Coping tips for marketers driven to social media distraction
- Wed, September 14 2011
- Filed under: Social networking and web 2.0
Technology is supposed to make our lives easier and more efficient, but sometimes it just ends up diminishing productivity and driving us to distraction. A recent study found almost half of employees said they worked just 15 minutes or less without getting interrupted or distracted. For those of us in nonprofit marketing, the proliferation of new ways to engage with our audiences - social media, mobile, etc. - increases the barrage of information we’re trying to send, receive and manage.
In a sign of how tough this can be, the #1 question I get about social media is, how much time should I spend - and where do I find that time, anyway? It’s a good question.
Fortunately, there are some coping tips out there. HubSpot has advice on avoiding social media time sucks and Digital Park has time management advice for the digitally distracted.
But since we’re all short on time and you need to get back to work, I’m going to boil it down to three things.
1. Know why you’re doing it. Don’t aimlessly spend your time trolling for friends on Facebook if there’s not a clear rationale behind it. Know whom you’re trying to develop relationships with, where, and to what end. That will help you allot the right amount of time to the task at hand, as well as to avoid confused discussions about ROI (return on investment) later. If you don’t know what return you’re seeking, it’s impossible to know what time and energy to invest. And if you don’t have a goal, it’s hard to measure success.
2. Go to where your audience is. You do not, repeat do not, need to be on every social network. And you certainly don’t need multiple organizational accounts on each. Pick one or two places your constituency hangs out in significant numbers and focus your time and energy there. If you don’t have a lot of supporters on Twitter, you shouldn’t spend hours a day there!
3. Focus on quality, not quantity. The aim is not to inundate the digital landscape with lame self-promotion (which will get ignored anyway) but rather to provide a regular dose of fantastic content and to engage in conversations online.
Better to do a few things very well than too much poorly!
Comments
Well said-Katya! It goes back to being strategic and focusing on the needs of your sudience-not because you need to. I read your column everyday-I wish I could engage in a conversation everyday! Thank you for sharing your wisdom and thought starters!
What about job distraction?!? Work keeps distracting me from spending more time on social media!
Jono, excellent point. What am I doing here?! I’ve got to go Tweet what I had for dinner.
I have to definitely agree with number 3! I can’t stand it when people use social media to poorly promote themselves. At least put some effort into it and share some valuable information with me. For example, I joined several industry groups on Linkedin and the majority of the posts are advertisements. There is hardly any real discussion taking place. Instead there is simply a string of ads, which will be ignored or possibly cause resentment—damaging their reputation.