Have you ever been down to the wire on a deadline and taken issue when your beg for help is answered with  "I am too busy to help you out right now"?  Be honest, have you ever uttered those same words yourself when someone asked you to do something?  

Do you ever try to get out of work at a reasonable time to enjoy dinner with your family and take care of the important items in your personal life, and then log on and finish work that night?  

Have you ever asked yourself the following questions.  Given the reality that I often need to find a way to get things done to meet deadlines, how busy I am, and how often I need to burn the midnight oil to meet deadlines, how the heck do these people who are involved in social media have so much time to spend on this  'whole social networking thing" and still have a life?  Is that all they do all day? 

It is natural to think that way.  I talk about it with friends and peers of mine all the time.   There are some social gurus like Chris Brogan who many of us think are superhuman.

In my role as VP of Social Media for commonground, having a social presence is very important. However, delivering upon my vital factors is always the priority over maintaining or building on my social presence.  For example, last night I spent 5 minutes on Twitter between projects.  I spent the other three hours working on many of the same things we all work on -  PowerPoint presentation for my CEO, email, moving a couple of projects closer to the finish line, etc.. 

Most of our members do not have social media in their job descriptions - you are environmental consultants, lawyers, and lenders - professionals involved in environmental and property due diligence.  Just how important is it that you are leveraging all the bells and whistles of social media?  It is not so important in the grand scheme of things.  However, I would also argue that the use of the appropriate social networking methodologies and approaches will nicely compliment what you are trying to achieve - professionally and personally. However, you should not stress out because your Twitter grade is not high enough.   

So, given that we all have hectic schedules, here is my simple guide on how to methodically find time to work on your personal and company social presence.

1)  Block a half hour on your calendar each day during a time that is best for your schedule to work on "social networking stuff".
 
2)  Pick one thing you want to accomplish each week and focus on it.  Start a blog on WordPress.  Set up a Twitter account.  Set up a LinkedIn account.

3)  If your workload for a particular day REALLY is overwhelming or you have a hard deadline, then skip the half hour that day.  The sky will not fall down if you wait until tomorrow.

4)  When you have downtime - sitting on a plane, the couch at night, or even on the bike at the gym, read up on it, write blog posts, send tweets, etc. (obviously what you can do will depend on whether you have or don't have internet acces. You would be amazed how how many blogs you can write and bank on those long, boring flights).

5)  Monitor the activity and results of your effort to figure out what is working best and what you should focus on moving forward.

I like to use the social networking is like the gym analogy.   If you go to the gym every single day, you typically will see great results.  If you go to the gym a few times a week, you will still be much healthier and better off than if you do not go at all.  The same rules hold true for dedicating time to your social strategy. 

Given that the commercial real estate market has slowed significantly, now is the perfect time to start at the pace that works for you.  Who knows, you might find your brand, and your company's, looks a lot more vibrant and healthier in a very short period of time.