Regular readers will notice I have been posting at a lower frequency lately. Contrary to the title of this post, it’s not that I’ve been too busy to post. I’ve been posting less frequently because I have been to trying to follow my own advice about talking less and listening more.
As I spent more time listening to the conversations around me, (both online and offline), I couldn’t help but notice how often I heard the theme of “I don’t have time for all of this social media stuff” or “If I only had another hour a day for this social media stuff”.
I’m sure a lot of the blame for this comes from those of us who talk about social media. I’m sure we give the impression that you need a complete social media system, it needs to includes all of the latest tools and platforms, and it needs to happen tomorrow. And then as soon as you learn all of these new tools and techniques, you have to start creating content each and every day.
While I’m sure I’ve given the same impression from time to time, I generally advocate a steady, consistent approach to using these tools over a “big bang” approach to marketing.
It is a common practice to set goals related the minimum amount of time we will spend on activities – “I will spend at least an hour a day social media sites”.
Personally, I find it helpful to set goals related to the maximum amount of time I will spend on an activity. Here are a few questions to explain what I mean:
- How much time do you spend checking email every day? Could you find extra time in your day by having a more structured approach to handling email? How would your day change if you only checked email four times a day?
- Rather than setting a goal of spending one hour a day on social media, what if you limited yourself to the amount of time you spend? What would happen if you limited yourself to 30 minutes a day from social media? Or maybe three fifteen minute sessions? Could you do it? Would you be more or less productive?
- What would happen if you replaced one of your monthly “in-person” networking events with a 30 minute session of online networking? Would you connect with more or fewer people? Do you think your decision process about where you spend time and who you connect with would change?
- If you only had 30 minutes a day to spend on social media, what new tools and habits would you need?
What do you think? Could you limit the amount of time you spend on social media (or any other activity) and still be effective?
