How to streamline social media so it’s not just another job

To most (including the self-proclaimed internet junkies like myself) social networking sounds like just another job to add to the the to-do-list. It’s about as appealing and a root canal. Every time you think you have it figured out and mastered, there’s another SN app that you just HAVE to be on. Gone are the days when all we had to do was update the website homepage a couple times a month??

So one of my latest experiments is to make The Ring and my own social networking as smooth and quick as humanly possible. There’s about a billion widgets to manage multiple SN apps, but some work, some don’t, some conflict or change what you’re posting…

So here’s a few ways that I’m trying to make my social networking life a little easier at the moment – the goal being to try to make the experience feel less like a job and more like a conversation I’m having with the wedding community.

Here’s what I’ve got for you so far.

1. Make sure your phone is smart.

• Web-ready or ‘smart’ phones can do fun tricks like allow you to take a photo and upload it directly to your blog, reply to simple info request, or send a stored ‘I’m sorry, we’re booked for that date‘ template email. They can also text. And texting is officially my new best friend, for the reason listed in number 2.

2. Link anything you possibly can, together in one fabulous web of social media mayhem. I took about 2 hours out of my day a couple of weeks ago and linked Facebook to Twitter, Twitter to WordPress, and Facebook to The Ring community. Why, you ask? Because now I don’t have to post a new article or teaser in 4 or 5 sites to make it across all platforms. Instead, this is what I DO do…

I text a fun post on a trend or wedding news item to FBOOK using my Blackberry. That uploads it to The Ring’s facebook fan page activity stream. That post then then automatically updates my Twitter status (or ‘tweet’ as the case may be). From there, it streams into my WordPress blog, allthewhile somewhere on that route it also simultaneously updated my status in The Ring. I LOVE it!!

3. Set your blog to take posts by email. If you have WordPress blog, then you can email your next post from your iPhone or Blackberry and have it publish right away. For many wedding vendors, particularly photographers, blogging is their main source of communication and marketing with the outside world, so this makes life much easier.

4. Get to know and love widgets.

• Twitter has a widget that can be added to your website or blog, listing your latest status updates. So if you don’t have enough to say to quanlify writing a full blog post, tweet it instead. That tweet will then update within your blog or site.
• Facebook has a fan widget that will allow you to show the number of fans you have, and (optional) what your latest fan page activity is. This is placed in your blog or website as well. Nice!

5. Download and start using Firefox instead of Internet Explorer. There’s a lot more widgets and apps available for Firefox than for Internet Explorer. Widgets and tools tend to help with blending multiple social media stuff together.