Is the clock running out on your social media use?

Introduction: Marketing Through Social Networking Without the Insanity

Social networking: you know you oughtta do it. But the time it takes is enough to strike fear into the hearts of even the most productive solos. How can you do all this networking/Twitter/Facebook stuff and still run your business?

We’re looking at this topic in depth in our “Ten Rules to Successfully Manage Your Time in Social Networking Activities” series. You can navigate through all the posts in this series through the links above and at the bottom of the post.

Today’s entry in the series is all about keeping your expectations in check, and reining in others who might be expecting too much from one poor little solo.

#7: Manage Expectations — Yours and Others’

Y’all know how you do.

You start something with these great expectations of yourself. You’re going to get on Twitter for thirty minutes every day! You’re going to research a gazillion apps to see which ones are the absolute best, cheapest, and most reliable! By FRIDAY! You’re going to be witty, professional, and devastatingly funny, each and every single time you tweet!

Yeah. Right. Knock that off, OK? Make your expectations reasonable ones, if you absolutely must have them at all. Better yet, go in without expectations. Keep that mind open and just try riding the wave, for once. See what happens, without trying to anticipate or judge as you go. Look at your results at some point, sure, but until then, keep your mind firmly centered on the experience itself, not the outcome.

And as for others’ expectations of you – well, that’s always the downside of all this amazing connective technology, isn’t it?

The great part: you can be there 24/7! The walls come down!

The awful part: you can be there 24/7! The WALLS COME DOWN! Ack!

Tell your clients right up front what to expect from you, the day they sign the retainer. You don’t take calls after 6 PM unless it’s an emergency, in which case you’ll return their message. You respond within 24 hours, not 24 seconds. You don’t work on Sundays. Or Saturdays. Or both.

And when the client asks you for something — say, an opinion, or revisions to a document, or new numbers, or a diagnosis you’re not prepared to give right that second? Tell them. Say, “I want to make sure I give this the attention it deserves. You’ll hear from me in 24 hours.” Or whatever you need.

Minimizing Interruptions in a Home Office to Stay Productive

Another way in which others’ expectations throw a monkey wrench into the well-oiled machinery of your solo practice is peculiar to home-office-based solos. It’s a common phenomenon known as “The Curse of the Always At-Home.” When it strikes, it’s maddening. And it’s almost impossible to kill the curse once it’s struck without losing some friends or causing massive familial friction. So the best bet is to nip it in the bud before it even rears its ugly demanding head.

What is the Curse of the Always At-Home? Simply put, it’s when your loved ones and friends assume that, because you’re home, you’re available. All. The. Time. The concept of working at home just zooms right over some people’s heads. I blame the bad bosses who don’t allow telecommuting in their offices because they think that whoever’s working at home is really just surfing porn sites and playing endless games of Free Cell. (Well, I can understand that last part – the Windows Vista redo of Free Cell is awesome! But I digress.)

To get out of it once it’s crossed your path, you’ll need to muster your most professional, friendliest-yet-firmest tone and say something along the lines of: “I would love to go to a movie with you/pick up your dry-cleaning/come show you how to program your cable remote for the eighty-millionth time. How’s … [consulting your paper calendar, loudly flipping through pages] … next Tuesday at 3? I can also squeeze you in next Friday at 10:45.”

To stop it before it spreads, you need to sit down with the likeliest would-be culprits (almost always your kids and/or significant other, plus perhaps elderly relatives — I speak from experience here) and explain to them exactly what it means when Mommy or Daddy’s in the office with the door closed.

Minimize interruptions — especially for kids — with clear guidelines about when you’re available and when you’re not. Sweeten the deal and alleviate tension for younger kids by promising to make yourself available at regular intervals, and let them know when those times are. Kids can handle separation more easily when they know when it will end.

Bottom Line: Underpromise. Overdeliver.

This is how we manage expectations — whether those expectations are coming from ourselves or others. As is true in almost all situations, communication is key — as is sticking to your guns. Be firm, even with yourself. Your business depends on it.

Minimizing your interruptions and managing your expectations will help you embrace worthwhile social networking activities by removing two key obstacles to marketing: your own fears and other demands on your time, each of which share in common one feature — they both tend to pop up at the most inconvenient moments.

Is the clock running out on your social media use?

Introduction: Marketing Through Social Networking Without the Insanity

Social networking: you know you oughtta do it. But the time it takes is enough to strike fear into the hearts of even the most productive solos. How can you do all this networking/Twitter/Facebook stuff and still run your business?

We’re looking at this topic in depth in our “Ten Rules to Successfully Manage Your Time in Social Networking Activities” series. You can navigate through all the posts in this series through the links above and at the bottom of the post.

In today’s post we’re looking at ways technology can help you streamline and automate your social marketing efforts without losing the feature of social media that makes it so effective: the highly personal and immediate nature of its communications outlets.

Rule #6: Take Advantage of Tools to Automate & Streamline

Similar to rule #4’s suggestion about creating systems, this rule is specific to your social networking activities. There are hundreds of applications out there that can make those tasks literally effortless. Investigate those applications and implement them into your social networking strategy.

The problem? There are hundreds of tools out there. How do you get started? As always, I recommend “minimum effort, maximum results.” Start by looking at your use of social marketing sites. Which ones do you use regularly? Look for tools that work across those platforms wherever possible. Why install three apps when one will do?

Next, think about how you use each of those sites. Which aspects of social networking are troubling you in particular? Is it following people on Twitter? Look for apps that implement automatic following. Is it sending out tweets about your blog posts? TweetMeme works well for me but there are other options, too. Do you want to schedule your tweets? There are apps for that, too. Is it finding people to follow? Lots of options there.

(There are so many options, in fact, that I’m planning a mega-post in the next week (after this series is over) to outline the best apps I’ve found for Twitter. Stay tuned, and subscribe to our feed at TIS to get that post first.)

Some suggestions just to get you started:

• Tweetdeck. Seriously, I don’t know how anyone manages Twitter without it. Now with the ability to support multiple accounts, Tweetdeck makes Twitter and Facebook sing.
• Another option: twhirl – works for multiple social platforms.
• WordPress.com’s automatic Twitter feature. In the latest version of WordPress.com (NOT the standalone WordPress I recommend but rather the free hosted version), you can select a feature to automatically send out a tweet with details about each new post.
• For those of you who use grown-up WordPress on your own hosting account (good for you), you can accomplish the same thing with Twitter Updater, a plug-in.
• To help others share your blog posts via Twitter, look into Tweet Meme. That’s what we’ve got installed on The Inspired Solo.

There are tons of apps out there — mostly for Twitter, but many are cross-platform as well. You could go nuts just researching this one topic.

My advice: Don’t reinvent the wheel. Ask your friends what they’re using and find most useful. Do a little searching on “top recommended social networking apps” — not as a way to abrogate your own responsibility and input, but as a shortcut to get a consensus of what others who do this stuff a lot are thinking. Then use that input as one factor to decide on your own approach.

But Don’t Let the Social Networking Tools Rob You of Your Personality

The great thing about tools is that they remove the barriers to interaction. But if used indiscriminately, they can go too far and take the valuable part of social networking marketing — your unique you-ness — out of the equation.

How do you keep that from happening? There aren’t any easy answers. But I do have some suggestions.

1. Remember who’s on the other end of that tweet.  The simple act of sending out a Facebook status update or a tweet is not the goal here. Keep in mind whose on the receiving end of your updates and tweets — people.  If you want to motivate people to do something, you have to reach them by reaching out to them. Personally. Kindly. Interestingly.
2. Remember your goals. You’re not after sheer quantity of numbers here. You want the right people — your ideal clients — to go to your site and take a specified action (your conversion metric) — whether that’s picking up the phone and making an appointment for a consultation, or signing up for your email newsletter, or downloading your ebook.
3. This is not a virtual game of War.  You remember that card game? Where whoever ends up with the most cards wins the game? That’s not this. You will not become successful simply by virtue of the number of followers you attract or the frequency of your updates.
4. All networking — including social networking — is about building and protecting relationships. In fact, I really hate that word — “networking.” I truly do. I detest it with the passion of a thousand fiery suns. Because it obscures the truth, is why. The truth: that what we mean by “networking” is building relationships. We’re not after collecting the most business cards at the local bar mixer. Those hundreds of little rectangles won’t put one hot dime in your pocket if you don’t build a relationship with the people who gave ‘em to you!

Embrace the nature of social networking by focusing on the small scale — the individuals sitting in front of their laptops and holding their mobile devices who are receptive to your reaching-out efforts. It sounds counterintuitive — that we increase our clientele by focusing on such a small-scale activity — but I promise, it works.

And the opposite approach — treating your social networking as one great big monologue, you pitching yourself loudly and obnoxiously to the world at large — I can promise you that’s not gonna work nearly as well. You might get clients just because of the law of scale, but will they be the ideal clients for you? Almost  certainly not.

So use those tools wisely, mi compadre. But keep your awesomeness front and center at all times.

Is the clock running out on your social media use?

Introduction: Marketing Through Social Networking Without the Insanity

Social networking: you know you oughtta do it. But the time it takes is enough to strike fear into the hearts of even the most productive solos. How can you do all this networking/Twitter/Facebook stuff and still run your business?

We’re looking at this topic in depth in our “Ten Rules to Successfully Manage Your Time in Social Networking Activities” series. You can navigate through all the posts in this series through the links above and at the bottom of the post.

Today’s post is all about multitasking and why it totally sucks.

#5: Give Up Multitasking

It doesn’t work. Stop it.

Want more? OK.

Multitasking is Really Inefficient

Don’t just take my word for it. Listen to John Medina, molecular biologist:

Multitasking, when it comes to paying attention, is a myth. The brain naturally focuses on concepts sequentially, one at a time. At first that might sound confusing; at one level the brain does multitask. You can walk and talk at the same time. Your brain controls your heartbeat while you read a book. A pianist can play a piece with left hand and right hand simultaneously. Surely this is multitasking. But I am talking about the brain’s ability to pay attention… To put it bluntly, research shows that we can’t multitask. We are biologically incapable of processing attention-rich inputs simultaneously.

That’s from Medina’s book Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School(full disclosure: that’s an affiliate link).

And how often in an average day would you say you engage in “attention-rich inputs”? Exactly.

The Better Way: Mindfulness and Beginner’s Mind as a Business Strategy

Instead, approach each task mindfully. Be fully present in that moment, for that task.

How do you accomplish this herculean task? It’s simple but it’s not necessarily easy.

1. First, know what your ideal outcome is for every single task — do you want to get the person you’re speaking with to agree to something? Do you need to create work product for a client that’s readable and persuasive? Whatever it is, set it first in your mind as your intention.
2. Next, consider what you need to accomplish that intention. Gather those resources and have them where you need them. Open websites in different tabs; open up the documents; get the books open to the right page; have that phone number handy.
3. Finally, state your intention out loud. This might seem one of those whoo-whoo New Age-y things, and — well, maybe it is. But it works. Try it. If you feel silly talking to yourself, then write it down on a sticky note and paste it where you can see it.
4. And then get to work.

When you feel your attention wavering, remind yourself of your intention. Just gently bring your focus back to the task. Don’t yell at yourself mentally or start grumbling about all the other things you have to do. Plenty of time for that later. Get back on task.

Beginner’s mind is a related concept. It’s about coming to a complex undertaking without expectations. It seems like that might be in conflict with the whole “setting an intention” thing, but not really. When we’re talking about intention, we’re speaking of the outcome. When we talk about expectations, we’re talking about fears, mostly, of both the process and the consequences of the outcome — in short, emotional attachments to the outcome.

Beginner’s mind is all about making like a bone-dry sponge and soaking it all in, without pressuring yourself to perform in a particular way. Absorb it all, let go of any emotional attachment to your intention, and bring your focus fully onto what you’re doing.

If you’re interested in learning more about mindfulness and the practice of law, you’re in luck. Stephanie West Allen at Idealawg has posted several excellent resources on mindfulness for lawyers.

For all of us, including you accountants, real estate brokers, intelligence workers, coaches, consultants, and inspired solo geniuses of all shapes and flavors, psychotherapist and Zen master Mary Jaksch shared eleven awesome tips on cultivating beginner’s mind at Zen Habits.

So knock off the “eight things at once” crap and turn your entire focus to the task at hand. Forget about the other stuff on the list, or whatever’s next. Become fully absorbed in the task at hand. That’s being mindful, and it will not only increase your productivity — it will change your life for the better. I promise.

Is the clock running out on your social media use?

Introduction: Marketing Through Social Networking Without the Insanity

Social networking: you know you oughtta do it. But the time it takes is enough to strike fear into the hearts of even the most productive solos. How can you do all this networking/Twitter/Facebook stuff and still run your business?

We’re looking at this topic in depth in our “Ten Rules to Successfully Manage Your Time in Social Networking Activities” series. You can navigate through all the posts in this series through the links above and at the bottom of the post.

Today’s “Rule”: Get superhero skilled in task management, in order to minimize the crap that’s expanding to consume the time allotted to it.

#4: Get Superhero-Skilled in Task Management

All the way down here at number four? Really, Sheryl?

Yes, really. Task management — what most people mean when they talk about “time management” which is not the same thing at all, but whatever — is also not the most important aspect of managing your time with respect to social networking activities.

(That was convoluted. I hope you guys followed all that. Sometimes, I ramble.)

Why Task Management Is Important to Social Networking Time Management Efforts

Task management might not be the most important part of managing your time on social networking sites, but it is an important part of getting a firm grip on your actions and making them support your goals, as opposed to living strictly in reaction mode, responding to the crisis du jour and never getting anywhere good.

The reason is obvious, right? I mean, how can you carve out time for social marketing — for anything, really — if you’re always playing firefighter?

We humans waste a lot more time than we give ourselves credit for. Really, we’re super-good at it.

Take the average solo lawyer’s morning. She starts out with ten calls to return. Then, there’s email to check and maybe a few blogs and online news stories to catch up on. She might start to work on drafting a complaint for a new client, only to be interrupted a few minutes later by an incoming email alert, which leads to half an hour composing a reply, which then necessitates a coffee break, which is interrupted by yet another phone call …

Gah. I’m exhausted just rereading that paragraph.

Stop putting out fires and start getting a grip on your fundamentals — the essential basics of task management.

Seven Tips to Turbo-Charge Your Task Management Skills

A complete overview of effective task management is way beyond the scope of this one article. But I can offer some guidance based on experience — both mine and that of my clients — to turn you into the rock star of task management.

• Focus on the 3 or 4 most important tasks each day. Each day, know which tasks are the absolute most critical. Focus on getting those done first, then proceed to the rest. This way, you eliminate that sinking feeling you get when you’ve been running around in circles but feel like nothing got done.
• Discover the power of the daily and weekly review. Every morning set aside fifteen minutes first thing to go over your schedule and your tasks list and whatever tickler system you might have implemented. No phone calls, no interruptions – just you and your stuff. Pick the most important tasks, decide when and how you can best accomplish them, and then do it. At the end of every week, set aside about a half-hour to do a more thorough weekly review. For one good way to approach the weekly review, download this article at David Allen’s site. It’s free, although you have to go through a checkout process – no credit card info is necessary.
• Chunk your tasks. No, not “chuck.” Chunk — as in, group like tasks together. This is the strength of the GTD system, by the way — by keeping your actions lists separated by contexts (such as “to call,” “agenda (to talk to someone about),” and “errands”) you can easily find the appropriate action for where you are at any given moment. In other words, you fit the tasks to your day — not the other way around.
• Know your own predilections. We all have different strengths — we know that — but we also have different strengths at different times of the day. I cannot engage in deep planning-oriented thinking after 4 PM. My brain just stops. So, I schedule my planning sessions earlier in the day. Likewise, some bloggers prefer to do one blog post a day. Others prefer to devote one day to blogging and get all of that week’s posts and administrative tasks accomplished on that one day. It’s up to you, but first you gotta know what your preferences and natural tendencies are.
• When estimating time necessary for task completion, be realistic. I can’t tell you how many days I used to end feeling depressed and down on myself because I didn’t get through half of what I had on my daily list. It took me a while to realize that the problem wasn’t my inability to get things done — it was my inability to accurately gauge how long each task really took. I was overbooking myself, and that’s a crime against productivity and self-respect.
• Keep a written list somewhere. Whether you do it in a planner, a set of notecards, a Moleskine, a Circa book, or somewhere on your computer, do it. The act of getting it down in words is incredibly powerful and goes a long way towards achieving clarity on your obligations and your available time.
• Take regular breaks. It’s the single best thing you can do for yourself during a busy day. Even five minutes of doing pushups in your office will work wonders for your ability to concentrate and achieve your goals.
• Embrace the chaos. Our suffering over time management isn’t just about the stuff undone — it’s about how we feel about the stuff undone. You will not die with a completely crossed-off task list, I promise you. So why wait until late in life to begin getting comfortable with the notion? Start now. Understand that life is messy and crazy and unpredictable. Stuff pops up that demands our immediate attention. We make the best decisions we can at the time, with what we’ve got available to us. Let the rest go.
• Create systems wherever possible. Why reinvent the wheel? If you find yourself performing time-intensive computer actions over and over, why not explore the possibility of getting a script written to do it for you? If you find yourself typing in the same words over and over with each similar client project, why not create a template? Create a list of questions for your intake interviews that you can print out and use for notes. Think creatively about ways technology can help you take advantage of your past experiences and shave time off future tasks.

Do You Really Need Another Time Management Book?

Probably not. But if you feel you need a system to follow, then pick one – and only one — and implement it thoroughly. Some of us (ahem – not naming any names but it starts with “Sh” and rhymes with “Errol”) get so into productivity systems and information that it’s like an addiction.

There’s even a cutesy hackerish Internet name for it — productivity pr0n. And just like real porn, it’s … seductive. Very seductive, for some of us. (I will not go browse the time management section at Amazon.com, I will not, I will not…)

Chances are, though, you already know everything you need to know to be more effective. What you’re lacking isn’t information – it’s implementation. Whatever changes you implement, be sure to give them a fair shake before you decide they’re not working. No system will save your work life if you don’t fully engage in it, and give it a thorough try-out.

Or, to put it another way, your productivity system is only as good as your best efforts. Sorry — I know, I’m still waiting for them to develop the magic pill, too, but until they do, we’re both stuck with actually — y’know, doing stuff.

So do it smartly, and then free up a few more minutes for the marketing stuff.

UPDATE: We’ve added a  link to the Total Attorneys complaint section.  Check it out to read the opposing viewpoint.

Your weekly brief has landed, with the best of the web from the last seven days on marketing, productivity, legal news, and business management advice.  As with the last few weeks’ editions, we’ve formatted the links to open in a new tab/window. Please let us know if you prefer them to open in the same window.

Also, we’re adding a new feature — subject headings for each entry or group of entries. We hope it’ll make it easier for you to find the stuff that interests you.

Grab a latte and read on!

Blawg Review

UPDATE: It’s up right here. Not up yet, but Joel Rosenberg will be publishing it at some point today at Windy Pundit Twin Cities Carry Journal.

Total Attorneys Disciplinary Complaint

The legal blogosphere was burning up last week with news of disciplinary complaints being filed in 47 jurisdictions against Total Attorneys and Kevin Chern, its head honcho.

If you don’t know what Total Attorneys is, a brief explanation: it’s a marketing/referral service whereby lawyers in various practice areas sign up for referrals from the TA website, and pay TA a flat fee for each referral. Some of those referrals are just folks kicking the tires and looking for free advice — the consumer doesn’t pay anything to ask for information from a TA attorney — but some are ready to hire, and so the theory goes that you’ll make up the money you pay for weak referrals from the fees from those who hire you.

A Connecticut lawyer named Zenas Zelotes has filed versions of a 303-page (yes, you read that right) disciplinary office complaint against Total Attorneys in 47 states, alleging the “pay per play” model adopted by TA sites is basically impermissible fee splitting. Not surprisingly, Kevin Chern disputes this strongly.  In Connecticut, there are five attorneys who are being prosecuted for participating in this program. And here’s why TIS is interested in this, beyond the web-based-marketing angle: they’re all solos.

I’ve been following this with interest, and here are the best takes on the story from across the web:

• Carolyn Elefant/MyShingle: Why Isn’t Anyone Speaking for the Five Solos Targeted by the Connecticut Disicplinary Counsel’s Attack on So-Called Referral Services?
• Josh King/Avvo Blog: Connecticut Takes a Swipe at Attorney Advertising
• Robert Ambrogi/Legal Blog Watch (Law.com):  Is Total Attorneys Complaint a Total Joke?
• Larry Bodine/Law Marketing Blog: Zany 47-State Legal Attack on Total Attorneys.com
• UPDATE: Zenas himself (at least I presume it’s the real deal) suggested we include this post from Simple Justice on the “other side” of the issue  – Who Stole Kevin O’Keefe’s Brain?

Home Offices

Lifehacker: Selling Homes and Scrapbooking: A Compact and Organized Office — complete with pictures of one example of how to set up a home office in a smallish space. Use it to trigger some creative thinking about your own space at home.

Google Stuff

Randall Ryder/Lawyerist: Optimize Google Voice

MG Siegler/TechCrunch: A Big Google Chrome Extensions Push Is Imminent

Two excellent posts from great bloggers about the evil empire our benevolent Google OverLords and their ongoing plan for world domination exciting new products.

OK, OK, I kid, but truthfully, I really like Chrome – it’s a fabulous browser. But the reason I like it is that it’s trimmed down, no extraneous fluff. I love Firefox too but sometimes, with all these toolbars and add-ons it can seem and act rather bloated. If you haven’t tried Chrome yet, give it a whirl.

I don’t know much about Google Voice, to be honest, but after reading the Lawyerist’s post, I’m intrigued.

Social Networking and Marketing

Marshall Kirkpatrick/ReadWriteWeb: Obama: “I Have Never Used Twitter” — Why Twitter is important and why the White House needs to stop putting it down.

Sonia Simone/Copyblogger: The Seven Harsh Realities of Social Media Marketing — You need to read this one, and each of the links Sonia provides in this post. I know we’re all “yay! Twitter!” here at TIS, and for good reason, but that doesn’t mean we don’t go into it with eyes wide open. You should, too.

Smart Passive Income: The Blogger’s Guide to Facebook — an interesting personal case study that’s worth a read. This isn’t the only way, by the by. Your use of social marketing tools is limited only by your imagination and your willingness to act.

Blog Traffic and Stress Management

Rob McPhillips/Problogger: Why Stress Can Kill Your Success or Help Your Blog Succeed Wildly — McPhillips suggests a new way of looking at stress — not as a global killer but a signal that you’re working at your capacity. I’m not sure about this one, but it’s an intriguing thought.

Business Finance

Seth Godin: Debt, Equity, and a Third Thing That Might Work Better — Seth always has interesting thoughts on business stuff. If you’re bottom line ain’t what you’d like it to be, give this a read. I’m not sure how this would work with lawyers, but someone out there can surely figure it out.

Website Copywriting

Men With Pens: Is Your Website Copy Too Excited? — Aw, there’s NO WAY I’m giving up the occasional use of caps and exclamation points! But that’s me. And I’m not a lawyer, so it’s different. You professionals out there should give this one a read, though.
That’s it for this week! Enjoy. Don’t read ‘em all at once — you’ll get a tummy ache.

Is the clock running out on your social media use?

Introduction: Marketing Through Social Networking Without the Insanity

Social networking: you know you oughtta do it. But the time it takes is enough to strike fear into the hearts of even the most productive solos. How can you do all this networking/Twitter/Facebook stuff and still run your business?

We’re looking at this topic in depth in our “Ten Rules to Successfully Manage Your Time in Social Networking Activities” series. Previously, we’ve looked at how to set real, realistic goals for your social networking marketing efforts, and then yesterday we looked at creating a workable plan to dive into social networking based on those goals.

Today, we’re going to look at how to minimize the less-productive aspects of social networking — the personal, the inane, and the useless. In other words: how to draw boundaries between your personal and professional lives in your social networking activities.

#3: Separate the Personal and the Professional

A real concern for solos and other professionals implementing social networking tactics into their marketing plans is the revelation of too much personal information. We all need to be concerned about privacy and safety on the Internet these days, especially when it’s so damn easy to blurt too much private info in the heat of a moment, or to make a mistake and hit “send all” or blast a general tweet when we really meant to direct-message another user.

Reasonable minds will differ. Penelope Trunk, for instance, regularly crosses what most of us would consider the “TMI” line in her tweets (a miscarriage of an unwanted pregnancy in the middle of a business meeting, for a recent example). She’s obviously comfortable with that approach; she knows the consequences (including a great deal of blog traffic, although a significant portion would seem to be solely for the purpose of criticizing her for doing so, judging from the comments).

Personally, I don’t subscribe to the digital equivalent of “bad press is better than no press.” My reputation matters to me, and so does my privacy – especially the privacy of those I love. You’re not going to find me tweeting about embarrassing things my daughter does or says unless she’s totally OK with it, because that’s her story to tell — not mine. You won’t find me blogging about why I’m getting divorced — it’s not just my story but also my ex-husband’s, and I’m not going to put it out there on my own.

(NB: That said, with my ex’s consent, I think I’m about to get a mention in a Washington Times piece on how the recession impacts couples seeking divorce — but the point is, I talked to him first, we carefully delimited the bounds of the interview, and we were both on board with my participation.)

But beyond safety and privacy concerns, there’s a significant time-management aspect to this issue. How does this relate to managing your time effectively on Twitter and Facebook? Simple: concentrate on the professional, and you can eliminate a large percentage of the non-productive aspects of social networking.

However, it’s not quite that simple. Drawing a hard and fast black line between the personal and professional could produce social networking that’s … well, not very social. So, where do you draw the line?

My answer is this: aim for being personable without crossing the line into the overly personal. I routinely say “no thanks” to the invitations to join the latest Facebook game or take the most recent stupid test. I don’t need to know what Twilight character I’m going to marry, thanks.

I do try to let my personality shine through all my writing, whether 140 characters in Twitter, a short status update on Facebook, or a blog post. But that doesn’t mean I need to share every bad or minor good thing that happens. Do y’all really want to know about the toothache that bugged me for days last week? Or the amazing cuteness that is my daughter’s cat? That’s why I restrict those “cute kitty” posts and tweets to my personal Twitter account.

(Full disclosure: I did screw up last week and cross-tweet under the wrong account a link to a “how to drive your cat crazy” machine. Let this be an object lesson: make sure you’re using the right account if you’ve got Tweetdeck set up for multiple accounts.)

Don’t fret too much about this one. Just get a separate Twitter account, and keep your business marketing efforts restricted to the account that’s tied to your professional brand. Some folks also use Facebook for personal networking and LinkedIn for professional efforts. You may want to consider that, as an alternative to using Facebook in a more restricted way, if you really want to play Vampire Mafia Gardening. (I may have gotten that game’s name wrong…)

Bottom line: be personable – not overly personal. That’s my advice. If your boundaries are set elsewhere, and you have no filters, and you’ve thought this thing through very carefully, well – be my guest. But expect the consequences, and don’t get all indignant when people start calling you out on it, or frustrated when you’re spending too much time on these sites without comparable results.

Is the clock running out on your social media use?

Introduction: Marketing Through Social Networking Without the Insanity

Social networking: you know you oughtta do it. But the time it takes is enough to strike fear into the hearts of even the most productive solos. How can you do all this networking/Twitter/Facebook stuff and still run your business?

We’re looking at this topic in depth in our “Ten Rules to Successfully Manage Your Time in Social Networking Activities” series. Yesterday’s post was about Rule #1 — Know Your Goals.Today’s post is about how to create a plan for your social networking strategy based on your marketing goals.

#2: Create a Plan Based on Your Goals

The next step is to create a strategy for marketing through social networking based on those goals you enumerated in Rule #1. Get the list of those goals and read it over again a few times. Next, based on those goals, look at your options for social networking interaction.

There’s the ubiquitous Twitter, of course. There’s also Facebook (which, with TweetDeck and a number of other apps, you can mash up with your Twitter activities, which I’d call “exceedingly inspired”). There’s Tumblr, another microblogging site. There’s BrightKite, which is kind of cool and underutilized, I think. There’s Plaxo, there’s LinkedIn, there’s a whole list here …

Which do you choose? And how do you decide?

First, you have to keep in mind the uber-law behind all marketing: seek out and communicate your expertise to your targeted clients. So — who are your targeted clients, and where are they congregating?

To discover this information, just ask! You can create a short little survey on SurveyMonkey, absolutely free, and email your clients the link to the survey. (Consider offering something of value in return — perhaps a drawing for a gift certificate to a popular local restaurant?) Or, simply ask them directly.

From my own personal experience, I recommend Twitter and Facebook. These are, at present, the top spots in terms of sheer numbers and popularity.

In adition, you might want to consider Linked In and FriendFeed or Plaxo, the latter two as a way of pulling all your social networking and blogging activities into one feed for your contacts and friends.

Beyond that, it’s really up to you and your comfort level, your goals, your available time, and your level of interest. Start small by registering your identity — your brand, which we know as inspired solos is always your self — on each of these four sites. Set small goals of setting up a profile on each of these sites within two weeks, getting comfortable with the user interface options in three weeks, and coming up with a schedule (see Rule #9) within three to four weeks.

As you get more comfortable with the concept and practice of sharing more of your professional life online with others, explore other sites as you wish, but always keep in mind rule #1 and your goals.

Is the clock running out on your social media use?

We all know we “ought” to be “doing” social networking. Twitter, Facebook, Linked In … the list is almost literally endless these days.

And if you’ve ever spent just a few minutes on a site like Twitter, you probably came out of the experience with a spinning head and one huge question:

How do you wisely implement a social networking strategy into your marketing plan without losing control of your time?

Social networking works — and it’s more important than ever that solo lawyers and other solo/small firm professionals get that point fully absorbed into their consciousnesses. (That’s a hard word to say out loud, by the way. You ever try it? Con-scious-ness-es… I’m just saying.)

But there’s a smart way to do it, and a lot of ways that aren’t so smart. And that question — the time management question — it’s a good one to ask.

We’ve got ten “rules” — more like “suggestions,” really — and we’re covering each of them in a separate post for ten days. All together, we hope they offer you “food for thought” about ways in which you might implement a social networking strategy into your marketing plan without losing your mind in the process.

Today’s post is about rule #1: understanding why you’re in the social networking “game” and what you’re looking to get out of it.

#1:Know Your Goals

OK, this one’s trickier than usual. We almost always start with goals in any endeavor (or should) but with social networking, there’s an added factor — a little soft, hard to define je ne sais quoi — that complicates the goal-setting process.

What should your goals be? Well, of course that depends on your practice and your business’s needs. I can tell you what they ought not to be, though:

• increase in paying clients of x number or percentage over the next y number of tweets on Twitter
• revenue boost of $x.yz for every Facebook post
• etc., etc., ad nauseam

The simple truth is that social networking does not readily lend itself to the customary direct ROI (return on investment) analyses. (Here’s a really good take on the subject of social media ROI from SEOMoz.) You’re going to have to find a new metric — the SEOMoz piece suggests major media mentions as one possibility.

So, if the usual suspects of marketing goals aren’t really applicable, then how do we start to establish goals for our social networking activities? Right off the bat, I’d suggest “implementing a social networking strategy” as a good goal to set initially, without any hint of irony or sarcasm. Just getting started is a big enough step.

After that, how about looking at raising your profile? Increasing your blog traffic? Securing a speaking engagement or two or ten? And I also like that “major media mention” — although for most of us, a more reasonable goal would be “local media mention.”

Bottom line: set some goals. Know what you’re going after before you dive in. And keep those goals in mind for Rule #2 — Create a Plan Based on Your Goals.

Is the clock running out on your social media use?

The single most often asked question I hear about social networking and media: What’s the point?

The second most often asked question about social media: How on earth can you find the time for all that stuff?

By now, I’d hope TIS readers have a fair grasp of the answer to the first question. But that second one seems to still be confounding quite few folks, and for good reason. Social networking has — quite fairly, I think — earned itself a rep as having the potential to create great big sucking black holes of time for even the most productive among us.

So, if it’s all that and a bag of baked chips, but it’s also the time suck from Hades, then how are we mere mortals supposed to ever make sense of social networking as part of our marketing plan? How in blazes do we do this stuff — this Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/BrightKite/MySpace/Tumblr/Plaxo stuff — and still have enough time left over to … y’know … actually do our jobs, let alone run our businesses?

Excellent question, seriously. And I have ten answers. Over the next ten days, we’ll look at each of these ten rules in more detail.

My goal with this series isn’t to lay out some hard-and-fast dictates, despite my use of the word “rules” — but rather to get you all thinking about ways to make adjustments to your work flow patterns to accommodate something strange and new and wonderful: the wacky world of social networking.

Sometimes, the smallest changes are the most effective, and I’m a big believer in doing only as much as is required to achieve the stated goal. The TIS motto — well, one of them — is: maximum results, minimum effort.

The ten rules that we’ll be looking at in this series are:

• Rule #1: Know Your Goals
• Rule #2: Create a Plan Based on Your Goals
• Rule #3: Separate the Personal and the Professional
• Rule #4: Get Superhero-Skilled in Task Management
• Rule #5: Give Up Multitasking and Embrace Mindfulness
• Rule #6: Take Advantage of Tools to Automate & Streamline
• Rule #7:  Manage Expectations — Yours and Others’
• Rule #8: Keep Social Networking Activities in Perspective
• Rule # 9: Make a Schedule and Stick to It
• Rule #10: Get Offline Every Once in Awhile

The first installment in this series is already up here. I’ll update this post with links to the other posts as they’re published, so bookmark this post and come back daily for the next installments.

Snowflake

Colleen Wainwright is the Communicatrix, and she’s pretty awesome. Go check it out and sign up for her newsletter. I said so. — Sheryl, TIS Head Muse