogging on Tumblr, Blogger or WordPress. Then bookmark your posts, images, slides, and videos on Digg, Delicious, Reddit, and Stumbleupon.

Finally, maybe it would be good to start looking at more industry-specific social networks like Etsy, Active Rain, or Myspace (entertainment hub). Maybe then we need to take some time to promote our businesses and do some personal branding, so we can start writing articles on sites like EzineArticles, GoArticles, or ArticleBase. Also, it might be beneficial to post some answers on LinkedIn Answers and Yahoo Answers just to give a little demonstration of our experience. Oh, and then we have to do everything else today.

How many people left the page when I started blogging?

People always ask me how I make time for all of this without going crazy. The answer is that I have a social media strategy that I use to use my time effectively. Actually, I probably spend more time than most on social media, because that’s my area of ​​expertise and I need to make sure I’m on top of all the new changes.

Now, that’s not what everyone needs to spend per day, and when I was using social media for real estate, I was spending a lot less time achieving my goals. Part of that is due to the fact that I am in business and more active than others.

You can make a fair amount in a fraction of the time I spend every day if you sit down and come up with a plan of action that will allow you to get the most out of social media with the least amount of time.

There are people who rely solely on Twitter to do business and there are others who just blog, record videos or upload photos to Flickr exclusively. Find out how you can market your niche more effectively and then go after that niche consistently until you succeed. You don’t have to do everything if you can do a few things well. For example, I don’t really like photos or slides, but I focus on writing articles and videos. That way I can focus on doing those two items more effectively.

Also, the web is full of software, websites and programs that will make your life easier. Video aggregators and bookmarking services can have a huge impact on your business. They make it easy to distribute your information to numerous social networking sites without having to spend hours and hours on dozens of social networks.

For example, I usually write at least one blog post per day. Once it’s done, I want to do my best to promote this on my social network. I use two services to bring my site to all my social networks. The first is called OnlyWire. OnlyWire automatically submits my post to about 20 sites automatically (once set up) at the click of a button.

Please check the site from time to time, because there are times when a site does not submit correctly. Other than that, I spend around 2 minutes entering my article’s main information into their bookmarking software.

The other site I use is Social Marker. This site may actually allow you to submit to more sites, but the challenge is that you have to do it manually. I typically submit between 5-10 sites on Social Marker in addition to OnlyWire. Then I’m free to go back to what I was working on.

For those entrepreneurs who have been told many times to work smarter, not harder, this is a perfect example. It all settles down once I’m done with my blog and then it goes out everywhere, allowing more people to read the article and also freeing up time for me to build relationships in some of my target networks.

Start creating your social media plan, so you can start your personal brand and not have to spend all day working on social media. Focus on a few different components of social media marketing, and you’ll find success as long as you stick to the plan you create.