Frontline Perspectives

Start your computer. Check your e-mail. Tweet. Pour some coffee. Go to a meeting. Write a blog post.

Get in a routine. Tweeting, linking, blogging and searching get easier the more you do them.

The best way to establish a routine? Give yourself a goal for the number of times a day you need to do a given social media task, and give yourself a few weeks to get up and running. For example, in order to get in the routine of tweeting, give yourself an hour a day for three tweets. Then, set times throughout the day when you’d like to tweet. After a few weeks, your established tweeting times have become part of your daily ritual, and finding content will be quick and easy.

If your social media depends on other people, make the entire process a routine. Make an editorial calendar to help your blog team stay of top of deadlines. Remind people of their deadlines until they get in the habit, too.

Not directly involved in your company’s social media? You can still benefit from a routine of commenting, liking and retweeting. Getting your company’s social media efforts out there is an important component for any company and even if some elements in this step are automatic, your comments and posts will boost the relevance and exposure for your marketing.

When practiced consistently, your content will improve. After all, practice makes perfect. Everyone needs practice to fine-tune these skills — especially when you only have 140 characters to make your point.

So get in the social media habit. And it will be a hard one to break.