In the last post we looked at some of the main social and business networks that location independent parents can use, but those are not the whole story when it comes to social media.

Many location independent parents running a business will maintain profiles on other sites and will also run a blog or two. However, you still need to make sure that you are not spending too much time on social media.

To do that, you need to introduce some automation. Using my own setup as a case study, let me tell you how I do it. You already know the three networks on which I interact most, but since I love trying out shiny new web stuff, I have accounts on around 50 or so social media sites.

There are three key tools that help me to maintain these and other tools that help me with management…

Friendfeed

I use Friendfeed as my all in one aggregator for public view. (I also have a couple of other tools that I use to aggregate my lifestream for my own use, but those are less important).

Thanks to the magic of RSS, I can import virtually anything I do into Friendfeed. My current setup includes my comments collected by Backtype, Disqus and IntenseDebate , the feeds from the five blogs I write for regularly (I still need to add this one), my bookmarks from Delicious, Digg,Google Reader, StumbleUpon and Twine, and my status updates from LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

The beauty of this is that most of my online interactions are collected here and I can use it to comment on and share anything I find interesting, copying those same updates to Twitter and – by the use of hashtags – to my connected sites.

Note: Friendfeed was acquired by Facebook earlier this year, so there’s always a possibility that one day it won’t be around any more. Some people has suggested Streamy as a replacement, and there’s also a list of alternatives in this Friendfeed thread.

Twitterfeed

Twitterfeed is exactly what it says – an online application that feeds Twitter. I use Twitterfeed to publish updates from the blogs I write on regularly to the related Twitter accounts. I can also use that same tool to publish the feed to Facebook and to Ping.fm, another important tool that I’ll look at in a while.

I can also post updates from my Delicious and StumbleUpon accounts. One of the reasons I like Twitterfeed is because it uses a variety of URL shorteners, including bit.ly, which means that you can track the clicks for each of your posts – making it a great business tool.

Ping.fm

Ping.fm lets you update dozens of social networks at once, making it a real boon if you want to let not only your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn connections know your news, but also your chat buddies from Google Talk, hi5 and Friendster.

It’s as simple as adding your networks and giving Ping.fm the permission to publish. For added oomph, you can post updates to Ping.fm from Twitterfeed too, as well as from Hootsuite, another popular Twitter tool for business.

Other Tools

Since many location independent parents have different Twitter accounts for different aspects of their business, it’s also worth having a multiple Twitter account management tool, such as Hootsuite (which has its own analytics). Tweetvisor, Brizzly, Seesmic or Tweetdeck – they all do pretty much the same thing so you can take your pick.

The Flow…

So how do you put this all together in a sensible manner. Here’s my social media flow.

• I feed everything from my blogs and other social media accounts into Friendfeed, taking care to avoid duplication
• I feed blog posts to my Twitter accounts via Twitterfeed and also use Twitterfeed to update other social media accounts via Ping.fm
• I interact mainly on Twitter, which I use to update LinkedIn, Facebook and Brazen Careerist by using hashtags.

Now that everything is set up, all I have to do is spend time on Twitter daily and check in on other social media accounts once a week for the important ones and once every couple of weeks for those that are less important. It’s a snap!

Have I got the perfect social media workflow? I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that when I am busy, as location independent parents usually are, it only takes a few minutes to maintain my presence online.

Congratulations on your baby girl, Misha – she’s gorgeous! We’d love to know whether you’ve found it as challenging as we have, being both an entrepreneur and a new father. How did you manage to “crush it” as well as cope with the demands of a newborn/young baby?

Thanks so much, it’s been an incredible experience! It’s not easy to find the right balance and I’m willing to admit that I haven’t been perfect. With the book, Vaynermedia starting up, Cork’d relaunching, Cinderella Wine and Gourmet Library all happening over the past 6 months or so I’ve been running around a bit more than I should so I’m trying to get better with that…

It’s about balancing contradictions, something that I’m very comfortable with. On one hand your instinct as an entrepreneur is to work your face off, on the other hand your instinct as a parent is to spend every second with your family. It’s not easy but I think as long as you remember what’s really important in life it works out in the end.

According to the three rules you mention in your book “Crush It!“, “love your family” is number 1. Sometimes the practical implementation of taking care of your family seems to differ between male & female entrepreneurs. What does taking care of your family mean to you?

I mean, there’s an instinct there that you want the people you love to be able to live comfortably and have nice things, right? I didn’t get to really know my father until I started working at the store when I was 14 because he was working so ridiculously hard to make sure that his kids would have a better life.

I don’t have to make the same sacrifices my dad did though, in a large part because of the groundwork he laid for me. So for me, part of it is working hard to provide for my family, but a bigger part is making sure that I’m there for them.

One of the things we’ve found the most challenging as entrepreneurial parents is fitting in work around our baby girl’s schedule – this has often meant working until 3am just to get everything done. What advice can you give when you’re faced with the real time-crunch challenges of being a parent but still want to crush it?

We all have to be realistic about our responsibilities and remember that family comes number one. If you cut out all the video game playing and Lost watching and you’re still struggling to find enough time for your family then you need to start sacrificing some of the hours you were putting in to “crushing it”.

In a perfect world there would be enough time to go 2000% with everything, but as long as you’re cutting out the things that you’re not passionate about that take up your time, you’re on the right path.

In “Crush It“ you provide some very clear & useful steps for leveraging the social web to create your own success. For anyone who has not read it yet, what advice would you give to a complete newbie & non-techy? Where should they start?

My advice would be that platforms like Twitter and Facebook don’t change basic rules of marketing and business. They actually allow you to concentrate more on the basics and become like the baker and butcher of the 1950s.

I would get an account with Twitter and Facebook as well as checking to see if there are any forums or communities that are based on the niche that your business lives in. Once you’re there, listen for a while and then start joining the conversation. And by that I mean talk, don’t sell.

The biggest mistake people make is to start selling from the minute they launch an account, and that will always cause people to tune out. If you engage and converse and answer questions, you’ll be learning what your target customers want and you’ll be in a position to over-deliver. Once you understand how to over-deliver and consistently provide a great experience for your customers, you’ll be able to build the word-of-mouth marketing which is the true power of these new tools.

As a new parent, is there anything you’ll do differently when it comes to running your business & living your life?

I’ll definitely have to adjust how I work and live and I’m already starting to work on that. I’m still going to hustle because that’s in my DNA, it’s just who I am, but I’m accustomed to hectic days at a frantic pace, and I need more structure to make sure I’m doing everything I want to do. That will mean blocking out certain nights to always be home, scheduling calls for specific portions of the week, and saying “no” a bit more often than I am used to. But I’ll make it work.

On a personal note, any exciting travel plans for your family & new baby girl? When you do travel, do you continue to work?

Traveling is actually one of the times I get the most work done. I don’t want to think about how behind I would be in emails if it weren’t for cross country flights. Lizzie and I do have a special trip planned this year, but we’re keeping it private.

Editor’s Note: Thanks so much to Gary for taking the time out of his busy schedule to answer our questions. I received a review copy of Gary’s book Crush It! - it’s an easy read with some extremely valuable tips on leveraging social media and branding yourself. Highly recommended! None of the links in this post are affiliate links, they take you straight to the website for Gary’s book.

Image by birgerking

The online world can be a lifeline for location independent parents. That’s how you can keep in touch with friends and family and keep your business going. But that same online world can be a real time-sink, eating up countless hours which you could use more profitably elsewhere. As a location independent professional, you will depend on social media to keep your business going, but you don’t want it to take over your life.

To get started with social media, decide which networks are most important to you. This may depend on your actual business model and who you are trying to reach. I rely on three principal networks through which I funnel most of my social interactions online – two of these are mainly professional and one mainly personal. Let’s start with the personal one first – Facebook. With tens of millions of users worldwide, no professional can ignore it…

Facebook

When I started using Facebook I used it to keep in touch with people I actually knew and had met face to face who were now scattered around the world. As such, it was primarily a social tool.  That has changed as many of the people I’ve connected with online also use Facebook to connect with colleagues and clients – so I do too. I’ve automated my Facebook profile by using a built in tool (there are several to choose from) to import my blog posts – that means I share them both with colleagues and with friends.

The key to separating the your personal from your business life on Facebook is to divide your group of friends into lists and then decide which updates they can see and which they don’t. For me, this ensures that business colleagues don’t see photos and videos of me having too good a time at a family event, but do get all business related updates.

I can also update Facebook from one of my other main tools, Twitter, by using the #fb hashtag. Ideally, it’s better to set up a Facebook page for professional use if you are new to Facebook. That will allow you to completely separate business and personal interactions.

Twitter

Twitter is another important social media tool. I use it to connect with other freelance writers, the location independent community (both parents and business people) and others who might have something interesting to say. Because each message can be no more than 140 characters, communication is concise and focused – no waffle.

Twitter is a great place to get advice on work related problems, connect with potential clients, get recommendations and testimonials and take part in online chats. Because of the use of hashtags you can also use it to feed selected updates to other networks such as Facebook (as I mentioned above), LinkedIn, Brazen Careerist and many others.

One of Twitter’s strengths as a professional tool is the search features. It is an excellent research tool and it’s bang up to date. That works well not just for the writing business but for any business.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is not the only business network there is, but it has a lot of features that will help any business. You can create a great profile that not only includes the elements of a traditional resume, but also pulls in links from your blog, slideshows and more interactive content.

You can network with others through groups targeted on particular business areas, and get recommendations and testimonials from people you have worked with. You can highlight your expertise by answering questions, build your network by seeing who your connections are networking with and even apply for jobs. Like Facebook, your LinkedIn status can be updated from Twitter with a hashtag.

Bear in mind that there is no single perfect network that location independent parents should use.

The one that’s right for you will depend on the people you are trying to reach, but here are a few possibilities to get you started.  In some cases using these tools will lead directly to a business opportunity; in others they will help you to make contacts and set up meetings which may expand your network and lead indirectly to business.

Next time, I’ll look at how location independent parents can streamline their online interactions to make the most effective use of their time…