The title  of this post, Work Smart: Mastering Your Social Media Life, is the title of a great article by Gina Trapani, of Lifehacker.com fame, that I just read over at Fast Company. I’ve been thinking about putting together an article like this myself. In fact, I was just talking to a co-worker about how I fuse together WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and how I’m looking forward to integrating Google Buzz into the fold.

It’s no simple task coming up with fresh content, doing the postings, cross-posting, etc… and being, basically, a one-man media empire; it takes a heck of a lot of work, and that explains both why so many people start and give up, and why the persistence of doing it is often rewarded with followers, comments, links, etc… in many ways it’s self-regulating. Don’t do it, no love lost… keep it up, and people become interested, you can become a taste maker, or a critical voice.

Having a good social media workflow in place allows you to get more bang for your, content, buck by getting the message to more people right away. So instead of just posting and hoping that something goes viral, or you’ll be found in organic Google searches, you’re taking the message to the people. Some might forward it, some might not read it, some might not care at all, some might really enjoy it, but either way it’s out there, and getting the message out there is what it’s all about. We can only take it that far. After that it’s left to go as far as it can on merit and value alone.

I’m going to post Gina’s video here, as well, because it’s a nice addition to reading the post. Enjoy.