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(by Loyd Ford) If you are in the radio business in 2012, you have less time and are doing more work than ever. Still, you feel responsible to get every bit of value you  can from the tools at your disposal.  So, I thought we could look at maximizing the value of your social media by being efficient and using your time wisely.

1. Spend most of your time up-front in designing a specific plan for your social media.  If you don’t have a specific plan you are executing, you are wasting time and likely effort that could be better spent focusing on building the actual plan so you don’t waste time or effort.

2. Use tools of social media to cut time waste.  There are ways to post things to multiple social media platforms.  Use them.  There are apps and tools that can help you save time.  Spend a little time learning those shortcuts and use them when it makes sense.  Start with Hootsuite and Tweetdeck.  Learning shortcut tools will help you save time and effort.

3. Determine how much time per day and/or week your team will devote to social media effort.  Make sure you stick to those guidelines so you are not “sucked into” the social media time warp.  Having a set schedule or at least a set amount of time will help you balance time, effort and results better.

4. Share social media responsibilities with different people on your team.  If you think you should do it all yourself, you’re doing it wrong.  The idea of having a plan that multiple people can follow allows you to have different worldviews contributing content.  That will make your social media content more interesting to your listeners and will help you create time suck for listeners that they enjoy. 

5.Watch out for distractions.  This may sound simple, but spend your time doing one thing at a time.  Don’t answer phones, check email, text, engage in conversations and more while you are “doing” social media.  Focus will help you complete your tasks faster and get on with your “real life.”

You can be in charge of your social media world.  Make sure it doesn’t take over.  The only person who can allow your social media to create a “time suck” is you.  Make sure your social media focus is on efficiency.  Radio is the friend of the listener.  You can do that in the social media world as well.  Just have a plan, determine how to maximize your efforts and “get it done.”
 
Loyd Ford is the direct marketing, ratings and social media strategist for Americalist and programmed very successful radio brands in markets of all sizes for years, including KRMD AM & FM in Shreveport, WSSL and WMYI in Greenville, WKKT in Charlotte and WBEE in Rochester, NY.  Learn more about Loyd here:  http://about.me/loydford.  Reach out to Loyd via e-mail HERE Visit his Facebook radio social media page HERE

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