The big concern about Facebook and other social media tools is that they take time.

Indeed, the purpose of a Fan page, blog or Twitter account is to develop relationships and community with your fans, subscribers and followers. Just as it takes time to have meaningful conversations, it takes time to create engaging posts. And you don’t develop trust and rapport by simply talking about yourself. Like any good friend, you need to be giving out at least as much energy as you are taking in.

You need to regularly offer content that inspires or educates your target audience. According to an ExactTarget social marketing study:

• 38% of Fans will UNLIKE you because your posts are boring or repetitive
• 24% of Fans will UNLIKE you because your posts are too self-promotional

Even as a non-profit, if your hand is always out asking for money or time, more than you are giving away information and useful resources, you will lose followers.

So how do successful social marketers create engaging content in a manageable amount of time? They become “Content Curators.” Because social networking is essentially distinguishing yourself through your content, you need to care for your social presence like a curator cares for an exhibit at a museum. (Facebook has sometimes been called “The Museum of the Self.” This makes the content curator analogy even more appropriate.)

The curator draws together pieces of art from different sources, each one a gem, and assembles them into an exhibit that as a whole inspires the visitors, draws crowds, and promotes membership to the museum. There is also a very practical side to curation: While the exhibit requires creativity, the curator does need to work within a budget and timeline.

It is the same for curating a social media site. Posts are assembled from a variety of sources, working together to create a whole that inspires and educates visitors, generates leads, and promotes LIKES, follows or subscribers. And it must all be done within a budget and timeline.

To accomplish their goals, successful social marketers follow some basic rules of thumb:

• Choose a target audience and identify keywords/categories of interest to this group
• Create a plan and work the plan
• Post on a regular basis
• Make 80% of the posts educational/inspirational to viewers (only 20% about yourself)

As an elder care professional, I would suggest that your target audience is family caregivers. Boomers are starting to robustly embrace Facebook. (According to Pew Internet data, approximately 33% of middle-age individuals are now using social networks).

Determine a list of topics that will be of interest to Boomer daughters and sons. In the realm of family caregiving, this would mean posts pertaining to the care of elders. But it also means presenting information to help manage the stress and challenges of being a family caregiver. Dementia, paying for care, and tips for handling daily life with chronic or serious conditions are just some of the many posts that would be welcomed by family caregivers.

Create a Content Calendar. According to Daniel Zarella, author of The Facebook Marketing Book, you want to plan and compose your posts ahead of time. Create a calendar so you will know what you will post on each day of the coming week. Give yourself a specific time each week to get in the social media headset, to think like a curator, and compose the next week’s posts. For truly thoughtful posts, it’s much easier to do several at once than to try spontaneously each day to say something meaningful when you are in a rush to meet other deadlines.

• Facebook status updates have 420 characters (not counting any web addresses you link to)
• Blogs typically have 300-1000 words, depending on how often you post
• Twitter has a 140 character limit per tweet

Post consistently. You must get in the habit of regularly making meaningful posts. Each channel has a culture of its own with an expected frequency:

• Facebook: once a day
• Blogging: 1-5 times a week
• Twitter: 3-5/day

Many people find it easiest to set a specific time aside each day to do the actual posting. (You can use automated programs, but these rank lower on the search results than posts that are submitted manually.) On a rushed day, you can simply copy/paste the text from your Content Calendar. But because this is the social network, you also want to respond to comments made on previous posts and take time to look at your News Feed and make meaningful contributions to conversations happening on the pages of allied businesses. If you are seen only to broadcast out and not to engage with others, you will quickly fall in the category of “marketing to” your audience rather than creating community and “marketing with them.”

Find content that is educational and inspirational. This is the part that takes time. You want to be sure you are posting across a wide range of topics. You also want to vary your content across the categories and keywords you identified earlier in the planning process.

Where do you find content? A recent survey of 150 marketers across many segments of the business world revealed that:

• 73% value original content, but are challenged by the time it takes to develop it
• 57% use a mix of original posts and third party content

Following the 80:20 rule, successful social marketers tend to use links to other materials for the majority of their posts, adding their own comments for flavor and personality. They save their time and creative energies for that 20% that is about them, where they can really fine tune the call to action (join our list, sign up for our webinar, come to our event, donate to our cause…). In this way, they are able to give their social networking presence the best chance of delivering a return on the investment.

Remember, a key business function of social networking is to generate leads and move people toward action that allows you to engage with them in a more personal way.

A study by Idealware indicated that companies need to spend at least 2 hours/week per social media channel in order to feel it was worth the effort. Companies that spent less than 2 hours a week were generally dissatisfied with the results. Those that spent 9-20 hours per week total, usually working across many channels (e.g., Facebook, Twitter and blogging) seemed to be the most satisfied.

You can conserve time by wisely leveraging the content of others. Mimic the workflow of successful social networkers. Link liberally and paraphrase or make commentary on the work of others. Tons of information already exists. You do not need to re-invent the wheel. You simply need to be smart about finding the info and then adding your own personality to the mix.

To learn more, visit the Elder Pages Online Blog, or Contact Us.