Recently I was chatting with a prospective client who wanted to increase her social media presence. Not surprisingly she had a bunch of what I fondly refer to as “The Elephant in the Room” questions. Her most pressing concern was not trolls, money, technology or even ROI but T-I-M-E. Here’s a bit of how our chat went…. “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “There is no getting around it, the social media channels, networks or whatever the preferred term is, are hungry beasts. It does take time to feed and care for them.” However, without non-sales focused, value-add content (and consistent engagement) you might as well stick to your website and email campaigns.  Sure there are tools that will help you post to multiple channels at one swoop. While you might save a little time, you often have to create the posts to the lowest common character denominator. You loose the benefits unique to each channel. (Hearing big sighs… sorry) Pet Peeve. Unless you want your twitter feed filled with links, not especially great for visual industries like food or fashion or even B2B, do not link Twitter and Instagram directly. A Few Tools & Ideas So what’s a person who wants to step into social media but has limited time to do? There are interesting tools like Paper.li which curates content from the people you follow on Twitter into a cool quasi newsletter format. Often the most challenge part of content creation is What to create. Buzz Summo is a cool little search engine that pulls trending and hot topic information. Similar to Paper.li Feedly consolidates feeds but it pull from a wider source range including blogs, publications, blogs, YouTube and more. Social Sprout has a list of 180 resources – really! Re-purposed Content is one of my all time favorites. I love creating blog posts from social media discussions I’ve initiated especially on Twitter. It’s a great way to consolidate information, create a blog post from curated information which can then be socialized and positioned as original content. The added benefit is it’s a nice thank you to the people who participated in your conversation. Example – Recently a friend brought me some amazing smoked salt from Peru. I love to cook but I had not a clue what to do with this unique spice. So I reached out through my @DivaFoodies Twitter handle and asked a few chefs and food friends for suggestions. I even posted on a Facebook food group. Chefs👩🏽‍🍳👨‍🍳and food friend – need recipe ideas. Friend bright me smoked salt from Peru. What should I make? @LoganJrChef @Kellsloan @cowboychef @chophappy @ChezMontier @InglesDietitian @jessica_tom @Emily_Ellyn @TasteandSavor @TasteandSavor pic.twitter.com/n2yLb66YM8 — Diva Foodies (@DivaFoodies) August 17, 2018 Take a look at the blog post ~ How To Use Smoked Salt – Ideas from 19 Chefs & Foodies. It incorporates live tweets with a some overarching narrative. While it did take some time, it was a lot of fun to create.   To my surprise and delight 19 people offered their ideas – from savory to sweet to even how to use in a cocktail! Then of course I socialized the post and was rewarded with more engagement and reach. Thanx to all our chef & food friends for your imaginative ideas on how to use #SmokedSalt. We wanted share so all are in a special blog post.@LoganJrChef @lowcarb77 @Kellsloan @cowboychef @jessica_tom @Kent_Rollins @ @chophappy @jay_eatz @TMetcalf44 http://t.co/YtUmIZkDPM pic.twitter.com/4Woo1aueJ8 — Diva Foodies (@DivaFoodies) August 19, 2018 Sometimes a little extra time is worth the effort especially if you want to reinforce your positioning as a thought leader or a relevant brand option to your...