I don't have time to sit down every day (or even once a week) and post a new blog, update my Facebook and LinkedIn pages, and post new tweets. Having fresh and frequent content is essential if you really want to reap the benefits of these social media tools. My favorite tricks are those that allow me to schedule updates. Since I use twitter to update the homepage on www.15minutesmedia.com and my personal Facebook status, it is especially important that my Twitter updates are frequent.

There are several free tools that allow you to schedule your Tweets. I recently signed up for Tweet Later and gave it a test drive. The design and mish-mash of fonts can make using the dashboard a little confusing, but the features are great.

Once you add your Twitter account you can opt for the following:
You can send an auto welcome message
Auto-follow anyone that follows you (or manually approve before following)
Email digest of replies to your tweets.

Scheduling Tweets:
Type your tweet (announce new menus, hours, special promotions, show dates, etc.)
Save as a draft or schedule to publish (immediately, minutes/hours/days/weeks from now, or a specific day and time).
I scheduled a new featured link to post every Friday at 9am. Follow 15minutesmedia on Twitter to get our tweets.

There are a number of additional features you can unlock with a paid subscription.

Pretty cool tool. Now I can sit down when I have an hour or two and schedule a week or two's worth of Tweets.

Want a more detailed breakdown of features? Read this blog post: http://www.squidoo.com/scheduletweets