Many of my seasoned marketing buddies look at Twitter,
and tell me that it looks like a lot of fun, but that
they don’t have time for chit chat. They have businesses
to run.
I point out to them that while I have tens of thousands
of followers, and an incredible number of tweets, I don’t
really spend that much time on Twitter. I run numerous
businesses too!
Here are some of my time management secrets:
First of all, I use a tool call Market Me Tweet. This
piece of desktop software allows you to schedule an
unlimited number of tweets, to an unlimited number of
accounts, for up to a year in advance. So many of my
tweets are pre-scheduled.
With the latest version of Market Me Tweet, I can even
schedule the same tweet to be posted to multiple accounts.
This is a really amazing piece of software. I interviewed
the software developers on my radio show a few months ago,
and everything they do is totally within Twitter’s terms
of service.
You can grab a copy of Market Me Tweet at:
http://timic.org/MarketMeTweet
I’m very social on Twitter, but it’s also a part of my
marketing efforts, so I flow out my activities on Twitter.
If I’m helping with a product launch (or any cause for that
matter), I plan and schedule my tweets along a timeline.
That’s one great use for Market Me Tweet.
When I’m doing something like that, I may pre-schedule 25
or more tweets. Here’s one of my big secrets… When
composing those tweets, I often grab headlines from a
product’s webpage, and then just add my url 
I post to over 50 social media websites, so when I post to
Twitter, I have it automatically repost to FaceBook and a
number of other places.
I blog a lot. I’ve been blogging since 2004… longer than
many marketers have been online! My blog automatically
posts to Twitter.
I’m a charter member of another site very much like Twitter,
except that it’s designed for marketers, meaning they
encourage using it for heavy promoting. That sites is called
Sokule (pronounced “so cool”) and your account can be
configured to post to dozens of other social media sites
including Twitter.
You can pre-schedule up to 25 posts at Sokule, and they can be
up to 500 characters. You can select which if any of the
social media sites Sokule reposts to. I often post to Sokule,
and have it relay certain messages to Twitter.
You can get a free Sokule account here:
http://timic.org/sokule
When I visit Twitter, I’m fairly organized and also have a time
limit of how long I will allow myself to stay on the site.
Twitter visits are almost like a reward for getting other critical
tasks done.
When I log in, the first thing I check is Direct Messages. These
are people talking directly to me. So, I need to respond. The
next thing that I check are @ replies. These people are also
talking directly to me, so I owe many of them replies. Finally,
I check my general “twitstream.” Often, I’ll find particularly
insightful posts there that I want to retweet (share with my
followers). Then I get back to work!
I schedule my time on Twitter. That is, I visit Twitter at times
penciled into my schedule.
Final tip for now… consider not responding to tweets immediately.
Sometimes it’s better to wait a while, or you get stuck in a
back-and-forth conversation that could go on FOREVER… throwing
you off-schedule.
It all depends upon how chatty a follower is, but I feel that if
you have that much to say to each other, then you should probably
schedule a phone call. YES, I did say “schedule” a phone call.
That’s because the phone is another one of those “time vampires”
that suck the productivity out of your day 
Ok, so now you have a few of my time management secrets. I have
a lot more things that I do to manage my time, since I’m involved
in so many projects. I’ll share more of them with you in the future.
Willie