With the onslaught of information both online and in print, I thought it would be helpful to let you in on the established habits I implement in order to stay effective and not waste time. Just like you, I have client responsibilities plus my own company’s To-Do list, so I try to have a strategic, disciplined approach for the start of my day that works well for me.

Fairly regularly, I’m asked to describe my typical morning using social media tools for new business.

The first thing I do every morning is check for messages. I’ve set up online monitors to keep me aware of conversations, links, comments regarding my personal brand, client’s, competitors, industry info as well as new business opportunities for agencies through RFPs, agency reviews, etc.

I use tools like Google Alerts, TweetBeeps and currently have daily alerts using terms like the examples below that are automatically emailed to me.

• “Kara Smith”
• “www.karasmamedia.com”
• “http://karasmamedia.com/home”
• “blog, legal, law”
• “twitter, legal, law”
• “Holland & Knight”
• “legal, RFP”
• “Alain L. Locke Elementary”
• “Education, New York”

I scan through the email alerts to see if there is important info for me or one of my readers, clients and others who are in my network.

The next thing that I typically do is check my Twitter account to see if there are any “Replies or Direct messages.” Then, I check for new followers and send them a personal direct message. I will conduct a quick search using search.twitter.com and/or Tweetscan and SocialToo, checking for conversations and comments about @karasmamedia. I then make appropriate responses. The beautiful thing is, once you get in a habit of doing these things it takes only a few minutes.

Next, my Google Reader account which contains RSS feed subscriptions for some 30 blogs, local, state and national news and of course health & beauty! I use the list view to quickly scan through typically 125 to 160 daily articles.

I have several favorite blog authors that I read everything that they write and others I look for post titles that draw my interest. I’ll click on the ones of interest. If the article warrants I’ll “Share” the item and/or “Star the Item” in Google Reader. I may use the info for one of my blog posts or I may click on my “Twitthat!” button that I’ve setup in my browser bar. Twitthat is a shortcut to posting an article on Twitter that might be of interest to my audience. It automatically states the article title and compresses the URL. It takes literally seconds to post an article to Twitter. A great tool.

Another tool that I might use is “Press_This” also in my browser bar. If I come across an article that gives me inspiration for a post or one that I want to identify in a post as a resource for my readers I can PressThis and it will automatically post a draft post in my Word Press blog that automatically will include the post title and link to the source.

I may spend 20 to 45 minutes scanning and reading posts that are organized for me in GoogleReader. But it is a more focused approach that saves lots of time.

After I’ve done these tasks which mostly involves reading, I review the Blogger analytics for KARASMA MEDIA, that are e-mailed to me twice a day by Google. I quickly check the analytics to see what my blog traffic has been, what posts have generated the most traffic, what words were used in search to find my blog, etc.

I try to publish one new blog post per business day but I generally write these on nights and weekends and preset the publishing date/time. I usually have about 30 blog post drafts so I don’t have much difficulty finding something to write about, even though I now have over 150 blog posts published on the KARASMA MEDIA LEGAL MARKETING BLOG.

This reflects my typical morning and takes approximately an hour of my time. This is an hour well spent and provides a great start for the day.

Have any tips that have been helpful to you that you’d like to share?

Tags: Kara Smith, Karasma Media, Legal Marketing Tips