Attention Work at Home Mom Entrepreneurs – Constant Contact and the MomsMiami.com (of the Miami Herald) have organized a morning of informational workshops with your unique needs in mind.
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With their advertising revenue drying up, newspaper publishers spent much of the spring and summer debating whether to cut off free online access to some of the material they run in their shrinking print editions.
It looks like the talk will turn to action this fall, when some large newspapers are expected to put up Internet toll booths.
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Like many, I enjoy catching up with friends on Facebook, seeing what industry experts are talking about on Twitter and reading blogs by people with common interests. But my new fascination with social media has me trying to figure out how to keep up and still have time for work and family.
Where does social media fit in with work/life balance?
The question is timely as we see more Internet users spending an increasing amount of time in social media environments. In 2009, more than four out of five online Americans are active in either creating, participating in or reading some form of social content at least once a month, according to Forrester Research.
If you love schmoozing or knowing what your social circle is doing, if you are building a brand or job hunting, devoting time to social media is smart. The challenge is that each social media platform requires contributing and responding and can easily drain hours out of your day.
“The real issue is that people have not yet learned how to be productive and use social media,” says Amy Webb, CEO of Webbmedia Group, a social media consultancy.
She says it all starts with figuring out your goal. Are you trying to connect and maybe share photos with friends, market your company, reach out to job prospects or maybe stay on top of trends in your industry? Once you determine your goal, figure out how to make social media a tool in that goal and not a distraction, Webb says.
Some of the tactics so far:
Set boundaries. Webb schedules time throughout her day to check in on her social networks. “I don’t set time limits because I would feel pressured,” she explains. Instead, she sets tasks. She will reply to those messages and comments that need an immediate response and wait until the end of the day to respond to all others.
Niala Boodhoo, who co-writes the Poked blog for MiamiHerald.com, offers another approach for those who intend to take a peek at Twitter and end up spending hours clicking on links or forwarding tweets. She suggests monitoring how much time you spends on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter with a Mozilla Firefox plug-in called Leechblock. “It’s the perfect way to police yourself,” she says. You can specify which sites you want to block, you can set a time limit for a site or block access for a set period of time (9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday).
Make it a lifestyle. Alex de Carvalho believes in total immersion. He integrates social media for work and pleasure — into his day and evening. He sends out updates and responds to comments on social networks on one screen, while using a second screen for his work programs. Carvalho says when you look at social media as a lifestyle, it affects everything from what technology you buy to who you hang out with and how you spend your time.
When Carvalho leaves the office, he taps into Twitter and other networks from his iPhone and says doing so eliminates wasted downtime. “The time you spend waiting at a dentist office can be spend interacting with your network of friends.”
Carvalho says he attains his social media goals of building an online persona rather easily. “It comes down to less than an hour a day on average because of the way social media is integrated into my life.”
Set personal limits. Debbie Regent considers Facebook a hobby that has replaced evening reading and television watching. “I’m definitely hooked,” she says. “I could go nuts and spend hours on Facebook but I don’t let myself.” Each night from 9 to 11 p.m. Regent checks her Facebook inbox or searches the site for long-lost friends. Lately she finds herself struggling with wanting to connect more frequently. Regent, a nonprofit fundraiser, sneaks quick peeks at Facebook during the work day, to make a move or two in Scrabble. “I call it my guilty pleasure, five minutes on Facebook.”
Bridging the gap between work, family and friends. For employers, the social media debate takes a different turn. One small-business owner told me he fired a staffer who thought it was perfectly acceptable to spend hours updating his Facebook status all day long on company time. But then there are executives who travel for work and use social media to tweet their spouses or say good night to a child.
Gregory Hammond, chief legal officer of TriNet HR Services, devotes five or six hours a day to social media. “We want employees that are connected,” he says. He believes if you use these networks right, you can build relationships with many more people than you ever would have imagined and use them to be closer to your friends and family.
Hammond says it’s possible to devote as much time as he does to social media because he sleeps only three hours a night. Even still, he says, thetime investment pays off. “I’m talking about things that matter to me with people who teach me things.”
[via Miami Herald] by CINDY KRISCHER GOODMAN
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People tell us all the time that they want to get started on sites like Twitter, but they don’t know what to say — or do.
So here’s some advice for them, as well as to others already immersed in the world of social media: Use your ears.
That’s the one thing that stood out when we spoke with Peter Shankman recently. He’s a New York advertising and marketing executive who runs one of the few organizations that has made money from social media. Shankman likes to say he thinks social media isn’t a broadcast platform. It’s not just a way for you to shout, or scream your opinions to the world; it’s a two-way street that involves engaging people. There’s a reason we use the word interactive.
That’s a lesson many people who use social media probably don’t do frequently enough. But it’s also essential for people who are just getting started.
“The first thing people have to do when they get on social media is to listen,” he said. “The concept of talking will come next.”
That’s what Shankman did when he started a site called Help a Reporter Out (helpareporter.com), which connects reporters to sources. Within a year, it went from a Facebook group to a company that made $1 million in advertising revenue, Shankman told a group of local public relations executives.
It helps to think of social media as the process of listening then talking, then doing more listening.
For example: You’re a small-business owner who has thought about opening a Twitter account. Sign up. Fill out the profile, making sure you’ve added an appropriate photo.
At this point, most people start hawking: Buy my product! Visit my store! Instead, start following people with similar interests. When you find something that deserves repeating, retweet the message. Join in on conversations and offer valuable commentary.
Use it as a platform to showcase your expertise — not just to push out links to your business. And, make sure you’re asking your customers or clients what they want.
People are increasingly getting their information from social media networks. That’s why you want to be part of the conversation, and why it’s so important to be engaging while you’re there.
[via MiamiHerald.com] by Peter Shankman.
Meet the South Florida Twitter community and Miami Herald reporters and editors Thursday at The Miami Herald Tweetup.
