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Posts Tagged ‘myspace’
Yesterday I gave some information about differences in social media platforms Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace, and gave a couple of analogies to help you to keep your use of them in perspective.
Something else to consider when evaluating social media is WHY are you thinking about it? Business? Pleasure? Some combination? Your goals will help dictate how much time you may want to devote to it. Also, what tools do you have available to access it? Are you at a desk with a computer all the time? (Convenient, but very easy to waste time.) If you’re away from a computer much of the time throughout the day, do you have a handheld device where your interface is easily accessible, or will you have to spend evenings and weekends trying to stay active? Evaluate whether this is an effective, and welcome, use of your “down” time.
Whether you’re using a computer or a handheld device to access your social media, I suggest that you use “clients” and “aggregators.” A “client” is a 3rd party application that simplifies the data you receive so that you can review it more quickly, and an “aggregator” lets you send and receive information from several services at once (Ping.fm which I mentioned yesterday is an aggregator for sending information. Tweetie is a client that I like for Twitter.)
Once you have a client, you can program it so that you see exactly what you want to see immediately, and let’s discuss what you’re likely to be looking for. First, are there people you are following whose updates you don’t want to miss, such as prospects, competitors, experts in your industry, or good friends? If so, dedicate a window or a column to each of those people. Also, reading your “current” stream is helpful, which is the most recent page of updates from all the people you are connected with. In addition to Tweetie, Tweetdeck is another client that makes it easy to do both of these simultaneously and there are several others.
What else should you care about? Well, you definitely want to keep an eye on what’s called your “vanity stream.” This means tracking anytime your name or your company or product name is mentioned anywhere on a social media platform. Tweetie, for example, makes it easy to search for “at-replies” (@replies), meaning anytime someone addresses something to you or otherwise mentions you in a “Tweet” (update, or post). The Facebook app for iPhone also alerts you to “notifications,” which is essentially the same thing, but on Facebook instead of Twitter.
The next thing that you want to check is private messages to you. In Twitter these are called “DMs” (direct messages). In most of the other platforms, these messages appear in your inbox in your account, such as in Facebook and LinkedIn.
One last thing you might be interested in, is what new people are now “following” you or “friending” or otherwise connecting with you (getting your updates or wanting your updates)? And which of those do you want to reciprocate/allow/accept?
I know this seems like a lot, but honestly if you have the right tools, you can do it all in just a few minutes at a time.
One warning I will give you about Facebook if you are concerned about wasting time is to stay away from the games and the quizzes. They just eat up too much time with nothing good received in return. The one exception is the RippleTag FaceBook app created by my friend Steve Harper. This is a great way to find connection points with people in your network.
Like all of the communication tools before them, these social media applications take some time to learn and to incorporate into your life, so that you can evaluate them for yourself. It’s my belief that ignoring them for as long as you can is not the most efficient way of dealing with them. You might as well jump in, especially now that you have some advance knowledge, and see what you think, because they are not going away anytime soon. They will either be enjoyable and useful, or not. And if they are not, that’s probably ok.
If you have other ideas, I’d love for you to share them in the comments. Thanks for reading!
Everyone is giving advice about social media, and it’s a topic I get asked about a lot. I’ve shared some information before, in this post and this post. Certainly you can ask 10 different people questions about social media, and get 10 different answers. I don’t think the rules have become entirely apparent yet. But here are some thoughts on participating in social media without it becoming a complete time sink.
For purposes of this post, when I talk about social media, I am referring mainly to Twitter and Facebook, but certainly the principles apply to the others as well, such as LinkedIn and MySpace. My take on these four is that LinkedIn is basically an online résumé, and MySpace is more relevant for creatives like artists and musicians. Facebook seems to be a social tool for most people, but increasingly a mix of both business and personal for entrepreneurs and business owners. Twitter and Facebook are growing more similar, although Twitter (thankfully) doesn’t have all the games and other distractions. It’s just people communicating with each other. A lot of people ask me about Twitter versus Facebook. My opinion is that there is much more useful information being shared on Twitter than on Facebook. On Facebook, there are still too many people sharing what they had for breakfast, and giving me their score in Mafia Wars, and telling me which Desperate Housewife they are most like. All of these Facebook games and applications make for many distractions. I’ve connected with more old friends from my past on Facebook than on Twitter, which has been fun. But I’ve made more new friends and gained more exposure for my business on Twitter, so there are pros and cons to both. I have a presence on Facebook and I check it periodically, but my Twitter stream seems much more relevant to my life and my business. Facebook is nice for keeping up with friends and family. When I send an update, I often use Ping.fm so it posts to both Twitter and Facebook, but that’s because I’m connected with mostly different people on each.
I have two analogies that help me relate social media to newbies. Both of these were created out of conversation with my friend CJ Romberger. The first is that you can think of these social media platforms as a crystal-clear, flowing stream on a hot day. The water is fantastic but you have to accept that you will never touch every drop. You’ll jump in, swim around a bit, and then get out and the water will continue to flow by without you. And that’s ok.
The second analogy is that Twitter and Facebook, for instance, are kind of like great parties, where lots of interesting people are discussing lots of interesting things, all the time. The party is fabulous but sometimes you have to be ok with leaving and doing other things for a while.
Tomorrow I’ll add information about things to consider when evaluating social media, and how to interact with it productively and efficiently. Please check back and you are welcome to follow me on Twitter @mnthomas, where I try to post useful productivity information. Thanks for reading!