How Social Are You Ready For?

How social are you really ready for? Whether you’re into social media for marketing or pleasure, you have to be careful when determining just what it is you want to do and how you want to do it. Social media can be overwhelming; if you don’t believe me, remember the first time you were in a live chat room, if you ever did that, and how difficult it was holding multiple conversations at once.

Yoel Ben-Avraham via Compfight

I only did that a few times before I realized how overwhelming it could be. One night I kept up 16 conversations for 2 hours, and I think I rarely blinked; I couldn’t even get to the bathroom! It was fun, but I couldn’t get to anything else I wanted to do.

That’s how social media can be for some people when they overextend. Sometimes one can overextend with just one thing, such as spending hours upon hours on Twitter or Facebook or whatever social media option you’ve chosen. Sometimes you can overextend yourself by trying to get into too many things, then trying to find the time to do them all.

I see that when I read some people’s Twitter posts. Do you know there are over 100 different ways to track Twitter posts now, and that’s not including mobile phone apps? Who has the time to try all these things out? Definitely not me, but some of the younger set does because they seem to be hard to please; yeah, I said it! lol Not that it’s a bad thing, because out of those things they want come new platforms, but it’s a never-ending search for perfection that just isn’t going to happen.

Then there are people looking for new ways to meet people in places other than Twitter or Facebook. That’s not a bad thing except some people sign up for everything, and once they’re there they send requests to all the people they talk to in other places, trying to get them over there as well.

It’s the programs and websites that ask them to do this, but sometimes it’s overwhelming. I get probably 5 or 6 new requests a week for sites and applications I’ve never heard of from someone I may or may not know all that well. I also get repeat requests that I’m not sure the people know are being sent to me because I refuse to join.

The thing is that I’ve figured out my limits, and I’ve figured out my time and strategy for both business and personal use. I’m already pushing those limits while still trying to do other things. Introducing more things into my life that essentially are the same as what I already have isn’t in my best interest.

What do you feel is in your best interest when it comes to social media? Are you satisfied with what you’re doing now? Are you always on the lookout for a better way to do things? And do you feel stressed or satisfied with the amount of time you’re putting into your social media projects, which by the way includes blogging?
 

8 thoughts on “How Social Are You Ready For?”

  1. I was guilty in the “beginning” of joining any social networking group out there and TRYING to advertise on their groups everyday.

    You can spend all day just advertising, chatting or blogging.

    You really have to set limits.

    LOL- I wrote about wasting time with Free Advertising on my blog today 🙂

  2. I don’t know how relevant this is to your post, but I had a better day today and as I usually spend most days glued to my own and other people’s blogs, making connections, I thought – hey, I’ve got more energy, I can connect better! So what did I do? I avoided the internet most of the day! Just couldn’t be bothered, it didn’t seem all that important. Isn’t that strange?

    By the way, just want to say – hope your workshop goes well for you.
    🙂

    1. Thanks Val. And sometimes getting away from it all will bring a fresh perspective.

  3. Good morning, Mitch.

    I’m happy with what I’m doing with social networking these days.

    Over the last few years, I’ve joined and tested dozens of sites, but now I’ve boiled it down to a handful that work well for me and which I enjoy.

    Twitter is falling off my radar, mostly, and Facebook is climbing. I still post announcements to Twitter, but prefer to carry on conversations on Facebook.

    I’m down to two blogs that I update infrequently.

    I’m on Facebook every day for an hour or two – rarely longer unless it’s a day I don’t feel like doing anything else, but I’m feeling better now and don’t expect to have many more of those days.

    I’ve killed my forums and still manage a couple of Ning communities.

    So, I’m down to a comfortable level where I’m interacting with friends and family for the most part, at least while my marketing business is suspended.

    When I get back to serious marketing, again, I plan to go deeper on the current sites rather than shallower on multiple new sites.

    Like you, I get lots of invitations to join new sites and be friends, but I’m past all that, now. I’m going to concentrate on the ones that work the best and ignore the others.

    That’s why I’ve moved from Ryze and MySpace to Facebook. It works better.

    Hope your workshop is a great success!

    Act on your dream!

    JD

    1. You’ve decompressed your presence, John, and for you right now, that’s the best way to go. I don’t know that I could have kept up with all the things you were doing before. Now, you’re kind of shrinking your world to be more local; nothing wrong with that.

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