John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing laid out his system for managing social media, and Chris Brogan followed suit with an outline of his own. I thought this would be an interesting exercise, as much so I could organize my own thoughts about how I do all this stuff.

This post is mammoth, so you won’t hurt my feelings if you skip it (this means you @briandunphy), but for those of you that might be interested or have asked, here we go.

Productivity Tools.

These aren’t social media per se, but I’d never be able to do a thing without them. They’re the mechanics, the gears in the machine.

Email: It’s up in the background constantly. I use the two minute rule from Getting Things Done; if I can answer it/deal with it in 2 minutes or less, I do it right away. If it’s FYI stuff, I have a folder tree where I archive things for later reference. If it’s a to-do, I flag it in my email and create a task. (See below).

OmniFocus (Mac Only): a simple but robust task management application that helps me manage my to-dos. I work on a deadline system, whether concrete or self-imposed.

GoogleDocs: Love the fact that I can share docs without having to mail attachments, and access them from anywhere I’ve got wifi.

Adium: my IM client. IM is my triage system; I use it for quick questions and requests with colleagues and contacts that are too immediate or small for email. I don’t keep it up constantly, but pull it up when I need it.

iCal: My appointment management system of choice because it syncs easily with my iPhone.

Yammer: We at Radian6 use this for internal “conference IM”. It’s like Twitter within the firewall.

iPhone: Now that I have it, I wonder how I did without it, especially in airports. And I use SMS more often than I use the phone, even for business.

Twitter: Constant (actively probably 4-6 hours a day)

Twitter deserves a section of its own because I use it so much for so many different things. I use Tweetdeck for my client, and I rely on groups to help me manage different streams (colleagues, personal friends, close contacts).

I keep Tweetdeck up most of the day, running in the background. It’s a main communication channel for me in my professional role, so I never turn it off. To me, it’s as important as having the phone next to me. So when I’m asked to quantify my time, that’s hard to do. How much time would you say you spend communicating every day?

I use Twitter to:

* Respond to and engage with Radian6 customers
* Share links (yes, occasionally including my own blog) and helpful references I come across
* Triage the “must see” links that other people are sharing for when I can’t get to my feed reader
* Keep in touch with friends
* Network with other professionals
* Keep a record of Radian6 “testimonials” via favorites

(Note: I also manage the @Radian6 Twitter account, the use of which is slightly different, but not much).

Blogging: 1 to 2 hours a day

I post somewhere on a daily basis, either my blog or the Radian6 blog, sometimes both. I contribute to the MarketingProfs Daily Fix blog regularly (I try to make it weekly), and very occasionally I’ll manage to squeeze in a guest post somewhere or something for my personal blog.

Each post on average takes me about 30-60 minutes to write, and probably that much time to brainstorm or research. I often write early in the morning or after business hours so I have more uninterrupted time to focus.

I keep a text file (TextEdit) on my desktop that’s a repository for post ideas, and I have another list on my iPhone that serves the same purpose.

I don’t obsess over stats (I use Google Analytics for them). I check my subscriber numbers (via Feedburner) every few days and my traffic stats maybe weekly. I’m not typical in this regard, but I’m looking for trends, not granular numbers. If those numbers are going up organically over time, I imagine I’m doing something right.

As for reading, I use Google Reader and I have over 400 blogs in my reader. Like I mentioned above, I use Twitter a lot during the day to make sure I see the things I just can’t miss. Then, I dive in nightly and look through in more detail, usually spending a good hour or so skimming lots of posts and reading many in depth. I’ll share things using Shared Items, too.

Other Social Networks and Tools:

Radian6: Clearly I use this daily to monitor across the web for blogs, tweets, and news items on behalf of my company and community. I spent several hours a day responding and commenting, both personally and professionally. (Remember, social media is my *job*. Your mileage will vary dramatically on this front.)

Facebook: I pop in a couple of times a week to check in on friends and groups I belong to (like Social Media Club Chicago). More personal than professional here, but I’ve made some professional connections where FB was the catalyst.

LinkedIn: Once or twice a week I pop in, complete connection requests, and spend an hour answering Q&As. I’ll help others get connected to people in my network on an ongoing basis.

Delicious: I use this daily to bookmark items of interest across the web, both for myself and Radian6. Mostly reference type stuff, including case studies, statistics, great reference posts/articles, or things that feature our company. I use the Firefox plugin to make it super easy.

Backtype: It keeps track of my comments, and I check in with my friends on there daily. It often helps me understand what’s of interest to them these days and I find lots of new blogs to check out.

PRWeb and PitchEngine: We use these at Radian6 for press releases,  usually each week at least.

Let’s face it, I’m a power user. My usage is going to seem nuts to many of you, because I’m immersed in this space as my day job as well as personally. I’m probably online in some form or fashion for 12-13 hours a day on weekdays, 4-5 a day on weekends. I know that’s not for everyone, and please understand that this isn’t a set of expectations. For many, social media is secondary and it’s about trying to “fit it in”. For me, engaging in social media IS productivity and execution.

What I’m hoping is that you’ll find an idea or a tool above that might help *you*, or give you a glimpse into my days (and why sometimes it takes me a little bit to return your email or DM, though I try really hard).

And it’s got me thinking about doing a post or two about what a marketing/PR person’s social media system might look like, taking into consideration all the other responsibilities they might have. Would that be useful?

Photo Credit: tallkev

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