Social media vs. living a life: who wins?

By Craig on Jul 4, 2009 in Digital communication, Social media, Strategic communication | View Comments

Communication, communication, communication – all this communication is doing my head in! Where is there any time for actually undertaking a non-digital life!?

On top of this, here I am screaming and, supposedly, I am a communication ‘expert’. Well, at least a communication professional, anyway.

What prompted this micro-breakdown is a recent blog I read by Chris Brogan that purports that to stay ahead of the social media curve you need to undertake 60+ activities each day. 60 plus! And you wonder why I’m in breakdown mode.

Okay, Chris says you could do this. He’s not being a fascist. The point is, if you are going to play the social media game, if you are going to engage with it sufficiently to make effective use out of it – whether it is purely for personal non-work reasons or out of professional motivations (and if, like me and probably most people who are reading this post), you are mixing the two, then heaven help you) then the general view seems you need to immerse yourself in it.

The thing is, when you look at Chris’s activity breakdown, it doesn’t seem unreasonable. Some actions include:

  • Twitter
    • Retweet highlights
    • Give responses to tweets
    • Follow more folks
    • Indulge in chit chat 
  • Facebook:
    • Birthday check and best wishes
    • Do updates and share them
    • Leave comments on fan pages
  •  LinkedIn:
    • Accept invites
    • Participate in discussions
    • Give recommendations 
  • Blog:
    • Comment on comments
    • Interact with ‘commenters’ blogs
    • Write a blog promoting your community’s good blog work

Seriously, who has time for all this? There are also some big time-ticket items like actually writing blog posts of substance that aren’t even mentioned. And this, for me, is a real time zapper. On your own blog you are everything from author to stylist to avatar to marketer. And all points in between.

The big point for professional communicators like myself is that, as the social media options keep expanding, more and more time needs to be spent on familiarising yourself with the ‘space’:

  • So we become more adept at it (if not an expert)
  • Because, professionally, we need to be credible on the topic
  • Social media is probably the most dynamic area of communication management there is today.

So where is all this ‘new time’ coming from that allows us, as professional communicators, to stay on top of and literate in old school communication mechanisms as well as the new world technologies?

Well, if you have that luxury, delegation is a much underrated business management tool…  If, like me, you don’t currently have that luxury, well, it’s either less time spent with Moby Dick (my current read), not so much playing with my five year old or a radical rationalisation/revamping of time spent on media/communication consumption (e.g. less time on newspapers and more time in cyberspace).

If someone has the antidote to my malaise, please send me a prescription.

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  • http://www.prlab.com.au Greg Smith

    Craig. You have echoed my sentiments. There is must not enough time to do all this if you want a normal. Anyway, apart from getting some useful information (like how social media is ruining my social life) I find that all this really comes to naught. So what: people read my blog or my tweet. But what action do they take and does it influence their lives? Anyway, I’ve mastered to tools, so now I can teach them and let the younger generation worry about their time. I’m off for a bike ride and a (real) surf. This comment will be repeated at my blog: http://theprlab.blogspot.com. Catch you at @prlab

  • http://www.templeman.com.au Susan Templeman

    Well put Craig. Social media obviously has a role, but I’m temtped to put old fashioned face to face or at least voice to voice communcation first. In our desire to communicate with the masses, to have more friends on Facebook, more followers on Twitter or more hits on a blog, we probably sacrifice a deeper, more meaningful and influential conversation. Maybe we need to think about measuring our success at communication on quality, not quantity!

  • http://www.sillyoldblogger.net on_line_writer

    It depends on the ways and means you choose for your voice. Do you want to be a narrowcaster or a broadcaster.
    In the terms of pr, are you working to influence the influencers, in which case you can be selective and work on a one-to-one basis. But if your game is the mass market, and you need your voice to reach the multitudes, then it takes sweat and time and good headcount.
    John Kennedy’s team knew this. For his election campaign he broke his constituency into 480 differnet markets, and had to craft a differently finessed point of view for each of them. He didn’t do this alone, he had a team helping.
    Same with Obama, he had teams of teams working the social media.
    The point is you can’t do social connections alone, you need help. You can be godfather, but you need runers.
    I think the Australian bid for the soccer world cup has the right idea, they have employed a go getter just to feed the social media – and create a buzz. Even then one person can’t do it alone, as the tipping point builds, more people will have to come on board.
    So if you are a small individual worker, you can’t create a tsanumi by yourself, there isn’t enough time in the day no matter how much you splash around in the water.
    But as a consultant, you can help your client see the light of day, and if numbers are their game, they need to put people at your desk to help you help their cause.
    If you are a sole trader trying to sell your service I reckon that two hours a day spent on social media would give a reasonable ROI. Anything less you might be better handwriting letters to your aunts, asking for favours. Anything more and you need to seek help from trick cyclists.
    Cheers

  • http://www.sillyoldblogger.net on_line_writer

    Hey again commain
    Having another thought about your post.
    I would recommend a simple little book by Leo Babauta Called The Power of Less. Power of Less, The: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential…in Business and in Life
    This is basically a three way junction between time management, zen, and some demands of maintaining social media . More information is discussed on the authors blogsite.
    http://zenhabits.net/ is a blog that claims to be a source of ideas and simple ways to be more productive, written by Leo Babauta. His is one of the top twenty blogs of the year, according to Time magazine

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