How much time do you spend on social media each day?

I think you will get a lot of different answers for this - depending whether people are on social media for personal or business purposes and what their overall objectives are.

I spend at least 50% of my work day on social media - a big part of that is consuming content (reading articles & listening to consumers for the brands I manage online etc). The other portion of time is spent engaging and creating. For me, this is from a business perspective and can be anything from customer service, customer chatter on Facebook & Twitter, to creating fresh content of a variety of natures.

There is no definite answer in my perspective, but I think what's important from any perspective is to give your friends, fans, followers, and clients a consistent and fluid experience - whether it's from your personal or business brand. How much time this takes can fluctuate depending on what you have to say, as much as by what your audience has to say.

I monitor conversations throughout the day, but more intensely focus on it about 30 minutes a day. All told, probably an hour in total. I find the evenings are my best time to respond thoughtfully and share articles rather than during workday. With tools like Hootsuite and Sysomos, the listening and engaging part is easier, more focused within segments of conversation I care about.

This is a bit of a broad one for me. As a social media marketing firm, my company spends many hours a day on our clients' social media accounts.

What I think is a more appropriate question for me to answer is how much time SHOULD you be spending on social media marketing. While some will give you an equation as to how much time it takes to get the best result, I have other thoughts.

Social media marketing is a marketing activity that lives within your marketing plan. So you have to budget time to execute a campaign, much like you would budgeting time to respond to emails, make calls, write email blasts, design new advertising campaigns, draft a press release, etc.

The only difference is that social media marketing is a more frequent activity that involves consistent attention. My advice is to see how much time you have available each day and dedicate that amount of time to social media marketing. As you get more skilled at each activity, you can schedule more as you will be doing it faster.

All of it. Social media runs like security software in the background of my workday. It is the day's soundtrack.

Joe Chernov / Eloqua / @jchernov

Good question. It depends on your strategy and goals. It also depends on how many social media channels you are responsible for. Are you blogging? Facebook? Twitter? LinkedIn? Others? To do these right, I do not think 60-90 minutes a day is unrealistic. However, there are tools that let you update several platforms at once. Based on your available time, you might look into those. Most importantly, you don't want to lose the personal touch. People want to interact with people on a genuine level. Only you and your management team can decide how involved you want to be.

A tip for speeding up the time you spend on social media is to make sure everything is connected. When you post to your blog, it should automatically post to Twitter and Facebook. As Shannon mentioned, use tools to make it easier. For video, for example, you can use tubemogul.com . This is a fast way to distribute video content.

I invest at least 30 minutes a day on social media, usually in 5 minute bursts where I'm either responding, scheduling, wishing folks a happy birthday or trying to create engagement.

A good plan is 5 minutes on Twitter, 5 minutes on Facebook, 5 minutes reading blogs, and 5 minutes creating post stubs to go back to later, with 10 minutes to invest somewhere else.

I beleive in engagement with social media so like to make people know there is someone on the other end reading, with 115,000 followers it's a little daunting.

I generally spend 2 hours aday, longer on weekends, I use Tweetdeck to organize my posts, much of my business comes from pull marketing people using social media t omy website http://garybizzo.com

I've thought about this some more and I utilize my time pretty well considering all the stuff I do. I write for a national newspaper in the business section and then I use the article in my blog, I then send the content out to Facebook and Twitter to bring people to my webiste ot read the blog. I also highlight businesses I work with so it's not always about me, I'm a firim beleiver in paying it forward, http://garybizzo.com/?p=27
I also use links where possible to give people useful info

1-2 hours of engagement every day sets the tone.

I find an hour a day is enough. Much more than that and the value of what I contribute thins out. And I make sure I split the hour between responding to questions and generating new ones.

My own social media activity averages about 45 minutes to an hour a day, usually in smaller increments during the day. But there is no right or wrong answer to this question, as far as I'm concerned.

It really depends on how you are using social media and what your goals are. There is no way to estimate how long you should be spending, unless you have a detailed social media plan that outlines what you hope to accomplish and how you intend to do it.

Similar to Joe, I would say my social media is on all day. Via Tweetdeck, I am following Focus experts, news of the day, my mentions etc. I communicate with people all day as well, if you message me and I like you, I will respond accordingly.

I read and/or write for a total of an hour a day. 30 minutes first thing in the morning, I speed read blog posts found via social media. Then throughout the day I aggregate ones I want to read later until I have time.

Perhaps the question should be turned around: how much time don't you spend on social media? For me, it's 'on' all day, and I'm checking in and out throughout - Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Focus.com (of course) etc. If I'm not physically checking in, then I'm mentally thinking about it, writing about it etc. I do try to start every day, however, with about 30mins of seeing what other people are Tweeting and RTing their interesting stuff for others.

Depends how you define 'Social Media' but like Joe and Craig, I am generally 'on' all day long, albeit in the background of what I'm doing otherwise.

Candidly and respectfully I think this is the wrong question. And the more air time we give it the more we lose.

Would you ask yourself (or task yourself to doing better with) "how much time per day do you spend on the phone?" Or "in meetings?" You might. But what's the point? Without context... without understanding why we're asking the question it's not a purpose-driven question. There is always a context -- and a needed outcome when we ask ourselves these questions. Right?

So I'll ask: Why is this question important? It's a popular one. And many books have been dedicated to answering it. But does that make it worth while? Or does the fact that none of us have time for new, daily tasks (social media) make it worthwhile?

Is "saving time" and "getting it done" the real challenge with social media? Just my two cents. I don't think it is, personally. I think the real challenge is finding ways to make social media serve mature, purposeful (goal-oriented) business interests. Not just finding time to get it done "in an hour per day."

Again, respectfully. I enjoy the question. But I question the value in asking it.

Time spent for me varies. It increases when I am participating in an industry event. It slows down on weekends and holidays.

Perhaps a more accurate question is how to LIMIT your time each day! It can be an addictive time soak.

I set a time limit each day and try to group the activities so I can focus on direct customer activities. I usually catch up early in the morning and then do a few updates over lunch. I set aside time each weekend to blog. I write 3-4 posts a week and probably devote 6 hours a week to blogging and an hour a day to other activities.

Hope that helps!

I spend about 45 minutes per day but I suffer from the same problem too many others have. "A few minutes here and a few minutes there." Result is it may only be 45 minutes but it takes far more than that in terms of my thinking time when we add in the time switching over to a social media site, checking it and then going back to the regular work.

I spend about 15 minutes before lunch, and 15 minutes just before i go home.

Giving people some time to interact with you personaly is possitive for your business image.

Facebook = Darren Chertkow
Twitter = Darren Chertkow

Spending time on social media is part of my every day plan to connect with people. Sometimes I do it face-to-face, and my time on social media is meant to complement that effort.

Participating in conversations, whether its a conversation I started, or someone else started, is an important part of my daily routine.

Depending on the day, that could be 1 hour, or it could more or less, depending on the need. For me, social media is about engaging, not just posting.

It depends on your profession and the marketing plan. Being an author, I've to socialize and market myself through social networks, Blogs and articles, and i spend around 4-5 hours in social media. Even if you've an offline marketing plan, you still have to socialize yourself and i suggest spending atleast 1 hour daily. Include some tweeting and write 1-2 articles,answer a few questions, thats enough for the day!

Depends on the day, personally I spend about 2 hours. But in order not to waste time it's useful to automate some tweeting and Facebook posts with the help of such tools as Hootsuite or SocialOomph.

Check out this article to optimize your social media use for business purposes http://www.soldlab.com/news/2011/8/4/5-things-to-consider-before-using-social...

My @SmallBizLady brand has been largely built using social media. I spend 1.5-2 hours a day Mon-Fri, engaging people using social media. Once a week I spend 3.5 hours online as I host #smallbizchat every Wed on Twitter from 8-9pm ET for emerging entrepreneurs.

In order to be effective with social media marketing you must show up daily with valuable content to share. I spend a lot of time on my daily blog http://www.succeedasyourownboss.com outside of what I do with social media, and I use two people, including a virtual assistant to help me manage it. So it's not just about the time spent on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. It's about all of the time involved in this marketing strategy. I spend 3-4 hours a week on developing content for my blog and the 3 other blogs for which I develop content.

Melinda Emerson
@SmallBizLady
www.succeedasyourownboss.com

The more you put into social media, the more you get out. If your hopes for social media are high well then the time spent on social media should be a lot. Many companies now look to have professionals in this area employed into their company to deal with this area or outsource it to a company like ours. I've linked below a whitepaper and webinar which you may find very helpful. If you have any questions feel free to contact me.

http://www.siliconcloud.com/build-your-brand-with-social-media/

http://www.siliconcloud.com/10-tips-on-monitoring-social-media/

Hi,

I do not spend a lot of time usually spend about 30 minutes per day.

I know an article about social web page strategies. Not sure if you are interested in
www.edustarzone.com/SocialWebpages.html