I meet many business owners who want to use social media to market their small business. To them it seems like the right thing to do. There is a lot of buzz around social media, and many are seeing good results. Now it’s their time to begin using social media. It’s time to ask the question… “How much time should your media take to make it pay off for your business in Halifax, or elsewhere?”

Here’s one answer from Scott Oldford:

Unfortunately some business owners want to have their social media set up and run automatically, all by itself. That’s a bad idea. Think about it, if you automated everything in your business, what would that look like?

Imagine the phone system where no one really answers the phone except a robot. A company, that I know, did this. They managed to enrage a lot of their customers very quickly. Needless to say, they went back to a real person answering the phone. The customers told them what “They” wanted.

Do we really expect something from nothing? It takes some work to get a return. Even on this site, I still need to input material to leverage the results. The idea that you sit back and watch the cash roll in without any input at all is not a realistic one.

I tell my clients that if they want to use social media, they need to be prepared to work their social media for at least one hour of the day. The point I am trying to help you understand is this, if you are not prepared to work your social media for one hour a day, you probably should not use it. You could appear pretty slack and uncaring when others connect with you and you don’t connect back. They might even think you run your business the same way.

So if you can’t put one hour in, then don’t use social media. Some businesses can appoint a social media coordinator to do this for the business. Small business owners usually do not have this option. I would further caution small business owners from using virtual assistants to… “make it look like the small business is doing all the social media stuff“. Virtual assistants should not pretend to be you and answer for you. You can read more here. If people find out that someone else is answering your social media and pretending to be you, you will be hung out to dry. Don’t fake it till you make it, be yourself till you make it. Virtual assistants have their place. It’s not pretending to be you.

Here’s how you should be spending your social media time during the day:

If you go one hour a day for your social media, you should break it up into four 15 minute sessions. Do 15 minutes in the morning, then 15 minutes before or after lunch, then 15 minutes later in the afternoon and then 15 minutes after super time. Instead of 4 fifteen minute segments, you could make it 6 ten minute segments if you rather.

This will stretch out your social media presence. People go on social media at different times. This will allow to get noticed by more groups of people. And when you factor in the different time zones, this will help you connect with others on the other side of the continent or the other side of the world.

Whatever strategy you employ, make sure you do not lump all your social media time together. You will only appear present at that time and will only be seen by those watching at that time. This will limit the number of followers you could connect with. Remember people are different. They have their own preferred times to do social media. You have to accommodate them, not yourself.

In all of your four segments today, I want you to engage someone by saying “Hi, how are you?” Yes, it is that simple. If they reply back, answer them. Start doing this on a consistent basis.