Using HootSuite To Manage Your Business

All Categories, Business Productivity, Marketing, Organization, Social Media, Social Networking 4 Responses »
Jan 102010

Using Social Media is one of the fastest growing, easiest ways to market your business online today. Implementing the various social media platforms available into your marketing strategies can be a great way to generate exposure to your business. Although many debate the benefit of using these tools because the amount of time spent to obtain the desired results, one platform I highly recommend is HootSuite.

What is HootSuite? It is a twitter platform that gives you the ability to use and monitor multiple twitter accounts and social profiles, track and view link stats, pre-schedule posts and status updates, view your tweets, mentions and direct messages all at once. It also has other great features like monitoring your Facebook Fan Pages, feed your RSS to your stream and allows you to track certain search terms.

It’s easy to get started, simply create your user account and add your twitter account when prompted:

You can even add profiles from your social networking sites and Facebook Fan Pages.

Once you get to your dashboard, you can monitor the activity across each column.
(sent tweets, mentions, direct messages)

To add your RSS feeds, click on Settings at the bottom of your dashboard and then RSS/Atom

Easily schedule your tweets and status updates:

Have posts with links you would like to track? You can check your stats and see how many people have clicked your links. In the Stats section, select the twitter profile you wish to track. You can also view the  stats for an individual post as well.

Using HootSuite is a great tool to help you utilize the time you spend on your business marketing campaigns more efficiently and allows you to be more productive. HootSuite has also recently launched WordPress integration, Trend Explanations and Image/URL Previews and has won Mashable’s 2009 Open Web Award. Plus, you can now use HootSuite on your iPhone.

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Posted by CEOMamma at 6:12 pm Tagged with: , , , , ,

Time Management = Business Productivity

Business Productivity, Organization 2 Responses »
Jan 032010

Being an entrepreneur requires an individual to be passionate about what they do, be a self-starter and highly motivated. Another very important trait a work from home entrepreneur should possess is the ability to Manage Time, and the skill to do it wisely.

How well do you manage your time?

Many home based business women have a difficult time finding the balance between caring for the needs of her family and finding time for her business tasks. While most mompreneurs are great at multi-tasking, the challenges usually arise when there is no actual set plan of action.

The key to resolving this issue is to first decide how often you will work your business. Sit down with a calendar or planner and determine which days of the week you are available to work. Next, decide the blocks of time you can commit to working your business on those marked days. If you are a work from home mom, be sure to factor in your family activities.

Great, now you have your schedule! On that schedule, choose the times you will spend blogging, networking, making phone calls, performing administrative tasks (yes, this is a very important task that you must include in your schedule) or whatever other income producing activities you need to do to build your business. Write them in.

If you work another job or you have a forever changing family schedule, maintain your sanity by completing a new business schedule at the end of the week, for the following week. This will help you stay on track. Even if your hours do change from week to week, the key is to be consistent.

Done! To manage your time efficiently and have a productive business, always plan your work and work your plan. Stick to it! Even if you work out of your home and have five kids bouncing off the walls (like me), you have to set boundaries. Your business is just that, a business. Treat it as such.

Is it going to be hard getting everyone to abide by your “work at home business hours”? Of course it is. Will each day bring a new challenge to balancing family and business? Absolutely, but it can be done. Even if your most used phrase is, “Wait a minute, Mommy is working”, the gratification comes from knowing that you are building your dream and providing a richly rewarded, sustaining future for your family.

Visit TheCEOMamma Community and connect with empowered women entrepreneurs living their dreams!

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Posted by CEOMamma at 1:30 pm Tagged with: , ,
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