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Here’s my social media consumption in summary – I blog an average of five times a week, I check my tweets periodically every hour with at least 5 tweets written daily. I log on to Facebook twice in a day. I read about 300 or so RSS feeds on my Google Reader each night. I also make it a point to reply anyone who has written to me, be it via my blog, email*, Twitter or Facebook, within 24 hours. And I attend about 4 blogger events each month.

And here’s another summary of what I do as a Digital Strategist for a leading communications agency that has close to 400 employees in Singapore alone – at any one time, I have at least 2 campaigns to supervise. If I were lucky, I’d have only a couple of meetings to attend to in a day. I produce about 3 proposals (with the Big Idea included) a week. I’ve been involved in over 20 pitches in the last 11 months. I conduct a regional Webex training once every couple of months across more than 15 offices in Asia. I make it a point to conduct social media workshops and presentations every other month as well for the local community. I make sure to always write personal emails when I’m reaching out to bloggers for any of my events. I don’t do auto-generated eDM blasts. Ever. I always follow-up with personal phone calls thereafter. I have an average of 1 event to organise per month. Modesty speaking.

Albeit my life as a social media junkie, I have never missed a single deadline in my role as a Digital Strategist to date. I balance both roles better than Jean-François Gravelet on a tightrope. How do I do it? Well, here are a few tips you may find useful.

Work comes first
I wish I could say I tweet for a living but I don’t. I’m not Mashable. I’m a salaried employee who receives a fixed amount of income in exchange for my service for a fixed amount of time per day, from 0900h – 1830h, 20 working days a month. My job pays for foie gras, Pradas and first-class tickets to the Bahamas. My blog doesn’t. Simply put, before I start tweeting away or playing Mafia Wars on Facebook, I’d be sure I’m done cracking the Big Idea for a client first.

And if I may be blatant to my fellow cubicle citizens – if you have time to tweet, you have time to fucking reply your client’s email.

Set a daily schedule
Allocate time for every activity that happens in a typical day of your life. Even for emails. As a rule of thumb, I don’t blog at work, and I don’t work at home (save for instances where I’m done with the flu and have to work from home). Broadly speaking, my daily schedule goes like this:

0800h: Log on to Twitter. Read tweets. Respond to mentions and direct messages. Have a cigarette. Review Facebook newsfeed too.

0900h: Clear emails upon reaching the office. Jot down today’s list of to-dos.

1030h: Take a 5-minute break. Tweet something funny. RT someone interesting. Decline Friend Request from some sleazeball on Facebook. Get back to work.

1200h: Clear second round of emails before heading out for lunch with Mrs Law.  Read tweets and respond to mentions and direct messages whilst queuing up for chicken rice.

1400h: Clear third round of emails and resume work. Must strike off all items on today’s list of to-dos by 1800h.

1530h: Take a 5-minute break. Tweet something funny. RT someone interesting. Decline yet another Friend Request from some sleazeball on Facebook. Get back to work.

1800h: Clear final round of emails and review items left on today’s list of to-dos.  If it can be helped, do not leave the office until they’re all done.

1830h: Drop a couple of tweets before leaving the office. Grab dinner with wife.

2200h: Log on to Google Reader. Read and absorb. Decide what’s interesting to blog about. Select up to 3 items worthy of blogging. Blog. Approve blog comments collected from the day. Respond to blog comments.

2330h: Log on to Friendfeed. Approve Friend Request. Reply emails. Log on to Twitter. Read tweets. Respond to mentions and direct messages.

0200h: Hit the sack.

Draw a line
Particularly for my case, granted the nature of my job, it is crucial for me to draw a line between my online world and offline world. At risk of sounding cold, I make it a deliberate effort not to get too close to anyone I meet online, be it bloggers or readers of my blog. It is not to say that I don’t appreciate them – as those who’ve called me at 2 in the morning can ascertain, but I don’t want to run into a case where someone might feel I’m practicing favourism on an individual when I’m running my campaigns or blog contests. Emotional attachment to anyone I meet online, quite naturally, may reduce my level of objectivity.

I hope you’d find the tips useful. Anyone has anymore to add?

*If I don’t reply you, that usually mean your email was so badly written, it would have been beneath me to respond to your stupidity.

Front page image courtesy of Normal Watches