Remember to slow down.

When you’re first getting involved with online, it can be very easy to try and be everywhere at once. There are hundreds of thousands of new sites launching every day and it can be very tempting to try out every new service that looks remotely relevant or interesting to you. At the time you’re probably sure it’s the next big thing and it will revolutionise your business, but the chances are you won’t go back after the first visit. Whilst it’s important to keep up to date with developments online, it’s just as important to focus your attention in a few areas that are right for you and making these work.

It’s important that you’re keeping up to date with new sites and social networks, but if this approach becomes too fragmented you are at risk of diluting your success and compromising your strategy. Concentrate on making a few areas work well for you, instead of setting new marketing channels up then being distracted by the next big thing. If you’re in too many places at once it can be hard to isolate the channels that are working for you and capitalise on these. Spend a few weeks just on Facebook and Twitter for example and look at the benefits you get from this, as you concentrate to spend time on these sites, learning how they work and how to approach people to get the ultimate benefit for you and your business. If you’re doing everything and it’s going well, how can you justify stopping in one area? This isn’t an effective use of your time or your marketing budget.

If you wanted to, it would be very easy to spend your entire day reading tech blogs and news sites, rushing to keep up with industry developments. Our advice is to take a step back, slow down and analyse if this is the best way to be spending your time.