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Merrick, NY--For our second installment of the "Five Minutes to Better Social Media" series, The Centurion asked Jeff Arnold of 4Spot Marketing what he would do with five minutes.

This series offers quick and easy ways to manage social media during the busy holiday season. But no matter how quick and easy these tips may be, you still may get caught up in the day-to-day operations of your store and not have time to address your social media. So when we asked Arnold, a longtime social media expert, how luxury jewelers can improve their social media results in five minutes or less, his answer was quick: HootSuite!

"This program is sweet, or should we say, 'suite.' HootSuite, that is!," he laughed. "HootSuite is a free service that you can use to manage your Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and Foursquare accounts from one location. More importantly, you can schedule your posts for the future. This will allow you to schedule posts NOW, and they will go out throughout the rest of the year, freeing up your time to work on selling!

Setting up your HootSuite account is simple:

1. Go to HootSuite.com and sign up for a free account.
2. Once you verify your email address, you simply click 'Add Social Network' and connect HootSuite to your various accounts.
3. It should take you less than 5 minutes to get all of your account set up (if you have your userIDs and passwords readily available).

You are then ready to start setting up your social media posts for the rest of the month. Simply click in the 'Compose Message' field at the top of the screen and type your update and add images, if desired. Then, click the calendar icon and select the date and time that you want your post to go live. Use the drop down to select which, or all, of your social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to which you'd like to post.

The scheduling deck on HootSuite.

Then click 'schedule' and your post will be scheduled for the future. You could have your whole month's worth of posts complete in just a few minutes per day, now, when you aren't quite as busy as you will be in December."

Don't be overwhelmed by a month of posting. While a post a day (or more!) during the holidays is a good rule of thumb, you can keep it simple. Perhaps an image from your inventory each day, or feature one of your sales associates with their "pick of the day." And don't forget gift certificates! While you probably can't plan the whole month in five minutes, the time will be well spent to make sure that your social media plan continues on while you're busy on the sales floor. 

Jeffrey Arnold, president of 4Spot Marketing, has been involved with Internet marketing for 10 years.  He combines 25+ years of business management experience with his expert knowledge of search engine optimization and Internet marketing techniques to provide companies with comprehensive Internet marketing services. Arnold can be reached at (702) 721-9763; email, Jeff@4SpotMarketing.com; or www.4SpotMarketing.com.