Affiliate Marketing - Right way to do things?

Hi All,

I am working at pushing some Niche products, and am currently doing the following:

1. Manually submitting my review URL (which is pushing to the affiliate page) to 20+ social networking sites.

2. Manually submitting articles to the top articles directories. (10 directories per article)

3. Going back through the social networks and pushing my published article's URL

My question to you all is:

1. Social Networking Sites:
a) Do you submit your URLs manually or with software or both? Which works best for generating traffic or does it matter?
i) if software/service provider - could you recommend one to me?

2. Submitting Articles
a) Do you submit them manually or automatically to directories? I find that writing and pushing to 10-15 directories a day manually is almost impossible while working at a job from 9 to 5. Which works best for generating traffic or does it matter?
i) if software/service provider - could you recommend one to me?
b) pushing to social networking sites - Do you submit them manually or automatically to directories?
i) if software/service provider - could you recommend one to me?

Thank you so much in advance - I have been in this for just over a year and am trying my best to get something going in affiliate marketing.