Stop Wasting Time on Social Networks
As a blogger, there are two major aspects of your professional presence in the online environment: your writing abilities and your business savvy. By creating content and publishing it on the web, you are also creating a need to market yourself. Otherwise, no one will come across your content and your voice will not be heard. Balancing your life to accommodate these two demanding aspects of your blog can be a tough task, but managing your time around these needs can set you on the right path.
Instead of informing you of services, tricks and tips for trimming the fat off your daily activities, I’m going to emphasize the need for avoiding the specific lure of wasting time on the web. I think there are plenty of tools, books and guides for making your work day more efficient. The importance of time-wasting on the web is especially pertinent to bloggers, however, as this is a primary outlet for self-marketing.
Blogging originated online, and the social web has since emerged to encourage the blogging economy while also presenting a new way to share media in general. The result was an online collection of eyeballs, which brands and individuals alike can market towards.
Leveraging the social web has also been a way to spread one’s brand, from friend to friend as a part of a personal recommendation system. More and more are recognizing the power of creating access and sharing mechanisms along the longtail of content and their niche audiences. However, the ability to navigate this social web in order to actually leverage it instead of becoming victim to it relies on your ability to properly manage your time.
I see a number of people losing focus on their blog if they get too wrapped up in the social media aspect of their overall process. The business side is very important for the growth of your blog, but wasting time on social media outlets will take away from both the writing and business sides of your blog. Think of it this way; if someone were to look at any of your online social profiles and thinks you have way too much time on your hands, then maybe you do.
As a blogger, avoiding this perception is a balancing act, as you rely on your social networking activity for professional purposes. But it is achievable. Reevaluate your professional goals, reset your priorities and find a way to optimize your schedule.
This is an issue that many corporations and other businesses have when it comes to their employee’s management time. As businesses also recognize the possibilities for building their brand names by leveraging the social web, they are once again finding it difficult to find a measurable balance for their employees that need to use social networking sites as part of their marketing practices. Seeking out some of the lessons learned in the business world may also help you as a blogger. Any additional ideas on how to walk the tight rope between the writing and socially driven marketing portions of one’s blog, feel free to share them in the comments below.
Written by Kristen Nicole from Kristen NicolePosted on December 28th, 2009 and filed under Blogging
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19 Responses to “Stop Wasting Time on Social Networks”
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Hi Kristen!
I’m a newbie blogger and now that I’ve gotten over the HUGE initial hurdle of learning the mechanics of blogging, my new (and perhaps larger) challenge is to learn how to market my blog while still managing to have time for family, and oh, yah – sleep!!
I am very curious how pro bloggers find the time to reply to commnets on their own blogs (there could be multiple comments on multiple posts!), posting comments to other blogs, scanning and replying to comments and posts on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Sprouter, etc – just to name a few.
Then there is the matter of publisizing your blog on forums, blog directories, stumbledon, Digg, etc, and any number of other venues…
Man – I’m getting a panic attack just writing about it!
And I still have no real answers as to how to get all of this done and still be able to generate new content on any kind of regular basis. there are only 24 hours in a day.
HOW DO YOU DO IT?? – :0
No, I’m serious…How do you do it??
@donpower
Well I hate to be so late in replying to this, but I will promptly blame the holiday season! i typically reply to emails on a daily basis. What I generally do for comments, however, is pull as many of them into Wordpress as possible. There are options for replying to comments directly via email (by just responding to an email), which streamlines your activity across multiple blogs.
Hi Kirsten,
You hit the nail on the head. When the online world becomes “work” and marketing means spending time on facebook or twitter (or similar) it can be hard to draw the line. It is so important to learn how to balance your time wisely, and invest in learning about time management.
It comes down to the old 80/20 thing. What 20% of your efforts result in the 80% of desired effect? If you assess what is working and what isn’t regularly, you will save yourself a lot of workable time.
Also – there is nothing worse than “working” your guts out for a week then having nothing to show for it because you were spending to much time “socialising”. Obviously to be viable online you need to invest in some amount of promotion, but not if it is at the cost of your blog content. (No content = no blog)
Michelle
That is being honest and straight to the point…write, write and write. You can only be a good blogger if you generate quality content on an ongoing basis. What do you market/link on social networks if there is not fresh content on your blog?
Appreciate the reminder Kristen…
Thanks to you and the other readers for your kind comments! It’s a tough balance–kind of like working in a candy store without eating all the candy!!
I definitely struggle with this. It’s hard to draw the line between marketing “work” and social “fun.” You either end up ignoring the work and wasting too much time with the fun, or you spend all of your time mixing work and fun so that it feels like you’re always working!
I’d like to address a question to # Don, why did you get .me domain name extension instead of the dot com? Do you find it more “brandable”?
Yeah the GoDaddy owner was trying to promote it but for personal blogs I still think com is king
Kristen, this was so needed. I keep trying to keep up with the Joneses and everyday there is something new – a trend better than the one I joined the day before. I was starting to feel lost. Thanks to you, I’m getting back to blogging! I will use and learn to maneuver the tools I already have.
I have to say this is one mistake I have not made and I am very happy that I have not. I read all the time about the benefits of social networks but I really feel people spend too much time on them. I create profiles and update them here and there but really I focus on my customers, my website / blog and not the social networks.. and there are just too many for me to keep up with.
Yes. i agree with you. We should focus on quality content instead of wasting time on social networks.
Yeah, could say nothing but agree with the points.
I made a mistake when trying to use social network to attract traffic and readers but in the end i lost my way.
The best solution for me is focusing on the quality of the content. You write beneficial and good information, the readers will come to you!
The article is pertinent and I think, i will be just one of those bloggers who go through the same issue. the idea is to remain focussed and cut through the unnecessary works. more so, few things just come with experience but yeah, it pays to remain alert.
I would like to agree with you that most bloggers spend more time in social media than actually writing for their blogs. This is a counterproductive practice.
Hi ,
I am new to this Website. Your post is simply superb ! ! ! ! Good to see this ,
Keep rocking .
Regards :
yuva
ya,I strongly agree with you we should focus on quality content instead of wasting time in social networks.Anyway very nice info.Thanks for sharing.keep blogging.
Ya great points. I’ve invested a lot of time in promoting via social networks but ts difficult. I think that its definitely possible to to boost activity to your site just requires a lot of time. Google is coming out with a new scheduling program called Wave and there are a few others like meebee.com which have helped http://bit.ly/5RIphQ.