Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

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April 15, 2008

Social Media: How to Get Off the Fast Train and Get More Value

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 10:37 am

Worth Saying Again

The Living Web

Comment on my YouTube Vid! Be part of my wiki! Join my Ning! Are you a member of these Facebook Groups?!! Do you Stumble, Digg, Mixx, Reddit, and the others?!! Where’s your account on Flickr?! I haven’t seen you Twitter in hours!!

With all of that to do, how do we do anything else — write a blog post or send an invoice, for an example?

Social Media: How to Scale Back and Get More Value

Quickly enough, we figure out we can either be overwhelmed or make some choices. Am I sounding redundant? Probably a little. (But the horse isn’t dead.) What I said yesterday is worth underscoring with the words of a friend.

In the first of a series for Freelance Switch, m. saleem suggests that we opt out of those we can.

The first thing to keep in mind is that while it may not be impossible for you to dabble in all these different mediums, it is important that you ignore most of them.

I so agree.

Here are some simple tips for how to scale back and get more value from the time you invest. It’s easier to decide if we set up criteria and eliminate what doesn’t meet those standards.

Then decide which networks you value most and what percent of your time you want to spend on social networking tasks. We don’t try to read every book or see every movie. It’s as fruitless to try to use every social networking site.

One of my favorite sayings goes something like this.

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Use the time you gain from scaling back to

It’s okay to get off the social media fast train. Sometimes less really is more.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Work with Liz!!
SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!





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17 Comments to “Social Media: How to Get Off the Fast Train and Get More Value”

  1. April 15th, 2008 at 11:17 am
    Steve said

    Good point, Liz. I found this out quickly. I initially signed up for everything out there and got overwhelmed fast. Twitter and blogs are all I need right now, and all I have time for, to interact with the people and subjects I find interesting.

  2. April 15th, 2008 at 11:37 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Steve!
    Keeping up with the pictures, pokes, and videos does get to be a lot of time away from clients and business. Like you, I’m finding that doing fewer things more deeply provides a far greater return on the time I can spend. :)

  3. April 15th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
    Joanna Young said

    Hi Liz

    It’s so easy to get distracted isn’t it? Twitter is so much fun when you’re in the flow, but I enjoy days when I’m not spending time there too.

    One thing I worry about is that people will stop investing time in blog commenting which would be a shame, because I (for one) would find it hard to keep going without that personal feedback and interaction.

    Joanna

    PS Two weeks today I’m in Chicago!!

  4. April 15th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
    Mihaela Lica said

    I happen to agree too, to an extent. I use diigo because it supports del.icio.us but it also happens to add more value to my overall online experience.

    Since yesterday I use Twitter - just to experiment. I’ll probably get bored soon.

    I gave up on MyBlogLog because statscounter gives me more than I need (MyBlogLog is a not even close to a social network - it missed out a good start)

    I use Veoh because, unlike YouTube, there are no time limits to what I can upload and more importantly I can download videos (including full feature movies) to my PC and save them.

    Of course Mu suggests that we ignore most of the social networks - maybe he can give us a list to know what to avoid. ;)

    There’s more to say, but you summarized everything brilliantly in the conclusion.

  5. April 15th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
    Phil Butler said

    Hi Liz,

    Good points all. I cannot even begin to list the sites I am a member of. Like most of the rest of the blog world, I soon became rather stressed over what, where and when to visit. This was out of necessity for networking, rather than the pure joy of wasting time of course.

    Seriously Liz, I recently told MyBlogLog to shove it, because they basically poed me and they suck pretty bad too. The founders essentially begged me to come back after I hammered them into the digital landscape a bit. The point then and now was, “what good are you to anyone?”

    You know me, I have never been negative about things. Somehow we all sort of get to that point though I guess. Whether it is the users at these sites or the ones we befriend, I think our time is more valuable than we know.

    Given all this gibberish, it does not take a rocket scientist to realize that the digital world cannot and will never equate to the physical one. This not to say it cannot accent the real world, but I think that many of us have been a little deluded into thinking that electrical impulses can equal the touch of a child.

    As you say, choose your weapons wisely. I am sure MU always adheres to this principal and chooses battles and the field they are played upon wisely now :)

    Always,

    Phil

  6. April 15th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
    Paula C. Scardamalia said

    Wow, Liz, what a timely post! I just spent last week setting up profiles on a couple of sites, determining which ones were a good fit. This was in response to all the hoopla coming from various internet gurus about the importance, as a writer, of having a presence of some of these sites.

    Right away I noticed how easy it would be to eat up all my creative time with trying to keep up with the Facebook Joneses…

    Think I am going to concentrate on two other sites for now so I have time for my writing, weaving and blogging!

    Thanks, Liz.

  7. April 15th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
    Linda Sherman said

    Good topic Liz. So much of life is about focus isn’t it?

    I have had the sad experience of shedding real life friends because they were no longer enriching my life, nor I theirs.

    I have a two pronged presence on the internet. One is to support interest in Singelringen. This puts me on MySpace and Facebook groups, following product hives and dropping by to say thanks to anyone that writes about Singelringen.

    For me personally, I feel that Twitter has been very good for me. I focus there, following only people I really want to have a relationship with. I just signed up for FriendFeed. Not sure about this yet but it appears to be a good way to keep up at a glance. @lindasherman

  8. April 15th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Joanna!
    I worry that people will stop investing in the deeper conversation that blogs attract. It’s fun to write short, thoughtful comments on Twitter, but it’s not the same kind of conversation. Not the same kind of thoughts get share.

    I can’t wait until you’re here!

  9. April 15th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Mig!
    I think social media is a little like finding your favorite restaurant. Friends can tell you which they like, but we’ll all have our reasonable difference based on the choices you describe so well in your comment. I don’t watch movies on my machine . . . but I care a lot about other things you mention.

    I still think the people who are there are the first factor to look at . . . [grin]

  10. April 15th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Paula!
    We make this decisions naturally in the brick and mortar world. Somehow we find them unusual here. I think we’re starting to get over that “newness,” of deciding about where to spend our time. :)

  11. April 15th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Linda!
    Yeah, it’s knowing what supports where we want to be and where we’re going and what is a distraction.

    Paying attention adds so much to a meaningful life. :)

  12. April 15th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Phil,
    In the world of TV, we learned to change the channel. I think we’re learning to do that here too.

  13. April 16th, 2008 at 10:21 am
    The Scotsman said

    Very good advice Liz and I really appreciate it! I am new to the blogging arena and have been getting somewhat overwhelmed myself. I have joined a number of these and will be taking some time to go through the ones that are along the topics I am interested in forsake all others…for the time being! :)

    Thanks again and have a great rest of your day/week!

  14. April 16th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Scotsman!
    I like your “forsake all others.” It makes me think of leaving the shallow ones behind. :)

  15. April 16th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
    The Scotsman said

    Thanks again for your advice and committment to all you do! After checking out the SOBCon link, it reminded me that I had recently heard about WordPress, so I went there and joined and created a newer, more refined and better laid out blog. So thanks again for also having those links and information avaiable.

    Chances are I won’t be able to make it to SOBCon this year, but we will have to see about 2009. Are there any Webcasts broadcast from the event?

  16. April 19th, 2008 at 11:44 am
    Paul OFlaherty said

    Great post Liz.

    As one of those people who is on everything I am constantly on the lookout for new told that will allow me aggregate everything in one place and to post to all places at once.

    Unfortunately for every site that I find a solution for , 10 more crop up that the blogosphere says I should be on.

    It’s got to the point where I spend more time looking for tools that allow me to keep up with whats going on than I do talking to people or producing content.

    There’s only one way out of the mess, that’s to cut back on the networks you devote time to and trust that your good content will spread by itself.

    You can then find time to really network, and use those experiences to fuel new content ;)

  17. April 19th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hey Paul!
    I spent today in a meeting with people who spent essentially no time on the Internet. They were charming, informed, and quite pleasant to converse with. Imagine that! They’re surviving without all of the added stress. :)

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