Social networking and social media marketing are the hottest new tools in the business promotion armamentarium. These tools are extremely effective not only for growing a brand, but also for advancing the reputations and careers of executives, owners, and managers alike.

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According to Dr. Maurice A. Ramirez, founder of the consulting firm High Alert, LLC (mauricearamirez.com) and author of the new book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Disaster Preparedness, customers love the ability to interact directly and personally with a company. But the single most common complaint among business owners about social networking and social media marketing is the significant demand on their time. The solution, Ramirez says, is to follow the three-part SAM process — strategic planning, authorship, and mechanics:

1. Strategic planning. A social marketing campaign must be a part of an integrated marketing communications plan. Entrepreneurs and executives often have review and oversight of public relations, marketing, and advertising plans but seldom, if ever, micromanage their development and deployment. Determining where best to conduct social marketing efforts takes up 20–30 percent of the time required for an optimal program. Delegating this aspect of the process to a consultant or another highly trained team member can save the executive significant time.

2. Authorship. Customers choosing to participate in social networking with the management and owners of a business expect — even demand — that their interactions actually be with a high-level executive. Businesspeople who author their own articles, blog entries, and speeches find that the time required is small compared with the favorable response received from audiences and customers. Even more time can be saved by dictating drafts and letting someone else do the typing. In most cases, authorship requires less than 10 percent of the time spent on social marketing each week.

3. Mechanics. The mechanics of posting blog entries, Twitter tweets, and social network comments requires only a bank of authentically authored content from which to draw, and the knowledge of how to post that content to the appropriate sites. The process of posting content, combined with the process of locating new social media contacts, accounts for fully half of all the time spent on social networking and social media marketing efforts. When these duties are delegated to an employee operating in accordance with a well-defined strategic plan and clear ethical guidelines, the executive is freed for more gainful efforts while satisfying customers’ desire for social network interactions.

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