Social Media and the 40 Hour Work Week

Mar 31, 2009 | blog

One of the more frequent questions I hear about social media, is around how much time should a person allocate towards it.  The answer is a lot simpler than it seems: lots.

For those looking at moving into a social media role, whether its a community manager, specialist, analyst, or strategist (hmm… lots of –ists in there) expect to spend quite a bit of time.  Each of these jobs consist of a lot of hours, mainly because you’re dealing with a platform that never turns off: the Internet.

The speed of the Internet really has an influence on the time you need and should spend in a social media related field.  Since things change so quickly, it’s imperative to be monitoring all the spaces that are relevant to your company, brand, or interests.  This can take up a huge amount of time.

The bottom line on time invested in social media activities, is that you need to set boundaries, and work towards containing them.  There are always things that require our attention, or distract us in some way.  The trick is to be diligent in leveraging the tools and services that are available for doing monitoring and alerting you when something needs attention, or is relevant to your interests.  Event then it get’s a bit difficult to stay on track.