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You’ve heard that you need to be active in social media these days to promote your business or website. But there are so many different social media tools available that it can be impossible to maintain active profiles on all of them. What can you do about it?

First, you really need to find the best tools for your business and your audience — not every tool. That’s too much segmentation. But sometimes even after you narrow down your options, regular management and interaction with your community can be overwhelming. So let’s talk about some options you have when you are in that position.

3 Options for Social Media Profiles You Can’t Manage

If you’re struggling with your current social media presence, from managing consistency across platforms to finding enough time to engage your community, here are some things you can do to ease the burden.

1. 

   Don't be afraid to delegate. - Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

   Delegate – If you have employees, consider passing some of the social media responsibilities to them. Just be sure to train them properly because everything they do and say will represent you and your company. For example, give them a standard profile bio and logo to include in every instance for consistency. And outline what kinds of things they may and may not share with the public via social media tools.

2. Outsource – If you don’t have employees or none of them have the time or skills to help you manage your social media presence, hire an external firm or individual with the expertise you need. DSS Media is one example of a firm with years of experience and the ability to offer competent social media services to help your business or website.
3. Eliminate – Sometimes even after cutting back, you’ll still try to do too much. If a social media tool doesn’t give you benefits you aren’t getting elsewhere (or helping you reach members of your audience that you can’t reach elsewhere), you might have to come to terms with giving it up. That leaves you more time to more effectively use other tools.

Don’t be afraid to try new social media tools if they look like more effective ways to reach your intended audience. But don’t get so caught up in following the latest fads that you can’t afford to spend the resources required to manage your presence on tools you already know work well for you. Successful social media plans require balance and the ability to not only change with the times, but to know when to get help when you need it and let go of efforts that no longer deliver.

What do you do when you feel overwhelmed by the time commitment required to use social media tools effectively? Leave a comment below to share your thoughts and stories.

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Did you know that how you format a blog post can be just as important as the content it provides? Offering top notch content is a major factor in the long-term success of your blog. And that depends not only on what you say, but how you display it.

Let’s look at why post formatting matters on your blog, and some tips on how you can improve your blog post format.

Why Post Formats Matter in Blogging

It’s not enough to ramble on about something your audience might be interested in. You need to serve it up in an easily digestible way that lets readers quickly scan posts for what they want to know and what they might want to quote when they come back to share your post with others. Always keep in mind that readers on the Web have shorter attention spans than someone who might look for similar information in a book.

5 Formatting Tips to Improve Your Blog Content

Here are five easy things you can do to follow basic Web writing standards that improve the formatting of your blog posts.

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   Use short paragraphs. Ideally keep them to 3-5 lines.

2. Make sure your font sizes are readable. WordPress theme designers are notorious for using itty bitty fonts that are painful for an average reader. Increase the size and the contrast if necessary. Think about readers on laptops and smaller screens — not those using external monitors with better resolutions. Your average reader shouldn’t have to adjust the font size when they open your blog.
3. Pick a color scheme that keeps your content readable as well. Light text over dark backgrounds is usually a bad idea. Leave that for photo blogs with little text involved. On the other hand, light gray text over a white background is just as difficult for an average reader.
4. Break up your blog content with subheadings. These should be laid out in a logical progression to let readers quickly scan posts to find the specific information they’re looking for. Not everyone will read your blog posts from beginning to end. That’s just life on the Web.
5. Break things down further with bulleted or numbered lists when appropriate. This is another good way to make your blog content easily scanned by the eye, and people seem to love to share list-based blog posts via social media, making it better for traffic too.

It doesn’t have to take a lot of work to improve the formatting of your blog posts. Put these simple ideas to work on your next blog article and help it stand out from the crowd.

Do you have other blog post formatting tips? Leave them below in the comments.