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Where do you draw the line on social media?

I try to keep up. I have a feed reader. I blog. I comment on other people's blogs. I tweet. I have multiple websites. I have accounts on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and others.

But you have to draw the line somewhere.

I wrote earlier about being app'd out. I still feel that way. But each day I feel farther behind. Maybe not behind, but not necessarily maximizing potential. I don't Digg. I don't StumbleUpon. OK, maybe I do like once a month if I have some spare time. But I know I am missing out on a lot of cool things. I usually check out other people's links to cool tools or the next new thing. But right now, I feel like I am in the Dip.

Any suggestions on how to get out?

Comments

Scott Oser said…
Matt,

I am with you on feeling overwhelmed and behind and I don't do nearly as much as you do. I have accounts on LinkedIn, Plaxo, Facebook, Naymz, MySpace (I think I signed up a long time ago and guess I should check it out), and some other new one that I can't even remember the name of right now. I am only really active on Facebook and LinkedIn. Plaxo makes it easy for you to keep up because they now have an Outlook add-in that Ben Martin pointed out to me. I comment on other people's blogs and am now blogging for Acronym. I don't tweet or do any of the other things you mention in your post. I find it impossible to keep up with everything and feel guilty that I am not doing more. What is too much? Too little? As a consultant who wants to share expertise, create a brand for myself and my company and meet as many people as I can what do I have to be doing as opposed to what is nice to be doing? I welcome all input. I would love to hear if the answer would be the same for association professionals as well. If I get a lot of responses I am happy to post this or link to this conversation on Acronym as I think it is very important right now.
Unknown said…
Hey Matt -
I soooo know what you are talking about. I, too, despair at the tought of having to add StumbleUpon, digg, reddit, and everything else to the mix. I'm just now trying to do more with FriendFeeder in addition to my regular Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, blog, BzzCampaign reporting, etc...

I think FriendFeeder is supposed to be helping me somehow, but so far notsomuch.

Let me know if you find the answer! Better yet, why don't you tackle Chris Brogan and find out what his secret is?
Anonymous said…
Hey, Matt, you can't read everything - electronic or print - so don't. And don't feel guilty about it.

Prioritize your sources and read what you need to read. You can always follow a link or reference to something that may interest you or benefit you without checking that source all of the time.

Don't worry that you might miss something. You don't have to know everything that everybody is doing all of the time.
Lisa Junker said…
David Gammel has a great post up today that I think is relevant to this discussion. In it, he says that "Knowledge is a capacity to act." For me, a lot of what I glean from social media enhances my capacity to act ... up to a point. Then I find myself refreshing Twitter for the 50th time just to keep up with it, and I'm not enhancing my capacity to act, I'm detracting from my other work.

Maybe that's one way to know where to draw the line: Is this enhancing my capacity to act, really? (Of course, that doesn't help with the fear that there's something out there that you haven't tried yet that would enhance your capacity, but I think sometimes you have to say, I'm fine with stepping back a bit from the leading edge. Or maybe that's just me.)
Chris Brogan said…
I'm afraid I'm atypical. I use LOTS of these services, but that's because I'm testing things out. I'm in the lab trying to figure out how humans will use these things to do business, build trust, bring relationships to different ends.

Where do you draw the line? If you need something more, like more business, more awareness, more stimulating conversations, you add some. If you need less of everything, you subtract. It's a bit like cooking.

That's how I play.
Anonymous said…
Why do you "tweet" if you already have a blog?

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