Get Off the Hamster Wheel: 5 Ways to Avoid Social Media Overload

We're maxed out—all of us. We were tired before social media came tripping into our lives.

And the worst part? The guilt. We are made to feel that we're not a serious business if we don't participate in the "community."

That we'll be missing the conversation if we don't hang out online.

Of course, you need to find time to actually run your business, too. Developing project bids, meeting with prospective clients, balancing the books, returning phone calls and emails.

Oh, and fit the family in there somewhere, would you? And sleep. Guess you'd better find time for that.

I subscribe to the blog of Chris Brogan, one of today's bright minds in social media. What completely blew me away last week was his post The Shape of My Game.

He walked his readers through a normal day, practically minute-by-minute. Now granted, this is not your typical small biz owner, but it struck me how much successful people have to do just to keep up the pace.

 5 Ways to Avoid Social Media Overload

 Whether you are just starting down the social media path or consider yourself a pro, it's easy to get sucked in and pretty soon you are letting the social web rule you instead of the other way around. Here are five tips for taming the SM beast:

1. Choose a couple of platforms and focus on them. You don't have to be everywhere. Besides, it's better to produce good stuff on two sites than scattered, unfocused messaging on six. It's ideal if one is your very own (your blog or your e-newsletter) and one is an external platform. I blog, write an e-letter and participate regularly on Twitter and Biznik. Two should work fine for you, though. Or even one.

2. Decide what your goal is and stay with it. This makes a huge difference. If you don't know where you want to go, you'll never get there. For my blog, my goal is to cross-promote my e-tips and increase the number of people who see me as an expert in my field. For Twitter, it's searching out opportunities to collaborate and cross-promote with other marketers.

3. Schedule your social media time like you do other things. If you are distracted by bright, shiny objects (like that "Mentions" column on Tweetdeck that tells you every time someone is talking about you!), turn off the noise. One of my friends turns Twitter on twice a day, for 10 minutes. That keeps her in touch, but not tied to it.

4. Save sacred time for the work your business needs you for. This is the tough one. Days can be fragmented with blogging, emails, and social networking sites. I've seen people have great success by blocking out two uninterrupted hours first thing each morning for the day's priority projects. It's especially important if you need to work up momentum and then have focused time to think through a project. The key here, of course, is to turn off the phones and those irritating email pings.

5. Give yourself some 'play time.' Reward yourself with short breaks, even a walk around the block. If you are a creative like me, play is essential to your self-nurturing—and your ability to produce new ideas. I keep my juggling balls handy. My watercolor set. My paddle ball (remember those board thingies with the rubber string and little red ball?). My kaleidoscope. 10 minutes with any of those and I'm good to go for another hour.

If you are feeling social media burnout (and we all do from time to time), try a couple of these ideas. And let me know if they help. 

Comments

[Kimberly Gauthier]

You are so right. I work full time and then come home and plug into all my pages (Facebook, Twitter, Biznik, and on and on) spreading my name, replying to comments/questions/posts, networking like crazy.

By the time Thursday arrives I'm burned out, by Saturday, I could care less, but I plug away nonetheless.

Great advice!

[Judy Dunn]

Kimberly,

It's so hard to find that balance, isn't it? And if you have a full-time job AND have started a business, well, that's doubly challenging.

I visited your blog (and left a comment). Your photography work is absolutely breathtaking.

[Flora Morris Brown, Ph.D.]

Judy,

I definitely need to heed this advice. I can so easily get distracted and overwhelmed, not just by social media, but since I love to research, by following link after link. I call it falling into Alice's rabbit hole.

Fortunately I'm getting better at not following every shiny thing, but it is tempting.

Lately, I've been reigning in my wandering attention and eye to focus more on cross-promoting, as you mention.

Question: You mentioned elsewhere that we should always put Technorati tags at the end of each post. What's the process in doing that? I'm not too familiar with Technorati.

[Flora Morris Brown, Ph.D.]

Oops! In my previous post did I say reigning? I meant reining.

Gotta love the English language.

[Carl Coddington]

I guess it depends on your market and what you are trying to promote. If your goal is to find a few customers, then having a huge presence, i guess, is not important.

I think many people want online businesses so they can go on autopilot. For that to happen it is important to have a lot of good content in a lot of places.

For someone like you, it would be good to have a huge presence on Ezinearticles and associated content. Although they are beneath your level of writing, they will shoot you to the top of the search engines.

Once again, thank you for your food for thought. I always enjoy reading your posts.

[Judy Dunn]

Flora,

Thanks for visiting! I'm enjoying our discussions on biznik.com. I am just like you. On the web, I truly have attention deficit disorder. Especially with content that has a lot of links. "Oh, wait a minute. What's this?" and so on and so on. It's the curse of the curiosity gene.

On Technorati, it's hard to explain simply. But, basically Technorati is a blog aggregator. They track about 1.2 million new blog posts each day.

Tags are just another option for adding descriptive keywords to define the content of your posts. The tags place your post in the Technorati index of all posts with the same tag so searchers can find your post.

With Typepad all you have to do is enter the tags (keywords) of your choice on the Technorati tags box, separating them by commas. For this post, for instance, the tags were:

social media overload, time management, managing social media

Not sure exactly how it works on other blogging platforms.

You can also go in and do what they call "claiming your blog" on Technorati, which allows you to use their services to track your blog.

Hope this helps.

[Judy Dunn]

Carl,

You always have such thoughtful comments. I enjoy hearing from you.

You are right. Having a 100 percent online business is quite a different story. Good solid content across multiple platforms is even more important for you.

You mentioned Ezinearticles.com. I actually do publish there, although not a lot. But mostly I write articles for biznik.com. As a ProVIP member, I get incredible SEO with my articles, as well as for searches for my services.

For instance, this morning I googled social media copywriter Seattle and I am number one on page one of Google. I can't speak highly enough of Biznik when it comes to building one's credibility as an expert and SEO results.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, Carl.

[Carl Coddington]

I have never heard of Biznik. I will check it out. I hope you don't have to be as good as a writer as you to join :)

[Judy Dunn]

Yes, check it out. Not that you need another social media platform (hey, that's just what this post was about), but they have a free membership level. You can set up a profile if you want and just browse the site.

Your compliment made me smile.

[Solomon]

Hi Judy,
I would like to follow your tips and insights. I don't know all the social media much, though. But get lost browsing so many blogs and reading so much. At times it's quite tiring and I couldn't concentrate much on my work. Or, on my blog writing.
I'm so happy that you addressed my anxieties in your post!
Thanks!

[Aged Corporations]

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[Bill Bartmann]

Hey, I found your blog in a new directory of blogs. I dont know how your blog came up, must have been a typo, anyway cool blog, I bookmarked you. :)

[Rose]

Great advice. I find it hard to manage social media time with all my other jobs.

[Judy Dunn]

Rose,

I believe you are a first-time visitor. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment.

It is true, isn't it? New tools keep being added but your available time is finite. Hard to juggle sometimes.