This could be in various ways, on and offline, including the ways in which I’ve talked about here and in my ebook, such as bringing targeted traffic to your blog, making connections through social media, engaging with prospects on forums, and introducing yourself via email to your prospects.

One of the best ways to get strong, consistent results with this kind of active self-promotion is to set yourself results-oriented targets instead of effort-oriented targets.

So, for example, instead of writing a post for your blog, tweeting it, then leaving it at that, make a real commitment to bringing a certain number of people to your post and blog within a week. This might mean using a few extra web tactics on top of using Twitter, but you know what you are aiming for.

Or, for example, instead of writing five email rapport-building introductions to potential clients, commit to writing as many emails or making as many calls as it takes until you receive a response from five people who ask for more information on your services.

You can apply these results-oriented methods to any active marketing technique you have in your arsenal.

These targets are short-term, but will help you stay focused on achieving your long-term goals, fast-tracking you to success.

Do people agree with these ideas?

Congratulations to all winners and thank you ALL for taking part, and for such excellent and sometimes very funny comments.

The winners of the book are as follows – please contact me, otherwise I will be contacting you all individually with the free book on Wednesday/Thursday…

Heidi Burton
Nadja Johansen
Jason Philip Smith
Steve Ward
Samantha Johnson
Zack Rock
Nate Watkins
Alex Sanso
Lisa Ellwood
Liz Sterry

Well done!

–

In the run up to my new ebook’s launch on Wednesday March 10th, I’ll be giving away 10 books for free.

The offer is exclusive to fans of the Red Lemon Club Fan Page.

To have a chance of getting your hands on a free copy of the book: ’10 Steps to Powerful Online Self Promotion for Creatives’, which will also help people who want to make more sales, and bring greater exposure to their businesses, you need to do the following:

1. Make sure you are logged in to your Facebook account.

2. Go to the Red Lemon Club Fan Page, and become a fan if you aren’t already.

3. Write a wall post or comment stating why you want the book.

..And that’s it!

The ten winners will be announced through the fan page, as well as this site on Tuesday March 9th.

Good luck!

Many of us want to cut down on time spent on wasteful activities, and much has been said about how to reduce procrastination. Despite this, many of us still procrastinate! I think a lot of this has to do with the suggestions to plan what you do, and this is putting us off taking action.

Drawing from my own experiences as a writer and illustrator and the web, I’ve come up with a selection of ways to reduce procrastinating without the need to plan.

1. Take a deep breath and just start

Don’t waste time planning and thinking about it. This is simply another way to avoid actually doing tasks. If you intend to plan, most of what you need is in your mind anyway, so get started and things will tend to fall into place.

2. Expect discomfort and suck it up

Many people put something off because they expect a task to lead to negative emotions, including boredom. Realize that not everything you do will make you feel good, then do it, then feel great when it’s done.

3. Turn off the computer

Personally, the computer is my main source of distraction, and I’m sure others feel the same way. When I was writing my book, I wrote it physically in another room, and got so much more done than had the email and Google been flashing away in front of me. It might seem obvious, but avoid distractions like these and you’ll get more done.

4. Be more decisive at dumping things you don’t need

Be quick to remove/throw away email, paper, even desk clutter that you simply don’t need or will distract you. Cut out this hesitation to trash, and you will have more time to do things that matter.

5. Approach large projects in smaller chunks

For large jobs, the only planning you need to do is in deciding to start working on a small step within the wider project and simply doing it. Your plans for projects become taking action with the smaller aspects of it, instead of meticulously preparing the entire thing at once.

6. Quit the self-deception

A lot of us will dream up excuses for not doing things, such as ‘I’ll be in a better mood to do this tomorrow’. Simply be honest with yourself on what needs to be done and be free of irrational thought, and the job in hand will become much clearer.

7. Do the things you don’t want to do first

Get finished what you are dreading or dislike doing before you do anything else work-related in the day. Even committing ten minutes to the task will help you get the ball rolling for the project.

The best way to get unwanted jobs done is to set a timer, say for thirty minutes, that you spend working solely on this task. When the time is up, you can reward yourself with what you prefer doing.

8. Alternate your tasks

If you face a tough or dull task, do something you enjoy before and after it. This will bring a sense of harmony into what you’re doing and has the effect of cancelling the negativity associated with certain tasks.

9. Understand your body clock

I’m sure you’ve all got some sense of what times of the day suit you for working more effectively. Tailor your day, and the times your working energy levels are highest, to the work you do. Don’t feel that because others say one is freshest in the mornings that you should work in the morning. Do what suits you.

10. Rest

Aside from getting regular and appropriate levels of sleep each night, don’t ignore the importance of taking defined breaks away from your work.

Obviously a break will replenish energy and keep you feeling fresh. However, one of the real benefits of taking breaks that I’ve personally found, is in gaining the sensation of starting something every time you return to what you were doing. Knowing that you are starting something, even if it is in the last stages of a project, will bring to your work a renewed sense of enthusiasm.

What do you do to cut down on wasting-time?

For a similar article, see: 6 ways to save time promoting yourself on the internet.

This could be in the form of using your services, commissioning work from you, buying your products, spreading the word about you, and so on.

Obviously producing unique and high quality work as a creative will be one of your primary means of motivating people. However, there are several other ways to quickly motivate people to take action through activating appropriate emotional responses, as well as highlighting the benefits you offer.

Here are 13 ways to do this:

1. Create the impression of scarcity

Increase the assumed value of your products and services by emphasizing their rarity. For example, you might display limited stock quantities for products you might be selling or giving away. When it comes to your own work, the best way to increase a sense of scarcity is in producing work that is unique and remarkable.

You might also emphasize the scarcity of your services in the way you describe yourself, such as in highlighting what you do that few others can. Really pick out and clarify your strengths when doing so.

2. Build a sense of obligation

You can motivate people to take action when you give something away, or in helping people, which will trigger a sense of indebtedness or liability in them. By giving something away, such as in the form of free information through a blog post, this will unconsciously drive people to feel the need to give something back to you.

3. Express yourself

Revealing your personality, your passion and your character through everything you do online, particularly through your own work, but also through your writing, the design of your site and in the way you interact with people, will appeal to people in a big way, and will get people quickly interested in you.

Visitors will be more motivated to buy into your ‘brand’ after they have witnessed some of your self expression. This will manifest itself for a large part in your own work.

4. Limit options

By cutting down on the choices you offer to people, whether this be all the products you want to sell them, or in the various services you might offer, you will reduce the issue of ‘decision paralysis’, which restricts one’s ability to make a decision at all. By minimizing choice, options become clearer and easier.

Those who you’d like to take action will be more motivated to make decisions if the options in front of them are not complicated. This includes simplifying the navigation and design complexity of your site/s.

5. Evoke desired emotions

In the world of ‘cognitive marketing’ expert marketers suggest embedding messages into your writing (or spoken word) to affect people’s thought patterns through evoking positive feelings like excitement, curiosity and interest. The best way to sell yourself, products and your work is to have prospects and customers associate positive feelings with them.

Think of this as helping people better understand your benefits and not as an exercise in deceit! You can use motivational statements here and there in any persuasive communication you do to motivate people positively, such as:

“What would it feel like to have a beautiful, clean new website?”

“See how you’re getting excited about the prospect of having a print on your wall”

6. Tell stories

Weave stories into any copy you have that seeks to persuade people in the content of your blog and articles, for example. You don’t need to go overboard with telling stories but they have been shown to grab the attention of viewers and readers very effectively. Grabbing attention through intriguing stories is a powerful way of motivating people to take action in the ways you want them to.

7. Get people to make a small step

People are much more likely to make a decision or take action if they have already done something small towards it or in relation to it. According to psychologists, a small commitment in this way activates a commited ‘persona’ in the person, which they will then look to maintain with future commitments.

So, if you provide the ability to leave comments or feedback on your site, for example, this can lead to people taking further action in committing to you if the opportunity is there.

8. Activate the brain’s survival instinct

Triggering the survival instinct in a certain part of the human brain will have an effect on people’s attention, and in getting them motivated.

Three things are linked closely to the this survival trigger: sex, food and danger. Consider incorporating these themes and images relating to them into the headlines you write, your articles, images you include on your blog and in the work you create to grab attention and motivate people to act.

9. Present quick results

Promise a ‘quick service’, ‘instant download’ or ‘super fast shipping’ in the details you include with products and services you offer. Only do this if you can deliver on what you have promised. People are much more inclined to be motivated by getting something quickly.

10. List key things first

Anything you list first, such as a point on a list, or an illustration in your portfolio, will be prioritized by your visitors. So, if you want to get people motivated about a particular thing more than anything else you have to offer at that point, make sure if is listed first in a sequence to boost the priority people give to it.

11. Demonstrate ‘Social Validity’

Showing that you and what you offer is liked and respected by others, has a strong motivational effect on people. Social validation in this way triggers the part of the unconscious brain’s urge to ‘belong’, and hence will attract people to you and your work.

You don’t need to be the most popular kid in school to do this, just make sure you give preference to such validity whenever the opportunity arises.

Social validity can be demonstrated in the following ways:

• Showcase any ratings, testimonials and reviews others have made on your site.
• Enable and encourage commenting, but delete spam and any overly negative comments.
• Display popular posts and articles.
• Install social media buttons like Digg and Tweet and recently introduced Facebook ‘reshare‘ buttons.
• Display your RSS subscriber and Twitter follower numbers.

12. Use the word ‘you’

People’s attentions will be drawn to this word, and being spoken to directly, because we all give priority to ourselves in an evolutionary, survivalist sense. Speak directly to your visitors and you will see improvements in your own persuasiveness.

13. Be professional

This applies to how you present and apply yourself in carrying out your creative work with clients and in the areas surrounding this, such as interacting with prospects, and presenting your work (in the form of your portfolio site etc).

Make sure that you treat everyone you deal with with respect and courtesy, as this feeling of importance has a strong motivational drive behind it for others. Be professional as you go about writing your blog and designing your site too as this will instill a sense of enthusiasm in people as they engage themselves with your professionalism.

Let the community know if you can think of other ideas and if you have other views with regard to anything that has been mentioned.

Having knocked heads and discussed some ideas together, mainly with JC’s eye-opening input, we have compiled some of the main issues that add to as well as detract from great online portfolios. The post is split into rights and wrongs.

Rights

Be mindful of your target audience. Ask yourself the question: “Who is this portfolio site aimed at?” Knowing this, whether it is aimed at potential clients or art-directors, will help clarify exactly how you present your portfolio site. Be aware that the majority of visitors will want your work to be accessed quickly and easily.

Make your best work visible from the start. If you are an illustrator, have your best piece clearly visible or at least easily accessible from the homepage.

Be honest. Try not to embellish facts and details to look more impressive. This will come back to bite you eventually. Have a portfolio that truly represents your work and who you really are.

Be descriptive. Explain clearly and concisely everything that is appropriate to write about (see this post for writing well). This doesn’t mean waffling needlessly about your work, your interests and your background. Give enough information to create a picture of the kind of person you are and describes your work with detail and clarity.

Be mobile phone compatible. Viewing portfolios from a phone like an iPhone is becoming more and more prevalent. JC views a great deal of work from his iPhone, and will likely skip over portfolios that don’t ride well in mobile format. Here’s JC’s comment on iPhone mobile compatibility:

‘I’ve seen that generally they work better with blog-like layouts because thumbnails might end up being too small on the iPhone’s screen. I don’t have much experience with other mobile platforms, but most art directors I know have an iPhone.

Creating an iPhone version of the site is a good solution as well (a la Poolga). Sites with lots of thumbnails could consider organizing them in a list format, so that they are more viewable on a phone.’

Make your work shareable. JC uses the example of an art-director wanting to share samples of the work they see with a client or other members of the creative team. Make it easy for people to email links of specific images, for example, or to be able to copy and save images and other files from your site.

You might also want to consider adding social networking buttons to your portfolio so that it can easily be shared amongst everyone, even going viral.

Have professional and accessible contact information. Include a physical address. People like to know where in the world you are and this will add credibility to you. Include your agent or representative details if you have one. Make sure it is obvious from the homepage exactly where the rest of your contact information is.

Showcase your work in context. Whenever you can, display work you’ve done in the way it was published. For example, if you created an illustration for an advert, you can present an image of the final ad including the illustration in its entirety. Not only does this allow for people to see your work in its applied context, increasing the confidence in your prospects, but this will add value to the work you present.

Be clear and simple. Don’t make the process of viewing your work any more complicated than it should be. The best portfolios are those that display all they need to without being excessive. Clarity means that your site is easy to navigate and avoids clutter. Think zen!

Have your work easy to keep up with. People perusing your stuff might not be looking for your style for their projects right at that moment, but they may need you in the near future.

Make it easy for potential clients and so on to follow your work through enabling RSS subscription, creating a small blog that people can subscribe to, having a Twitter and Facebook account linked to from the site and having a mailing list to sign up to.

Categorize your work. As well as breaking your site down into relevant and distinct pages, consider dividing up the work you showcase according to category, perhaps into separate pages. Categories like ‘editorial’, ‘advertising’ and ‘personal work’, make it easier for prospects and art-directors to distinguish between the types of work they want to see.

Wrongs

Never updating your portfolio. Try to keep your site fresh and ‘buzzing’. It looks unprofessional if nothing changes in a long time. Updates also benefit the way your site gets indexed in search engines, as Google loves active websites.

Small thumbnails. Taking the guessing game out of opening portfolio pieces is recommended for the sanity of people browsing your work! Avoid a page full of tiny thumbnails that, when clicked, take a long time to load. If you do use thumbnails, make them large enough, so that users get a feel for them before clicking on them.

Being trigger-happy with your window settings. Most web surfers prefer having control over the windows and tabs that are up on their screens. Avoid having your page maximize itself, and cut down on pages that pop-up in separate windows.

Use low quality images. I get put off sites that contain images with low resolution, or appear blurry. It looks unprofessional and is a shame to downgrade work that otherwise might have appeared nicely in higher quality.

Make sure images and other files strike the right balance between resolution and internet load time. Save images for the web through editing programs like Photoshop or Gimp.

Using Flash for the sake of it. Some flash sites are well designed and work well for the purpose of the site. More often than not, using flash on a site is unnecessary and overly ostentatious, often proving plain annoying. Other problems that come with flash sites include not being able to link to individual pages from elsewhere, not being compatible with many mobile platforms, including the iPhone, the site taking up the whole screen, the back button dis-engaging, non-selectable text and non-selectable images.

Watermarking images excessively. Placing large watermarks on images etc just makes a portfolio look ugly and tacky. Your true audience, those that care about the work you produce, will be unlikely to steal your work. It is those people who your site is for. Unfortunately it is almost inevitable that your files can be copied if someone really desired them. The good thing about the Internet, however, particularly if you have a following, is that stolen work will likely be reported.

If you must use watermarks, a small signature on an image can be ok.

One last thing…

Provide the option to browse further. Design your portfolio site, if you can, to cater for both people who are skimming your work, and for those who want to delve a little deeper.

This means having a simple opening page with easily accessible work straight away, but also having pages that provide further detail, including testimonials and awards, blog updates, archives, your about page and interviews. Keep these visible, but out of the way of visitors who first arrive.

What does everyone think? Have we missed anything glaring?

Be sure to sign up to the mailing list to get your free book and unique weekly tips.

Here are some tips you should observe in order to deliver better online copy (writing) that will draw readers in and transmit a professional image:

1. Use short sentences

You don’t need to needlessly complicate things to make a point.

2. Formatting

Mix up the use of bold, italic, underlining, colours and font styles to emphasize points and draw in the reader’s eye more effectively.

3. Be positive, not negative

State something that is, instead of what is not. Studies on the psychology behind this show better absorption of the message by the reader for written material delivered in a positive frame.

4. Use space

Break up paragraphs and blocks of text with well-defined breaks, so that reading is more digestible and easier on the moving eye.

5. Use short first paragraphs

This applies to longer pieces of copy like articles and blog posts. These will bring the reader in to read and read on.

6. Take grammar, punctuation and spelling seriously

Try and keep this area in shape, even if it is not 100% accurate. This will transmit a professional image associated with you and your writing. All the small details like apostrophe use are important.

7. Keywords

Including a smattering of keywords that relate to your niche (for example, the word ‘vector’ if you write about digital illustration) in your copy is good for search engine rankings, and will bring more targeted visitors to your writing. Keywords are especially effective in titles and opening paragraphs.

8. Repetition

Without overdoing it, repetition will emphasize key points. Repetition is an important element in persuasive writing too. Be sure to express the same point in different ways to avoid monotony.

9. Lists

Bulleted and numbered lists have been shown to be a popular and very readable writing method.

10. No passive-voice

This is when the subject of a sentence is swapped with the object. For example: “The girl saw the cat,” is in the active voice. The passive voice would be: “The cat was seen by the girl.” Passive writing tends to add unnecessary words to an otherwise clearly written sentence.

What other writing tips to do have that you would like to contribute?

One of my favourite speakers on marketing, Seth Godin, stresses that for a product to now be a success, it needs to be remarkable in itself, instead of relying on the old ways of broadcast advertising an average product (or a product with little competition).

Being remarkable means that your promotion is taken care of by your loyal fans who spread the word of the quality and excellence of your product or service, aided especially well by the possibility of online interaction.

This applies to services provided by creatives, just as it does for products.

Being unremarkable is also no longer an option if you want to succeed as a fully booked creative in the long run. It really is important to be producing work that is remarkable enough to catch people’s attention amongst everything else out there.

How do you, as a creative worker, become truly remarkable, and push your self promotion power to the next level?

These are the key elements to remarkability that you can build into your work. They do not need to be incorporated in equal measures, but it is important to focus on the first element at the very least:

A Unique Style

At the basic level, you need a style that is recognized immediately as yours. This could be in the way you apply paint to a canvas, the kinds of shapes you use as a digital illustrator, how you apply light to your photograph’s subjects, or the way you apply bass to an electronic music composition.

Make sure you think about your style and how it adds to the individuality of your work (or if working in a collective or collaborative context, how you are contributing to the style of the group) before you embark on any piece of creative work.

Unique Content

Often, artists are set apart from others by the content they incorporate into their work, particularly if it is consistent throughout several of their projects. An example of this is the use of human forms in the sculptural work of artist Antony Gormley.

Make your work remarkable by using content that is ideally unique, or presented in a different way than what is ‘normal’. Consistency in the content you use is not vital for being remarkable, but will add to your style and unique signature if you choose to go down this route.

Your Signature

By signature I’m referring to the essence of the work you produce; something that is less tangible and obvious than the materials you use and the style you do things in. I suppose it can be seen as a combination of several elements of your style, content etc that you become known for through lots of practice.

I see a creative signature as taking your style to the next level, through hard work, persistence and time. Having a signature is required if you are to retain remarkability and still be able to evolve as an artist.

Think of what makes the signature sound of Sting or Madonna (whose output is constantly evolving, but still stands out and remains recognizable, for the most part) or the paintings of Picasso and the films of Ridley Scott.

Overall, make sure you stick to the very basis of being remarkable, which is having a unique style. Once you have a body of work that demonstrates your unique style, self promotion will become easier, less time consuming and make big steps for you.

Comments and ideas are welcome!

Your target market is the group of people who will come to enjoy and experience your work upon its completion. With a more focused, single group of end-users to think about, you are better able to develop your niche, produce more focused, higher quality work and be aware of who the kinds of people who will hire you are.

Knowing who might hire your services, based on your identified, focused target market will help you a great deal in going about promoting yourself online, because you will be looking for the right people to expose your work to. This might be in building rapport with individuals through social networking, writing online articles for particular audiences, contributing on forums, commenting on blog posts, and so on.

Be aware that the people that hire you (your clients) are not necessarily the same people in your target market. For example, an author (your client) might hire you to produce work aimed at children (your target market). This example demonstrates how having identified a market will point you in the direction of your clients.

Your target market can also be the clients themselves, such as wealthy individuals buying your paintings. In any case, an awareness of a specific group of people to whom you are ultimately directing your creative work towards, is a crucial part of any successful campaign of self promotion.

Here are some examples of target markets you can think about focusing on:

- Children;

- Non-profit organizations;

- Fashion design firms;

- Punk rock bands;

- Book publishers;

- Wealthy business owners;

- Trendy London teenagers;

- Government agencies etc.

Being clear on your target market is not something that you can do in 5 minutes, and will take some thinking about.

Here’s how to brainstorm your target market. Consider these questions in coming up with an answer:

1. Who are the various groups of people who might use your creative service?

2. Which of these groups do you feel would lead to exciting projects that work with your own interests and working style?

3. Which group(s) do you already know people or clients in?

4. Which group(s) do you have the most knowledge about or would like to learn more about?

5. What are you most passionate about as it relates to your work?

6. What are your strengths and talents?

7. What do you know a lot about within your field?

I’m crediting marketing guru Michael Port for these brainstorming ideas, and someone definitely worth looking into for information on attracting new clients.

I hope for those who haven’t yet considered their focused target market, that you are able to put together some ideas from this post.

Any feedback and comments, is as always very welcome.

The trouble is, the net is jammed with ways to distract us in our efforts to promote, whether this be in engaging with social media, blogging, commenting, forum discussions, posting videos, and so on.

Here are some good ways to cut down wasted time when you’re online, so that you can focus your valuable time on effective self promotion without procrastinating:

1. Assign daily time for online promotion activities.

It is important to set your own rules in terms of how much time you spend online actively promoting yourself, and doing nothing else.

Provide yourself with a daily time limit doing nothing but online self promotion, and you’ll find your efforts are better focused and much more effective. Once you’ve reached your time limit, you can focus on procrastinating again once more .

Write this on your wall, or a post-it note. 15 or 20 minutes of dedicated promotional activity every day will be hugely beneficial to you.

2. Identify your main online time-wasting activities, then ditch them.

To start with, find three sites you find yourself distracted by, that you visit often.

Now block them. There are free applications you can download to put blocks on certain sites.

If you are on Firefox, you can use programs like Leechblock and Invisibility Cloak.

After a while, you won’t even notice they’re gone.

3. Focus on your key influencers.

An earlier post discussed the relevance of key influencers in your industries. These are people who are active online, engaging, respected, talented, and inspire others.

Linking up with these people and getting noticed by them, and getting in their peripheral ‘vision’ is what is important for your promotional methods. These are the people who will spread the word about you, get you work, find clients for you, and build your own value if you get into their good books.

Concentrate your efforts on networking and engaging with these people. This saves time, because you are focusing only on a select group of relevant people and not a massive and overwhelming network.

On Facebook, for example, it is possible to only view updates on your news feed from these people that you can set up through lists. This allows you to keep track of them and communicate with them (no spam – build relationships!).

4. Work offline more.

As hard as this may sound to some people, there is a lot you can do away from the Internet in preparing to promote yourself online. Only go online for things that completely require it, like sending through emails, blog posts and messages.

Writing these can be done offline, even away from the computer with a pen and paper with very few distractions.

This is how I brainstorm and write these very posts: away from the computer. It is much much more effective.

If you think about it, the Internet is essentially a delivery system for getting files from your computer terminal to other people’s terminals. Excuse the old fashioned terminology, but this is all you need to keep in mind when using the net to expose yourself.

Getting the bulk of your work done away from the computer, will eliminate distractions that you might come across on the Internet.

5. Cut down your email-checking binges.

Over checking your email is the major downfall for most people when it comes to trying to be efficient and effective on the Internet.

There are four ways to sort this problem out once and for all:

- Do not check your email the first thing in the morning. Do one or two key tasks that you hopefully set the day before first.

This avoids getting into any vicious cycles that might occur by checking emails first.

- Set yourself up to only check your emails at three points each day or less.

These times can be:

Once in the morning after carrying out key tasks.

Once at 3pm

Once again at 5pm or after dinner if you’re still active on the computer then.

This is possible even if you have a communication intensive project you are working on. Make sure you include as much detail as possible each time you exchange an email with your client etc and make it clear with them if they squirm that you have a serious policy of minimal email use. They’ll understand.

- Deal with each email there and then as you go into your inbox. For those emails that require more time to read or deal with, label these as ‘read’, archive them, and get back to them when you have more time.

- You should only have one folder for your emails. Move all your inbox items into a single archive folder. These cuts out distracting inbox items, and is also hugely satisfying from a mental point of view. Less clutter physically and mentally, means greater productivity.

6. Stick to a Consistent Social Media Checklist.

Interacting with other people on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter can be fun. It might be hell for others. It can also be very time consuming.

I highly recommend using these sites to promote yourself. However, you don’t have to spend much time every day on these sites to promote yourself. You only need minutes if you stick to a checklist for each site you use.

Here is the Step by Step Facebook strategy I try and stick with, which can mean only needing to use it for 5 minutes everyday, or even every few days:

- Create a Key People News Feed

> Click ‘friends’ > Add to ‘key people’ list you already created > Click ‘more’ on the menu to the left (which includes status updates, photos) > drag your ‘key people to above ‘news feed’, and refresh the page. This means only your chosen key people will appear in your news feed.

- Process any requests that appear in the top right.

- Acknowledge messages, birthdays, interesting status updates, posted links. This can be with a few words or putting a thumbs up. This is all valuable, because it makes your name visible every day amongst the people in your network.

- Deal with new notifications, such as wall posts, bottom right.

- Look for any suitable conversations to contribute to, and engage. This doesn’t have to be an essay.

- Spend some time adding a few relevant people who would fit into your network. Approach with a personal message relevant to them.

And that’s it! Now you can log off Facebook and read a book or get creative.

This need only be done ideally once a day, for regular and consistent exposure amongst your Facebook network.

I’m sure you can think of the important things you need to do on any other social media sites you are a member of. Stick to those key things, then log off.

Comments are encouraged here