If you’re looking to establish your online presence, and build relationships, it’s not the kind of project where you show up, build your profiles, friend a few people, and call it good. It’s a lot like tending the farm. Here are seven particular “chores” you could do every day that should prove beneficial to your online interests.
- Find seven things worth retweeting in your general feed and share.
- Reply to at least five things with full responses (not just “thanks”).
- Point out a few people that you admire. It shows your mindset, too.
- Follow back at least 10 folks. (I use an automated tool, but this is a personal preference. If you want such, I use SocialToo.)
- 10 minutes of just polite two-way chit chat goes far.
- Check in on birthdays on the home page. (Want a secret? Send the birthday wish via Twitter or email. Feels even more deliberate.)
- Respond to any comments on your wall.
- Post a status message daily, something engaging or interesting.
- Comment on at least seven people’s status messages or updates.
- Share at least 3 interesting updates that you find.
- If you belong to groups or fan pages, leave a new comment or two.
- Accept any invitations that make sense for you to accept.
- Enter any recent business cards to invite them to LinkedIn (if you’re growing your network).
- Drop into Q&A and see if you can volunteer 2-3 answers.
- Provide 1 recommendation every few days for people you can honestly and fully recommend.
- Add any relevant slide decks to the Slideshare app there, or books to the Amazon bookshelf.
Blogs
- Visit your blog’s comments section and comment back on at least 5 replies.
- If you have a few extra minutes, click through to the blogs of the commenters, and read a post or two and comment back.
- While on those sites, use a tool like StumbleUpon and promote their good work.
- Write the occasional post promoting the good work of a blog in your community.
It’s Not Easy
Maintaining your online presence takes time. If you look at all I’ve listed above, that’s easily more than an hour of work. But it depends what the value of that presence is to you, if you’re doing this as an individual, or to your organization, if you’re doing this on behalf of a brand or product.
We’ve traded dollars for time, in lots of these equations, as we see the return on our advertising spend diminish. It’s your choice whether you want to maintain an active online presence, or if you want to get away with a bit less.
What do you think?







Chris Brogan is President of New Marketing Labs, a new media marketing agency. He works with large and mid-sized companies to improve online business communications like marketing and PR.
I'm not convinced that an online presence is equal to dollars, or for that matter better relationships with the people around you.
I concede its worked for Mr. Brogan, but that's his stock and trade.
woo, so many comments.
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A fw of us spoke at the recent Boston Social Media breakfast about this. Two of the things I pushed were:
Know Where You Are an Why You're There – don't join a social network and keep it active just for the sake of a presence there. If it doesn't give you anything of value, don't dilute your time or personal brand by being there.
Tie Up Loose Ends – DO NOT just abandon a profile on a social network. We've all signed up for sites that we've never gone back to. Sometimes we try to sign up for one just to find that we already had a profile there. Talk about diluting your brand! The last thing you want as a job seeker is to have a 9 month old resume on Plaxo because you only focus on LinkedIn. Or a MySpace profile that says your single that your new spouses best friend finds! If a site isn't doing you any good, don't just drop it, delete your profile there.
For those interested in a service to help you manage your online presence, check out: http://www.gathr.me/video.html. It won't solve the issues I mentioned above but it will “streamline your online life”.
best regards on everyone. http://www.kicknike.com
This is a manageable, practical list that I have needed for awhile. Breaking it down like this is so simple – and even if I take one day a week to do each, I'll get better in time and be able to incorporate more of it every day. Great stuff here – thank you!
This article is helpful not only to our firm but also serves as a great “get started” tool to share with our clients. Great information per usual. Thanks!
Great checklist. Thanks Chris. As someone else stated here, I have been wondering what I needed to do to get my presence noted and it's nice to get confirmation that I am doing some things right and direction on things I need to do additionally.
Some great suggestions – now if I would just get comments on my blogs that weren't all spam, I'd be set to follow them all! Great ideas about Twitter and Facebook and ones I've actually been doing for a few weeks now, though not quite so organizes or every day. Need to work on time management a bit.
This sucks. We're all just becoming a bunch of busy bodies, feeding the machine, and we've completely lost any sense of purpose or of “why we are doing this to begin with”.
Thank you Chris. A great post, as percussion commented last week: “suitable for printing up and tacking up on your wall to run through every day.”
This 360° approach to nurturing one's social media landscape and eminently applicable for anyone. Implicit is the gentle reminder that the conversations and relationships we seek to build take work – as they always have. And that the value of our networks derive foremost from the quality of the connections not the mere quantity.
Again seconding Percussion, adding Measurement as #20 is a point well taken: Tying efforts to outcomes is part of an essential assessment of how we might apply the first 19 better. I see this as measurement not of some transactional ROI, rather as an opportunity to identify the value, personal and professional, of committed engagement.
Excellent info, I'm guilty of not keeping up with LinkedIn…
need to remedy that :)
Tara
I liked this article because it gave some clear and simple directions about how to make use of the social networking opportunities out there~without being overwhelming! Intend to try this out for myself. Thanks, Chris.
I found this list very helpful. As one of the older generation, trying to do catch up in this universe can be a bit overwhelming. I'm committing to stopping my days at 3 PM and putting serious time into this list. Thanks!
I like how there are two #11s, so this article should really be: 20 Presence Management Chores You COULD Do Every Day
I absolutely LOVE this article!!! Fabulous and will be turned into action! Thank you! :) Keep the good advice coming!
GREAT entry! I like that you have provided a few things to focus on in the listed social networks and that your steps are easy to follow. These tips will definitely help a person or company brand themselves online, if done correctly. Thanks!
Make it a GREAT day!
Great post, thanks so much for sharing. It seems so simple to have it all laid out like that.
Chris, thanks for this – I've expanded on it a bit and created a downloadable PDF checklist that you can print out and actually put checkmarks/ticks against the items as you've completed them – my post is here and there are links to the PDF within: http://www.nikkipilkington.com/blog/2009/07/20/...
I found this information very useful. I was still somewhat confused as to how many times I post and how often.
Your PDF wash very useful. Thank you
I mean the good information I troubadour in tweets and facebook (and block website) helped my goodness. Merçi
great post! actually, social networking sites really do give me headaches and most of the time, they get in my way but I love doing them and if I could, I would do them all day! I'm trying to develop a great time management scheme to help me organize things a little. I'll try your suggestions and hopefully, it will work for me. thanks. =)
Hi Chris
Thanks for the tips… Am going to be using it as a check list :)
I do some of these things like check for birthdays and wish but hadn't thought of email. Will do that now on.
Using Facebook, and other social sites I keep tab of birthdays but the important dates and people not to be missed, I add to an excel sheet that has been increasing in length every year.
From this sheet every month I copy out the events (Birthdays, annivsaries, etc.) and place them on my desktop using Post-it or such software.
My idea is that its the first thing I see when I switch on my computer and hence rarely miss wishing.
Thanks again.
Cheers
Freya
PS – There are 20 and not 19. 11 seems to be repeated :) Am not complaining about extra though…
I've been using most of these techniques on a regular basis, but without a meticulous, checklist feel to it, it often feels like I'm not being effective or that certain things fall through the cracks.
I'm adding all of these suggestions as tasks for my to-do list so nothing slips through.
Thanks for sharing them.
@Pepperfire
Totally loving your ideas! :)
I appreciate the thoughtful guide to social networking tasks. I have begun to feel that I have moved from completely clueless to mearly clueless. I blog and feed the blog to my business Facebook page but have virtually no fans. Not sure if I am ready to tackle Twitter…
Thank you for the simple list…it helps people like me that get caught up in the weeds.
Great post…it really helps to simplify things
Good measured approach. It's all about engagement really.
Good list! Having specific tasks to do is also a good way not to get sucked into the facebook frenzy and waste time. You *can* have a meaningful social networking presence and not get bogged down. A list can help with discipline.
Hi Chris, some really useful tips there, thank you!
Would you mind if I re-posted your 19 Presence Management Chores You COULD Do Every Day, on my blog http://www.gregfellows.com
Cheers Greg
The farmer analogy goes a long way. You have a wonderful way of hitting on the basics that tend to alude many of us who do too much dabbling and not enough 'work.' Building the habits…sow so that you may reap. I came to this post from your post today. Great points that just got added to my daily list in 'things.'
I needed to to find a guide line to my social media. I beleive it will payoff ten fold as the web continues to develope,, so thanks Chris!. I love this new site I found http://www.jirehcreations.magntize.com. Anyone can create one in seconds! Have fun
Chris,
I just discovered this posting through your farmer list…both are great reminders! I star a lot of articles in my reader, but rarely go back to review them. I think this list is actually worthy of a print out. Thanks for being out there and helping lead the way in this new world of online media.
Cheers,
Dan
Very timely – this just came up in a search after a meeting to discuss marketing – where we discussed how to use Twitter and Facebook
It's seven months after everyone else made a comment. I just wanted to let you know I appreciate the clear, clean outline too.
These are great idea's Chris. I've been implementing most of these for quite some time with a lot of success. Thanks for taking the time to put it all together.
Great post Chris,
The Twitter and FB tips are fine but if you only have a total of 5 comments on your blog I think those people might st tired of yo contacting them every day. LOL
Thanks. The farmer analogy goes a long way. You have a wonderful way of hitting on the basics that tend to alude many of us who do too much dabbling and not enough 'work.' Building the habits…sow so that you may reap. I came to this post from your post today. Great points that just got added to my daily list in 'thing.
I have frequently use facebook and Twitter and pretty much satisfied with them. And you are quite right about my activities their. It shows that you have done some extensive research.
Great list…sigh…if only I had the time…
Excellent and concise run down. I was happy to see I do half of those things, but I still have more to do! I think making it a simple 1 hours a day activity with a check list will keep it regular and effective. I already have seen a sharp decline in PPC conversions. It's getting harder out there and your social media maintenance plan is what economic times like these calls for.
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