It feels like everyday there’s a new social media site being created, and I feel like I’m almost compelled to try it out and be active on it. That’s one of the problems with us early adopters; we love new things and we want to try them out.
Our passion can quickly lead us to burn out, never wanting to Digg another story, read another Tweet, or Thumbs up another site. It’s easy to fall down that path, but if you keep a few things in mind, you can save yourself from a premature end to your social media career.
Focus
The most important thing to do, and the first step, is maintaining a focus. Choose no more than 3 or 4 sites you want to really be active on. For me that means SocialBrowse, Twitter, Stumbleupon, and Sphinn. Decide which ones are most useful to you, and dedicate your time there.
By not spreading yourself thin you keep yourself active in the community and spend your time more efficiently.
Just joining a social media site isn’t enough, you have to stand out to make a difference, be a top digger, a conversation starter on twitter, or a “regular” on socialbrowse. Keeping your focus pushes you to stand out, so you don’t end up just being a guy with a profile.
Reward Yourself
This tip comes from eMom at Sparkplugging.com. Wendy had a great idea which she tweeted about. When she’s working, she rewards herself to Twitter after she completes a goal.
It’s a great idea, and definitely one worth employing. Set up goals: I want to finish a blog post, I want to read this article, I want to comment on 5 blogs; then reward yourself with 10 to 20 minutes on Twitter, or your favorite social media site.
Use this to create breaks for yourself. If you force yourself to do something other than social media, you’ll stop the constant refreshes and random surfing.
Schedule Time
Another thing you can do, instead of rewarding yourself, is just create a schedule time. Set aside the last 10 minute to every hour, or to only 2 hours a day; whichever works best for you. It’s similar to how you set yourself a goal, except it can give you a break even when you haven’t finished what you were working on.
The nice thing about scheduling Twitter time, or etc, for yourself is that your followers will start to recognize it, especially if you let them know. It’s a good way to let people know when you’ll be accessible instead of it just being “whenever I feel like it”.
What do you do to fight social media overload?
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