Sometimes it’s hard to find the balance in things. Social media networking is one of these. It takes an enormous amount of effort and time to participate in the social fields, and this can conflict with our primary responsibility of our day jobs. You know, the one we get paid for? 😉
It’s hard, especially when you start to become part of the community. As you get to know the people you’re networking with, and as you have those “aha!” moments that redefine the value of a given social networking tool, it becomes more important to participate. But what of work? How do you stay connected with your online friends when you have limited or monitored access?
Or forget about access to your online social resources, how about the workload that you have? What about priorities? These may sound like ridiculous questions to some, but for those trying to forge a new career and life goals from social media, it is paramount.
I have no profound wisdom, and fewer hard-won examples to go with this question. I’ve only a few ideas that I’m working on in order to find my own way through this difficult portion of social media. Here are some of the ideas, tools, and techniques I’m trying, in order to help me GTD and still network.
“Twitter Scope: down” Many fellow Twitters will recognize that one. Simply logging off the social tools we use is the best start. Schedule a time during the day to log in and check/update status.
Reduce the number of sites/tools Another tip would be to reduce the number of social networking or social media sites that you visit or try to keep up with.
Groom that RSS reader Seriously pare down the number of feeds you read. How many tech feeds do you have? How many times do you see the same post in each? ‘Nuf said. Find the bloggers and sites that simply adhere to your ideas, themes, beliefs, etc… and follow those. News is everywhere and easy to find. Intelligent posts that are relevant to you are not. For those Google Reader users out there, check out the Trends feature and use it to identify abandoned or otherwise seldom-updated feeds.
GTD Find the organization tool that works for you. For many it’s the Seven Habits, or GTD that work wonders. For others, it’s a simple Moleskine, notebook, or other simple list. Maybe leadership training, or project management skills help drill in the needed organization lessons. Whatever it is, give it a try and stick with what works.
Schedule Social Time Here is another simple but effective technique. Just like having a girls or boys night out – schedule your social networking time to fit your day. Breaks, lunch, before/after work. All these are simple to do, and your social network will adapt to your participation.
Integrate If your employer or job permits, maybe you simply integrate your social networking with your job. Got your favorite email & IM client open all day? Why not have a good Twitter Client open all day as well? Leave yourself logged into Facebook for all the special interest groups. Use some time during the day and answer questions on LinkedIn. Keep it business focused, not “Saturday night” focused.
Obviously number 6 is for folks who work in an industry that has direct tie-ins to social networking or media in some way. There may also be some environments that simply don’t care what you do as long as you get the tasks you are responsible for done as expected. Kudos to those who do.
Now, I really want to learn more, because I’ve only mentioned the really obvious ones. What tips do you have? What other techniques and tools are there to help manage being an active social participant and not getting in trouble?
Well, It’s time I talked about what I think is going to be growing trends in 2008. I’ve been amazed at the trends in 2007, with the rise of micro-blogging, Facebook, and other social-networking and social-media tools. Seeing the interest, functionality and participation in these tools, to me, fosters ideas of how they can be leveraged in the enterprise. It’s been a great ride, and I believe a lot of this will continue into 2008.
So here is what I think will be some of the trends and events in 2008.
Social Network tools & platforms make inroads into the enterprise.
Public micro-blogging tools continue their growth.
The original “New Media” disrupter, the blog, re-emerges as the focal point of many individual and businesses.
Personal Branding gains more mainstream understanding and acceptance
Video becomes more prevalent as a social media tool for posting, sharing, micro-blogging, and more
More, simple, social media tools (SocNets) become available for business or professional networking
Microsoft and Apple continue to look more alike in their successes and failures.
The use of “bite size” media becomes an easy to use building block for the average person
Well, that’s it for now – not a big list, and probably not many revelations there. It’s probably more indicative of what I’m looking for and focusing on for the next few months anyway. Cheers!
Twitter is one of those tools that you either "get it" or not. It’s really that simple. With that in mind there are ways for you to learn how Twitter can be a tool for success for you, you & your peers, or your organization.
While I dislike the "why Twitter is bad" articles that pop up around the net, this post by Michael Krigsman over at ZDNet does bring up a good point. Like all social networking and media tools, it can be used for improper uses as well as productive ones. Had to get that out of the way before we continue – I do recommend you read Michael’s post though.
So, how do you get value from Twitter? Easy: participate.
Ok, it’s more than that. You’ll not only need to participate, but have people on Twitter that you want or need to participate with. The key to Twitter is to recognize that it is an unfiltered conversation stream. Having people to converse with, whether that’s special interest groups, friends, coworkers, project teams, departmental groups, or an entire enterprise – it’s having the people there that brings the value.
Imagine having geographically diverse project team in a live conversation outside of a conference room during the entire business day. Set aside the "time waster" argument for a minute (it is valid) and look at the communication and thought-sharing aspects.
Additional features of Twitter, help enhance communication and build community. Here are a few;
Public – It is, in essence, a public forum so a person needs to think more about things before committing them. Or at least realize that what you "tweet" can be transmitted to as many followers as you have, and optionally to the public Twitter stream.
Brevity – This is my favorite one. Twitter imposes a 140 character limit for each post. What this does is keep interactions short and quick. It also encourages you to (again) think about what you are trying to say. It really helps a person become a better communicator and writer.
Unstructured – Your "Twitter stream" will have tweets from everyone that you follow (your friends list) that can sometimes appear out of order. There are also no "threading" tools (though many request these) to sort conversations into manageable threads. Also, there are usually several conversations going on at once. It can be a bit overwhelming.
Overall, if you find the reason to give Twitter a try, you will likely find value in the tool. If you just want to see what the hype is all about, you may not. However, if you do jump in – use the search tool to look for people you know – that helps the learning curve a bit. Also, look for your favorite bloggers – they may already be there! There is also some greatsearchtools as well.
Finally, you can find me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/rickmahn – I’m on every day and am happy to answer any questions or help find people on Twitter if you like.
This is a partial solution to a question that’s been in my mind for some time. Since I created a Social Media Resume (SMR) a few months back, the point that I didn’t enable comments directly on the page has been bothering me.
Part of the reason for that is because I wanted to keep the resume page, clean and under control. However, a “Social Media Resume” by definition requires interaction – some kind of social aspect. Without that component, it’s merely a multi-media resume.
So this post will be the catch-all for the comments on the resume page – I’ll add a link to add a comment which will bring people to this page. So if you’ve got a comment on my SMR, by all means – leave one below!
The post went up sometime before 10am (Central Time), and Jeremiah Tweeted about the post on Twitter shortly thereafter. Within just a few minutes, there were over 20 comments on this post with people giving feedback and sharing their Twitter profile links, inviting others to follow them and join in their conversation.
Within three hours the comment count had climbed to over 160 with more streaming in constantly. This desire to interact, to connect, share ideas, and communicate is nothing new, but what followed on Twitter is the bigger story.
We can talk numbers, and its at least someplace to start. For example I found nearly 100 new people to follow, and about 80 people have chosen to follow my Twitter postings. Fellow Twitters had similar experiences today and in some cases doubled their follower counts.
However, what’s at the root of this enormous expansion in Twitter following is the desire to build community. To interact with more people, from different places and expand our peer networks. The numbers are simply a statistic to track, but the real important part is that I was able to find 100 or more interesting, intelligent, fun people that I wanted to add to my daily or weekly conversations. I’m also flattered to have so many people interested in what I bring to the table as well.
The net result for the next few days will be learning how to deal with a fire hose of Twitters, a constant barrage of information. Currently I’m trying to read as much as possible as it passes by, but I’m quickly learning to skim and watch for the topics I should read and not absorb it all.
The post itself is a great piece about why Twitter is a useful tool, and should be read simply on it’s own. But I bet if you go read the post, the comments will pull you in and soon you too will be a part of the community-building exercise that has morphed out of a good blog post.
By the way, at the time of this writing, there were in excess of 300 commenter’s, sharing and building their communities. Are you?
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