Social media isn’t time consuming.  It is an investment of time.  In the same way that payments to your home bond is not a waste of money but an investment into an asset.

Of course both investments assume that you have made good strategic choices in the first place.  If you have purchased a house that you simply cannot afford on your salary, or purchased before you are about to be retrenched or your business is going to fold, or purchased far beyond the realistic value of the property, then you will pay what you like and you will eventually be wasting money.  But a good property investment is always a good long term choice.

If your social media plan is to throw out quotes, post wild links to funny YouTube videos and randomly repost other people’s blogs on your topic, then please don’t be surprised when your efforts fail to yield results.  There is no return on investment when you waste your social media time on froth.  And you won’t win the affection of followers either by posting content they can find elsewhere instead of something unique.

But if you have a real strategy, with an actual goal in mind, always in mind, then you can aim towards it and measure success.  Then you can post relevant content and respond to people appropriately.  You can find material that will be meaningful and that people will want to engage with you on.  People will follow you because they want to know what you are about and how you think.  That makes your social media investment valuable, and that return is worth its virtual weight in gold.

In the Social Media Marketing course and Developing the Art and Skill of Social Media, we present techniques for being intentional about your social media.  If you would like a social media editorial planning calendar, please request here.