Getting Control of Your Social Media Life

September 15th, 2009 by admin

You can balance your social media life between “I don’t have time for it” and “I can’t stay away from it!”

Social media participation is no longer a topic of debate. Businesses and consultants who have an online presence and a customer base MUST be involved in the conversation. People are talking. Now, one of the biggest challenges is:

“How do I find time for it?”

Companies who are fully engaged in social media find they are pressed for time sharing on Twitter, blogging, responding to comments, and keeping up with Facebook fans. The result of social media engagement is:

Multiple connection and friend requests
Strengthened relationships
Elevated interest in the company’s products or services
More concept proposals and pitches
More incoming emails, newsletters and junk mail
Instant messaging alerts
Dreaded auto DMs from Twitter
Increasing level of accountability
Increasing influx of SPAM
An escalated amount of INPUT!

Enter … Social Media Shock!

Futurologist Alvin Toffler, in his book “Future Shock,” defined the concept and effects as “too much change in too short a period of time.” He made a detailed study of the acceleration of change and the effects on humans. Toffler suggested the velocity of change and the choices made based on the increasing amount of incoming information would result in severe physical and emotional trauma. That was 1970!

Today, the input feels like it’s 24/7. Dolly Parton would need to write new lyrics to “9 to 5″ if referring to a career in today’s world! Social media presents MORE layers of information to process. The constant barrage of bits of information can leave one feeling shell shocked like military personnel in war.

Social Media Shock can leave one feeling out-of-control, with an overwhelming sense of:

“How do I keep up with it all?“

Are you “always on,” “always available,” with “instant access?” What do you do when answering an @ reply on Twitter becomes more important than answering the phone or even the voice of your spouse or children? You may fall into the camp of …

“I can’t stay away from it!”

Social Media Addiction

This post is not a 12 Step Program to help with social media addiction. I’m assuming many reading this, however, may relate to my Story of a Social Media Addict. Surely Toffler could not have imagined an Internet Addiction Recovery Program would open to treat addiction to texting, gaming, and the Internet. Psychological trauma is real. Social Media can lead to changes in behavior.

Some people have admitted that social media feeds their egos.
Others have said that receiving a DM or text message actually excites them, like a drug.
For some, acquiring more “friends” is an obsessive compulsion.
Most of us are wired with a “need to know.” The quest for the latest information and “what’s happening” can lead to one being logged into social networks from morning till night.

The addiction may result from the “high” of having one’s interpersonal and relational needs met. Dana Larson wrote about the “Hierarchy of Social Media Needs” on Bruce Clay last year where she covered the psychology of social media marketing. It’s a necessary aspect of marketing that must be balanced each day.

You can break the chains of social media addiction! You can be productive and social! How?

Set boundaries
Set aside time for processing.
Schedule social time.

This is not a post in project management or personal productivity or even a list of tools to ping multiple social networks so it looks like you are online. Below are some tips to start:

Quit Working in the Emergency Room!

Do you often feel like you are working in an Emergency Room? It feels as if emails, friend requests, IMs, DMs, and phone calls come at you with a sense of urgency. Unless you are employed in a hospital, quit working there!

Close the doors!

Work on tasks and projects the way a doctor focuses on patients. Doctors do not answer emails or take out their iPhone while performing surgery.

Close the doors that open you to distraction. Turn off the constant flow. When you are working on a project, turn off :

Popup windows
Instant Messaging
Skype
Your Twitter client
Your phone!

Put on those headphones!

Schedule Blocks of Time.

Schedule blocks of time for projects as appointments on your calendar. When information comes in or distractions knock at the door, remember you’re in a “project appointment.” Process it when the appointment is over. If you have turned off your popups, you won’t even know it’s there!

On average, it takes at least 15 minutes every time you check and answer email. A water cooler break on Twitter or Facebook may be another 15 minutes.

How much is 15 minutes worth to you?

Can you afford to check your email and social networks three times every hour? If your billing rate is $1,000/hour like some of the top SEOs, then maybe. However, if you watch the habits of these same SEOs, you won’t see them socializing 45 minutes out of every hour.

Water-cooler breaks on Twitter and/or Facebook are important and a stress relief to many. Just make sure you control the social networks rather than allowing them to control you! Schedule social time throughout the day.

Batch Process!

Batch process your work. Say goodbye to A.D.D.!

Your brain is not a multi-processor. Your brain processes logical information linearly, one-by-one.

Do you have multiple browser sessions open?
Are you able to read two blog posts, share and comment on both at the exact same time?

Unless you have mastered parallel processing, then you cannot do more than one thing at once efficiently and effectively.

Didn’t Einstein say the definition of insanity is the ability to hold two opposing thoughts in the mind at one time? Could processing email, IM, Twitter, social media lead to a feeling of insanity?

Batch process your workday into chunks of time so you can focus on one item at a time.

Music, however, can be processed simultaneously. Music is processed as spatial-temporal orientation, the emotional side of the brain rather than the logical. So, go ahead …

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