“The most important key to achieving great success is to decide upon your goal and launch, get started, take action, move.” ~ John Wooden

I’m sure you’ve heard about social media. It seems to be the general buzz of life these days. But when you think about jumping on this band wagon, you hear yourself saying, “It’s too hard” or “It’s going to suck me into a time vacuum”. If these are the messages rumbling around in your mind, the Social Media Diet is for you! This is the perfect solution to gaining the benefits of extending your networking without draining the precious time that we all need more of.

This diet consists of ample portions of social media engagement, while making certain you do not overextend your commitment. You get to choose your menu plan, and you get to decide where to allocate your minutes. And the best news of all, you GAIN a social media network! Here’s how it works:

1) Time allocation (it’s okay if it’s 5 days a week, but 7 will bring greater results):

• Choose 3 times a day that you will set aside for social media.
• There should be one 20-minute interval, and two 5-minute intervals.
• Put these times into your calendar so you do not schedule over them.

2) Choose your main course
Choose 1 means of social media you wish to engage in the most. This is where the bulk of your 20-minute time span will be spent. Some ideas for your main course might be:

• Perhaps you are already reading blogs, so choose commenting on blogs.
• Maybe you’re a wannabe Twitter fan, so make a decision to grow your following and promote your brand.
• Perhaps you want a Facebook company page, plan to get it going.
• Perhaps you write a blog and want to get the word out, focus on blog distribution.
• Maybe you want to connect with other business owners, so answer questions on LinkedIn forums
• Perhaps you have a special interest you would like to exchange ideas about, start putting posts into online message boards.
• Maybe you have a lot of original content so you pursue the creation of a Hubpage or Squidoo lense.

3) Choose your side dishes
Choose 3 other media outlets which you will utilize and tie into your main course. These should not be time-intensive endeavors. They may be:

• Use Twitter to post at least 5 tweets – re-tweet other tweets and promote blogs you read
• Add daily LinkedIn updates and send 1 link invite per day.
• Add a Facebook comments or write a personal message to a Facebook friend
• Add Digg or Stumbleupon plugs and comment on the articles you plug.
• Add at least 1 comment to 2 different blogs you like.
• Putting at least 1 post onto an online message board
• Connect with more people on any of the above

4) Get your dessert
Go get some cookies or fruit to munch on while you implement step 5.

5) Move into action
Spend 15 of your 20-minute session engaged in your main course. Spend the other 5 minutes implementing one of your main dishes. Spend each of the other 5 minutes per day implementing your other 2 main dishes. When you get comfortable implementing your main dishes quickly, then spend a couple minutes doing each one during the 5-minute sessions. You connect with more people if you distribute your efforts throughout the day, especially with Twitter.

6) Switch it up each month
Nobody likes to do the same thing for too long, and social media is about making a far-reaching impact. For month two, rearrange your diet. Choose a different main course so you can focus on growing in a different area. Turn your month-one main course into a side dish (since you’re so good at it you can do it quickly by now) and choose two other main courses to focus on. Repeat with each subsequent month.

7) Tips for guaranteed success
Always keep in mind that with social media it’s about quality, not quantity. Be purposeful and honest in your program, and you will see the results your desire. Don’t rush through and contribute in a panicked fashion, this will show and people will stop reading. It’s better to have 1 great tweet that gets re-tweeted than 10 nobody reads. Social media is about building a relationships, and this takes time and sincerity. Be patient, and your efforts will pay off!