There are three main things for you to consider.
1. Publishing new content across all of your social media at the push of a button.
If you are posting regular content to your site and then you are reposting that information to Twitter and Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, etc, there are several ways to make this quicker and easier for you.
I highly recommend looking into using SNAP, otherwise known as NextScripts. This great plugin allows you to post to most of the social media networks at once, by automatically publishing fresh content to your profiles as and when it goes live on your site. There is a little bit of pain in setting this up. That is down to the fact that all of your social networks will have their own way of creating APIs. So you will need to get codes and keys from each of your accounts to then input into SNAP.
While SNAP will not reduce the actual time you need to stay involved on your social media, it does help you promote new content quickly and easily. Hopefully this will give you more time to actual chat, post, and share with your dedicated followers.
Download NextScripts Social Networks Auto Poster
2. Easily allowing visitors to repost content.
This is the key to growing your audience quickly and easily. If you can make reposting your content no more then a click of a button you should get great returns.
There are lots of different ways to do this on your site, but if you are using WordPress, I highly recommend using Digg Digg. It has been around for years, is actively maintained, and has been downloaded and used by 1000’s of WordPress users.
Digg Digg provides you with a social media bar that contains any or all of your social media links. Its up to you what you include. You could also create 2 different bars to use in different parts of your site or one for photos and one for written content. Then just chose where to put it.
3. Managing all of your accounts in one place.
If you are running more then 1 account in any social network you know how time consuming it is to pop in and out of the different accounts, checking for new posts/followers and posting content in return.
If it is only Twitter you are concerned with, then Tweetdeck is a great app to use. It allows you to view, schedule, track, all of your Twitter accounts in one handy place.
If you need to manage more then 1 type of social media then you need to look a bit further, and may need to consider shelling out some cash. There has been a lot of positive talk around HootSuite. It got into the game early with just Twitter and then expanded to include many, many, other social media types. It can pretty much do it all.
I struggle to recommend this because it is a monthly cost commitment, and you have to take what you are given. I also truly feel that you can tell when someone is using a service like this. The posts are more frequent, they are less interesting, and you definitely feel like you are being marketed to, instead of socialised with.
As a developer I like to have more control over my accounts. I would probably use a few different tools and have more of a hands on approach. For small businesses, I always say consider hiring someone to manage your social media as part of your website maintenance. Then they can maintain the accounts, track the analytics, and offer recommendations for improvements. All you need to do is provide new content and be willing to hop onto your accounts for chatting and interaction.
I also recommend reading Top 10 Tools For Managing Your Social Media Accounts at Search Engine Journal for some more ideas.
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