Social Media Sanity | Web Community Engagement
Chris Brogan got me thinking last week about how I organize my day. I think in order to be successful you need to manage your workload efficiently. I am an active partner / owner in multiple businesses which keep me very busy and free time does not come easy.
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There are many advantages to using social media for your business. I believe that engagement will be the driving force of future ventures and social media will allow you to extent the reach of your idea to the limit with lightning speeds. In order for my businesses to continue to succeed, I will need to adopt a strategy to add SM to my daily workload.
Social Media Strategy
My strategy is first and foremost based on priority. Between all my companies, I have my core, the bread maker and I need to keep the majority of my focus on this. So I start my day off by checking my emails (voice mails are sent to email, thanks Google Voice) and making sure I have no emergencies that need immediate attention. I get between 300 and 500 emails a day, but most are not emergencies. Just simple management tasks.
Seesmic Desktop
Twitter is my next stop. I can’t spend too much time on the live feed, but I do check my @replies and DM’s. Plus, I have a group named “daily’s” with the most important people I follow. I spend a fair amount of time in here making sure to engage every chance I can.
Firefox
Here I only have two tabs open, Facebook and Google Reader.
Facebook: Same thing goes here, check your messages, check the latest time line. Engage, engage, engage…I have to say I am a little addicted to Mafia Wars too.
Google Reader: RSS Feeds are by far the easiest way for me to stay up to date with the latest news.By now I am making my second cup of coffee and getting ready to read my “digital newspaper“. I can have thousands of headlines to flip through, but that’s the point. I read only what I want to read. I share only what I have read. If I have something to add, I will engage.
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Summary
This process can take me from 1 to 2 hours and then I close down all my social media apps. Outlook stays open all day scanning for emergencies, but my social media stops until a little for lunch and the fun stuff at night. Now I can focus on my projects. If I were to keep these tools open, I could never get anything else done. I need to put it out of my mind for a while and focus.
My next post will be about learning how to schedule your time properly.
How do you handle the social media insanity?
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the important thing is contact. keeping current with your customers is a competitive advantage. “social networking” is a tool you can use.
as you say, engage, engage, engage.
but there’s a fine line too. nobody likes to be bothered by unsolicited ads, tweets, emails and friend requests from people that want to sell them something.
the internet is a great place. it keeps you informed and current. but you have to be smart too and “engage” wisely.
.-= Seraphine´s last blog ..Sweaty Workmen =-.
Yes, please no more of those people that just always sell. That’s it, they do nothing else an it is super annoying. It sounds funny, but I think the future of selling to people will be not selling them. Just be yourself…
Getting too addicted to social media is definitely a bad thing. I think social media is way over hyped. It’s relationships that matter. If your goal with social media is to expand your business, that’s what it should be used for, not just sell sell sell.
It’s good to have a nice balance of work. Glad to see you got a good rhythm going.
@ John : Thanks, The balance is so important. SM can be very addicting, so you need to be able to manage it.