Limit your time on Twitter

1. Use lists

Lists are essential in going direct to the tweets of the users you want to see for that particular function, e.g. useful industry information, potential clients, current customers, etc. There will be a whole blog post on using lists where I’ll go into more detail on this.

2. Schedule messages

If you know you’ve only got half an hour to go on Twitter at 6.30am in the morning but don’t want to send out all your updates at once, schedule them to go later in the day. You can do this on platforms such as Hootsuite and Tweetdeck. Just make sure your scheduled messages aren’t time bound, e.g. weather related. And if you are asking a question, make sure you will be present within the next couple of hours to reply to any responses.

3. Don’t just read, engage!

Don’t waste time being nosy, reading what everyone else is up to. Make sure you actually respond to people, reply to their tweets and engage with them, so that you are building relationships rather than just passively listening in. Listening without responding won’t win you any business!

4. Restrict your time

Give yourself set chunks of time and state within that time what you are going to achieve. E.g. compose 4 tweets, respond to 3 people in potential clients list, monitor searches, follow 10 new users. Don’t do anything on Twitter beyond these set targets.

5. Don’t have your phone flashing at you!

The mobile phone really has allowed for more time wasting than ever! Turn off alerts for new @mentions so that you only see these when you actively go on Twitter on the net or on your phone.

6. Imagine you’re paying for it

The danger with free tools like Twitter is to spend long periods of time on them without achieving anything. Imagine you were paying £100 a day to use Twitter and you only had 30 minutes each day to use it. I’d imagine you’d approach it in a completely different manner! Try imagining and see what difference it makes to your Twitter usage!