Riding LimoLiner from Boston to New York
I’m on my way from Boston to New York City right now to attend ad:tech. As I hurtle towards Gotham, I’m also writing a blog post, reviewing electronic resumes for a Marketing Communications/Social Media Specialist position, coordinating a PR effort, mocking up some web designs on Photoshop, charging my iPhone, and tweeting – all while minimizing the dent my travel is making to the marketing budget I hold so dear.
How in the hell?? I took the bus. LimoLiner, to be exact. High-speed internet, a desk, power outlets, and lunch. All for significantly less than a flight. And, if you take into account traveling to and from the airport, making it through security, sitting at the terminal and waiting on the tarmac after landing, about the same amount of time, except none of it is wasted.
So what’s my point?
Only that sometimes productivity is unexpected. Sometimes it’s downright counterintuitive. Executing on a social media strategy can take a lot of work – not just blogging and tweeting and syndicating content to all of your social profiles, but joining the conversation: commenting on thought-provoking blog posts, replying to DMs, answering LinkedIn questions. Add to the mix that most of you, like me, probably run a marketing department or wear a lot of hats, and the result can be pure madness. That makes anything that boosts productivity or cuts down on wasted time is a very welcome thing indeed.
Uncovering efficiency can be just like discovering that the bus will actually save you time. Here are two examples from my world:
Sometimes tools don’t save time: I don’t use an RSS reader. I know, insane. I keep all the blogs I follow in a bookmark folder, and click “Open All As New Tabs” every morning. It makes it easy to cycle through everything, closing the tabs rapidly on anything that doesn’t look relevant or interesting. What’s left I’ll read or comment on. It takes less than five minutes to glance at a hundred articles and figure out the few I want to spend time on.
Cutting out tasks that don’t deliver value: In the world of Web 2.0, there are a lot of shiny toys to keep us occupied. It often makes equating efficiency to acquiring or adopting new tools or channels. But the opposite can be just as effective. Is Facebook not driving any kind of meaningful results? Are you finding that your constituency isn’t really interested in Squidoo lenses? There’s no reason you have to be on any channel for the sake of presence – everything should drive an outcome. If it isn’t driving results, cut it out.
Where have you taken the bus? What ghetto hacks, unexpected processes, or unconventional solutions are making you more efficient? I’d love to hear them.
(The book on the desk, by the way, is Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah’s Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs. It’s tactical and excellent – check it out.)
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