Social media has become one of the most useful ways to reach the public. However, with more and more social networks emerging, it can sometimes be difficult to manage your time across multiple mediums. Here are a few integration tips to help get the most out of your time online:

1. Use a Client

There are literally thousands of third party extensions that allow posting to various social networking sites. Many of these tools now integrate multiple networks, which can really save time when trying to get information out fast.

TweetDeck (the second most used client according to TwitStat) is a free download that offers posting to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace. HootSuite (the fifth most used client according to TwitStat) is another option that takes integration a step further. This is one of the few clients that allows users to not only post to Facebook profile pages but also to any Facebook Fan pages that you are an administrator of. You can also schedule updates directly within the service, which helps users plan ahead.

With tools like these, users can post information to all of their major social networks at once. And with mobile versions of both products, you can keep your audiences in the know while you’re on the go. Be cautioned though, social networking is much more than just posting information. Be sure to spend a good portion of your social media time interacting with users and maintaining two-way conversations.

2. Feed Your Facebook Fan Page to Twitter

A lot of people might not realize that Facebook will automatically post Fan page activity to Twitter. This is an easy way to automatically let your Twitter followers know about a new note, video, or photo album. You have the option to choose which Facebook items (photos, notes, events, links and/or status updates) you want published to Twitter.

Be cautioned though, since Twitter only allows 140 characters, you might want to avoid auto-posting Facebook status updates to Twitter since it could be unintentionally shortened on your Twitter feed. So consider opting-out of posting links and status updates to Twitter. This nifty little feature is extremely difficult to find, but oddly enough all the set-up options can be found at facebook.com/twitter.

3. Make Your Blog Social

While most bloggers are integrating social sharing buttons into their posts, not all of them are letting their blog feed expand beyond their website. One easy way to do this is to let your RSS feed automatically sync with Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter profiles. Facebook and LinkedIn have easy options for automatically importing RSS feeds which are published as “Notes” and “News” respectively.

With Twitter, you can use a third party service like TwitterFeed (the forth most used Twitter client according to TwitStat) to get your RSS feed published. Again, be careful with this because you don’t want to your Tweets to be cut short. To avoid this, just be aware of the settings in TwitterFeed (or whatever client you decide to use) so you can keep you blog titles short enough that they don’t get automatically shortened.

4. Get More Multi-Social

Most social media site are allowing users to connect across platforms. In 2008, Facebook was one of the first sites to import news from other sites like Flickr, Yelp, Picasa, and del.icio.us. This is still a useful feature for your personal profile page (you’ll have to use a third party Facebook app to do it on your Fan page) that can be set up by clicking Options > Setting under the “What’s on your mind?” box of your profile News Feed.

YouTube’s also recently launched AutoShare, which lets users automatically post video activity to Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader. Flickr too will let users publish photos to blogs and Twitter accounts. Many other sites also allow cross connections that can make social networking a lot quicker and easier.

With so many social networks available today, users can become overwhelmed with all the ways to share news and information. With a few simple steps, these 4 tips can help you connect across multiple platforms and save time. However, it’s crucial to remember that social media is not only about sharing but also about conversation. Make sure you are engaging your audience with dialogue and not just pushing out information to them. If you don’t interact, you are bound to quickly lose your fans followers.