I am by no means an expert in social media (really, who is—the medium's still so new). What I am is an insurance professional in a small-town agency, with a small staff and even smaller budget. In fact, I handle all the social media activities at my agency, as well as being a partner and actually writing business.

So how in the world do you squeeze social media into your marketing mix if you're a busy insurance professional?

Based on this experience and the input of others in the business, I've assembled a few helpful strategies that will help you embrace social media without sacrificing the work that pays the bills. Take them, adapt them to your own needs or invent something new from the suggestions. The bottom line is it has to work for you.

Strategy No. 1: Schedule your social media time like you would any appointment.

Making the commitment in black and white allows you to have control over your schedule. Here's an example. About half an hour before my office opens, I log onto Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. I check for comments on our agency Facebook page and respond if necessary. I also check for responses or messages on my Twitter and LinkedIn and respond as well. I also make new posts at this time. I do the same about a half-hour before we close. This seems to be often enough. If someone's house is on fire, I'm pretty sure they'll call. It's doubtful they'll post a message on the fan page stating this!

Strategy No. 2: Plan your social media activities in advance.

A social media schedule is no different than planning for your print, TV or radio ads. I just ran our agency's first-ever contest on Facebook. You can see for yourself by checking out our page. Click on photos, then “Gas card contest.” Click on the picture to see the comments underneath. The contest ran Monday through Friday, with the winner announced the following Monday. One of my agency's specialties is motorcycle insurance (most of us are riders), so the contest asked people to guess the number of miles on my motorcycle. The closest answer got a $50 gas card. Here's how I did it without going crazy in the process:

• The week before, I wrote out specific posts for each day of the contest. Often there were multiple posts, depending on the media I was going to use (Facebook post would be worded differently than Twitter post). I labeled the posts #1, 2, etc.
• I got a large desk calendar and scheduled each post on the appropriate day (I need a visual clue because otherwise I may forget).
• To keep track of the guesses, I posted a photo of my motorcycle and me and requested all guesses be made in the form of a comment on the photo.
• To enter, contestants had to both “Like” our agency page and make a guess.

The contest was mainly an experiment; I wanted to see the level of engagement I could stir up. Well, it worked. In checking the page Insights, I discovered that we got a lot of traffic on our page during the contest period. People were specifically responding to my request to visit the page daily—there were certain folks that posted a new guess every day. Although I can't say I made any “sales” from this contest, I'm of the opinion that it isn't always about the numbers (yes, I said it). Sometimes it's just about building awareness, getting eyeballs to your page and getting people interested in what you are and what you're doing.

Other helpful planning methods:

• Instead of a desk calendar, use a big wall calendar and write your posts on sticky notes. Dry erase calendars work wonders, too.
• Use a program such as Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to schedule your posts/tweets. Carve out a block of time to write all your posts for the week or month. Once you've entered them into either program, they'll be sent out based on the timeframe you choose. I haven't used this feature yet, but many have commented on how easy and timesaving it is.

Strategy No. 3: Use the sites your customers are using.

Let's face it, there are a million social media sites and there's no way you can learn them all—nor should you. Facebook has become the most popular, and I guarantee your customers are on there. So you should be, too. Twitter is also high up on the food chain, so learn about it as well. LinkedIn is great to build business contacts and referrals. Beyond these three, I'm not interested. Spending time learning the back end of 10 different social media sites is not time well spent, especially if no one uses them. These are simply tools to help us in our insurance work. Don't ever forget that. Of course, if you want to learn coding and programming in addition to insurance, be my guest. You'll really be in high demand. In fact, you can come work for me.

Strategy No. 4: Email alerts can be your best friend.

If staying logged into your sites all day is too distracting (or tempting; be honest, it's tough to look away sometimes), then you can set up email alerts for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn (again, I only reference these three, as that's all I use). Alerts are available for about anything, such as when someone comments on a post or photo or sends you a Twitter reply or direct message. If you allot certain times of the day to review and respond to email (called “batching” your work—and I am extra-productive using this method), then just check your notifications at the same time. You can then log into the appropriate application and respond. If you haven't taken advantage of the notifications features of the above three, here's how you do it:

• Twitter: log in, click settings, then notifications. Check//uncheck the boxes based on your wishes. Save the changes.
• Facebook: log in, click Account, then Account Settings. Click notifications, and then check the items you want to receive notifications for.
• LinkedIn: log in, click settings (find your name in the upper right-hand corner, then scroll down and choose settings. Select email preferences, and then make your selections.

I've read a lot about social media strategies, but always wonder if the information is simply just theory or something concrete and useable. I can assure you that these strategies are time-tested and practical. I use them every day and have managed to marry my “real job” with social media usage quite nicely.