Social Media takes time and as a business owner, you probably don’t have a lot of extra time in your day. That means you need to make the most of your time on social media. There’s a lot more to it than just posting a few links and answering a couple of questions from your followers. If you really want to effectively network and market via social media, there are a few ways you can do it better.

1. Share links to people who promote you. Not only are you boosting their blog or site, you’re also boosting the number of people who will read about your product or service.
2. Use Google Alerts. You can use Google Alerts to find out when anyone talks about you or your niche and then promote those links on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites.
3. Use multi-media. Don’t just talk . . . today’s internet user is savvy and wants all the information quickly and in various formats. Add video or photos or even audio to your social networking and watch your conversion rates rise.
4. Set up a landing page. Having a specific landing page designed for those who are checking out your profile on a social media site will help draw them in. Suggest links they might be interested in checking out and welcome them.
5. Be consistent. Don’t show up, post ten things and then vanish for a week. If you don’t have the time to check in on your social media networks on a daily basis, you can set up automatic tweets and posts. It’s important to let people know you are on the ball, though, so it’s best if you can check in daily to answer questions and respond to personal messages.
6. Optimize your profile. One of the first things that anyone will look for is your profile. What does it say about you? When you find a profile that hasn’t been filled out properly, you probably don’t follow that person because you know nothing about them. So, don’t be that person . . . fill in your profile with SEO and human friendly descriptions.

Don’t just make small talk on your social media networks, make them work for you! Another way to take advantage of your time is to use applications that allow you to post on one network and have the same thing show up on your other networks, saving you time and energy.

What are your methods for making your social media networking more effective?