Over at Social Media Today, Gary Goldhammer, wrote a post with a few tips on how to slow down your social media use that are worth a quick read. What!? Slow down!? Yes! We get so caught up in having to use the latest social media tool that we don’t stop to think why we even want to use them in the first place…other than to be the first to know everything at once. In our organizations, when people want to use Facebook, Twitter, or Buzz, we tell people “Mission. Tools. Metrics. Teach.” But yet when it comes to our own lives, we do the exact opposite.
Spreading yourself thin is something that many of us know too well. When was the last time you thought to yourself, “I have too many things to do and not enough time to do them all” or “If I could just work on one or two projects at a time then I’d be much happier.” At work the more projects we involve ourselves in, big or small, the more we spread ourselves thin. Our productivity might appear to go up, but our quality decreases greatly. Same principle holds true for our social media use. When we’re using too many tools we’re spreading ourselves thin and our ability to apply quality listening to what’s happening within each tool decreases.
Recently, I’ve started reflecting on my own personal social media use.
It was simply becoming too much for me to manage each day. Suffice it to say that I’m changing how I use some of the “tools” I do based upon how they meet MY “mission”. I don’t care too much for “metrics” on personal use, but I’m certainly “teaching” myself as I go. I’m sure many of you would benefit from doing the same.
100% agree. I think it’s kind of like design – always want to add new features but you need to remove features too. Same with projects and social media tools – always want to add one to the mix.
I do have to say that I have dropped some along the way – MySpace, Wave/Buzz, etc
My daily core is FB, Twitter, GL with some LinkedIn every once in awhile.
I read a delightful quote the other day by k.d. lang (Canadian singer, if you watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, you saw her), on why she doesn’t use Twitter: “I just don’t think I have that much insight into the world, to be spreading it around randomly.”
Interesting read. Thanks for sharing Scott. I like the concept of “slowing down” not just with social media, but with everything.
With the pace of information flow today, it’s no small feat to slow down! It seems like 2-3 platforms are the limit to be able to give quality attention – for me, that’s GovLoop, Twitter and (to a lesser degree) Facebook…would like to give more time to LinkedIn and expanding my network there, but there’s only so much time in a day!
Great post! I’ve felt the pressure to slow down this year and focus on what I’m getting the most value out of. Of course as new tools crop up, I have to at least “kick the tires” to see what they are all about. But for me, my core daily routine includes Yammer (at work), Twitter, GovLoop and Facebook (at home). I occasionally check in through LinkedIn as I get requests and to update my status.
Down with Buzz.
It’s always good to revisit what you’re doing. For me, I’ve recently deleted both of my blogs “Just a Govy” and my Posterous one. I’ve also just recently removed over 250 people from my Facebook profile. I decided to only keep those of the people I talk to on a regular basis (like people I work with directly) or family. I also have put each person into specific groups so that some people see some a very limited view of my profile, some see a few extra things, while others (like family) get to see everything.
I keep my Twitter account for people that I know, or have interacted with, but don’t necessarily see them on a regular basis. If I have people from my Twitter account that transition to the real world on a regular basis then I’ll consider adding them to my Facebook account.