Social bookmarking, social media, social networking, microblogging, lifestreaming… everywhere you look the blogosphere is telling you that you have to get out there and soak it all up. But indeed this can be an overwhelming task and maybe even more so if you have limited time!

Really, who can keep up with all of this? And maybe even more so when there are so many social media websites attempting to capture and keep your attention and focus?

In my post, Discover Niche Social Networking, I talked about how to find social networking sites that tailor to niche blog. Today, we’ll expand on that idea by addressing how to keep your focus when you have found your niche social networking websites.

Limit Yourself

While being signed up with every social networking site out there is great, you don’t actually have to use them all. In fact, building a profile and not using a site for networking is quite fine. Registering just for the sake of keeping your brand is also a good idea.

The key though is that you don’t have to use them all. While browsing the blogosphere you may start to find that many bloggers target just a few social networking sites by giving you options to submit their blog post or network with them on a specific site. See what other bloggers in your niche are using by browsing their blogs and ensure that you spend time focusing on these sites. You’ll be able to network with your niche peers on these sites and chances are, they have found them to be effective within the niche.

With microblogging, there are too many to choose from: Twitter, Plurk, Pownce, Jaiku, just name the more popular choices. What do you have to say multiple times per day on these services that wouldn’t be a repeat of what you just said somewhere else? Targeting all of these sites for traffic and microblogging is an incredible waste of time. Chances are you’re going to just be networking with the same people at all these sites anyway.

Understand Tags

One of the biggest keys for success within social bookmarking is to ensure that you’re properly tagging posts. When a post is miss tagged it’ll often cause the blogger to not reach traffic levels they could have if it had been tagged right. If you’re the first one to submit a post to a site do you want your name associated with a wrong tag for that blogger? Chances are they might think you wouldn’t be a good target to network with.

The point here is that whatever you choose to do with social media you should fully understand. Not only because it’ll benefit you in the long run but others as well which makes you someone more fun and interesting to network with. The more people that choose to network with you the greater exposure that you’ll have.

Seek Friends

If you have half as many feeds in your readers as I do, you’ve got no shortage of a 100 or more bloggers you can spend time networking with. Spend time networking with the people who you can relate to based on what THEY have, not you. You’ll get yourself noticed more if you are focused on what will work for someone else. And while this can be a trial and error process, consider that the more attention you draw to yourself as someone being helpful the more others will want to reciprocate.

When it comes to sites like StumbleUpon that limits the amount of “friends” you can have, choose wisely. You’ll want people who submit content you actually enjoy and who will add you as a friend in return. While being a fan of a few of the popular bloggers is great you’ll want to spend more time consuming yourself with those who are also interested in you and haven’t exceeded the number of friends that they can have.

Explore the New

With a new slew of social media sites opening every day, make sure you take the time to check out all the latest. Give them some of your time for full evaluation of their site and how they increase in popularity. This applies to any social media site. Once you have decided where you stand with any site, jump in and go all the way or pull out and leave it be. You may come back, you may not but don’t waste time on something that isn’t captivating or working for you.

Use What Works

Big time bottom line… if you’re investing time in a site that isn’t doing anything for you or you just don’t enjoy, ditch it! Don’t waste your time with sites that simply won’t help you grow in any way.

Your Method

What are you doing to focus on productive time spent with social media sites? Have you taken the time to discover what works in your niche and who to network with?