One of the ways I make my time online more valuable is by ensuring I link effectively whenever possible.  If you imagine a ball of string at a cocktail party being thrown from person to person around the room with each person holding the string once they come into contact with it and then pass it forward.  When the string eventually runs out I want you to then imagine that the flow of interest, eyeballs, energy viral marketing elements all flow back to the first person who threw the ball.  

Linking on the Internet can be similar to that example in a lot of ways if done properly.  For example, I will continue with my shameless plugs here for my own blog www.fusedlogic.blogspot.com.  Should you go there and like an article, youtube video and decide to link to it, first of all I would say a heartfelt thank-you, but secondly what happens is that you of course have a new "social object" or article, post or bit of content to leverage for your community, your blog, your website and had to spend little time doing anything.  Do this often and don't forget when you're online. 

In a previous post I described the different categories of web users - "spectators" lose out on the linking because they don't interact or "link" as a general rule they just read, listen or consume content.  Be active.

Link like crazy and that should start to help build traffic to your blog, your listings and you in general.   

Now compare that to someone who's just hanging out on social networks and you automatically gain an advantage in terms of return on your time investment.