focus

Social Media Overwhelm — (with apologies to the master Mr. Schulz)

Or the incessant nagging of social media and how to resist its petulant demands.

A few days ago, the news spread that Google+ is on its last legs, as the G giant re-structures and puts ‘Google’s Photos and Stream products’ on the front burner. I will not miss the product, as my primary interactions were half-hearted attempts to engage in a space that I couldn’t quite figure out how public it was. FB is clearly for “friends”, Twitter is public (sure you can make it private, but what’s the point?) and G+ was a too many options with confusing circles type of place. I helped set up a number of client’s business pages and that was about the size of it.

And yet even as its passing is widely pronounced there are pundits who are still assured of its G for giant status.

This leads me to let out a big sigh and slump my shoulders.
I’ve developed social media fatigue —keeping up with the tweets— how much to tune in, how much to tune out, this new product, that new app. It’s a jungle out there.

I’ve noticed symptoms of social media fatigue, feeling overwhelmed, anxious or just plain ol’ bored.

When Twitter first came online in 2008, I started to notice all my favourite bloggers using this new platform. It seemed fun , but I held out till 2009;) opening two accounts, one for business one for personal needs.

At first it was always fun. Everyone was so pithy and content so curated I felt like I as at the office water-cooler and the latest greatest conference at the same time. After a while it became a kind of chore. Then, something might happen — this news event, that conference, this conference, and I was hooked in again.

It’s a see saw.

I totally see the value of social media and yet I see its tendency to be a beautiful countryside road overblown with billboards. Yuck.

So what’s a poor girl to do in the face of a behemoth.

Breathe – Dr. Andrew Weil recommends the 4-7-8 relaxing breath exercise. Briefly, (because hey you’re busy:) inhale slowly for 4, hold for 7, and exhale with a whoosh sound for 8.
Focus – How many social media accounts do you really need? Pick one or two accounts to keep active. (unless of course you’re a big company and you have staff handling this for you in which case why are you reading this?) If you must have several accounts, but are truly only active on one, then let your readers where to find you. ie: I have this FB page, but I’m really active on pinterest. Join me there (with link).
Prep – your content – (which is definitely not only about you!) in advance. Articles, fun stuff, etc. And yet remember that timing is relevant. Careful with those pre-tweet strategies when something big is happening in the news and you’re tweeting rainbows and unicorns.
Know – your audience. Which is the same as #2. If you’re speaking to twitter, use #hashtags, @replies, learn the lingo and, again, don’t spew out links to me-me-me every two minutes.
Be Nice – social media makes it so easy to get caught up in the moment in a not such nice way. Bad service at X department store (@BIGbigstore – hey I ……***&&&%%%$$(((!!!) – that’s really noise and isn’t helping you and your brand. (I speak from experience – ahem) Of course if you’ve got a real complaint and have already tried being nice, go ahead and leverage the social media angle. But try to be polite. (I’m Canadian;)

You can find me on twitter @diamedia or @deanneachong. There’s a whole bunch of other accounts that are wasteland and I’ll follow my own advice soon and update them with where to find me. Soon come. Soon come.

I was waiting in line at my favourite gluten-free bakery, coincidentally right below our studio, as the owner Arlene was chatting with another customer and mentioned that she would tweet her when a new product was available.

The gal replied “Oh I’m not on twitter that much” but that she does refer friends to the bakery via word of mouth not twitter. Arlene then mentioned she was talking to someone else who basically told her her twitter presence was insignificant, that she needed at least 500 followers before it became useful.

I said, well it’s not necessarily true. As a joke I said she only needed 10 followers.

Yes, of course 500 vs 50 is probably better — I’m not arguing with that. It’s the concept that there is a set number out there that business has to achieve. And, that if you have 500 followers, but over 50% of them are bots, that’s hardly something to write home about.

Also, the whole numbers game and the ideal ratio (you “should” have more followers than following) has always seemed a bit suspect to me. The pump and dump strategies employed by some — they follow you and then unfollow you once you’ve followed them back so they can quickly have a ratio of 2,000 to 10,000. Look at me, I’m popular!

Although I tossed out the number 10 as a joke, what if her ideal client, who also happens to be on twitter, also happens to be a very popular twitterer….maybe she does need only a few followers. What if one of them happened to be @hummingbird604 ( I don’t think he’s a gluten free person, but who knows?) One RT from him and you’re immediately reaching a much wider audience (>10K in his case), so the logic goes. On the other hand, he tweets probably 300(0?) times a day and so that audience might just miss his tweet about your x, y, z.

A better strategy is to not focus so much on the numbers and focus instead on listening to your audience and responding to them as the genuine, authentic business owner you are.

Forget about the numbers. Really.

p.s. Say hello to Arlene on Twitter.

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