The other day a colleague asked me how I always had so many updates posting to Linkedin and Twitter and Facebook. He quipped I must spend hours online scheduling updates. I just chuckled - the truth is I spend only a short while per day.

So how do I do it?

It’s not a big secret. I simply use one of the social aggregating tools, such as Hootsuite, Buffer, Sendible, or my choice, SproutSocial. Then I spend my early morning coffee time perusing various “news” services, favorite blogs, and feed-based sites for interesting topics for us and our clients. When I find something, I schedule or queue it up - and then get on with my day. And since SproutSocial also has an app for my iPhone, when I find myself with some downtime, I do the same thing, just on my phone. I use aggregating apps like FlipBoard and Zite and Pulse to find and share interesting stuff - even when I’m waiting in line.

I’m not doing anything special of course. Lots of social media pros use the same techniques and tools. Each has their favorite sources and apps but when it comes to curation, I suspect it’s relatively the same process for everyone. Of course the trick is knowing how to find and identify good sources for sharable information - and that comes with experience. But you don’t have to spend hours per day - your colleagues will simply think you do.