How Do You Prioritize Your Social Media?

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How Do You Prioritize Your Social Media?

On September 2, 2009, In New, By Tac Anderson

: Image by luc legay via Flickr

Iâve recently received a few inquiries from friends. Theyâve noticed that I havenât been as conversational on Twitter lately. I still highly value the conversations on Twitter I just donât actively participate as much as I used to.

If youâve read any of my previous posts you know that Iâve been busy. (That statement was made as yet another entry to the understatement of the year award).I have several mechanisms set up to allow me to continue to post *to* Twitter but you canât automate conversation (nor should you try).

FriendFeed allows me to cross post items I share in Google Reader or songs I bookmark in Pandora from FriendFeed to Twitter. Posterous allows me to automagically post my short thoughts, pics, screen grabs and collections of ods and ends from Posterous to Twitter (and Flickr and YouTube and Facebook) which all end up in FriendFeed (BTW Mark Z, I know youâre reading this and give a ratâs ass what I think, but please donât shut down FriendFeed, ever. kthnxby).

With my ever-shrinking, finite time I have to prioritize where and how I participate. I love Twitter. It is my social network of choice. But, for me, blogging is too valuable to ever give up. Itâs become an integral part of my thinking process. Itâs so bad that half the strategy docs I write for clients sound like blog posts. Itâs an easy style for me. Even when I have something thatâs not appropriate for the blog I have to send a a blog style email to someone to get it out of my head.

My hierarchy of social media goes something like this:

Google Reader
Blog/Posterous
Twitter
FriendFeed
Facebook
LinkedIn
Yammer

Thereâs a very real long tail effect here. I start my day with Google Reader at 5:00 a.m. and check it constantly through the day, sharing the posts I find most interesting. Between my blog and my Posterous account I average 10-15 (or more) posts a week. Tweetdeck is running constantly at work and I check it frequently, I just donât jump into many conversations. FriendFeed usually gets checked a few times a day and Facebook about once a day. LinkedIn and Yammer get maybe one or two visits a month.

What about you. Where are your social media priorities?

Blogs Arenât Dead, Theyâre Just Fragmenting (newcommbiz.com)
What Iâm doing to fight the social media echo chamber (newcommbiz.com)
Using Google Reader As A Twitter Search Engine (philbaumann.com)
Why Would You NOT Blog? (myventurepad.com)
10 Cool Google Reader Buttons You Can Use to Post Feed Content (makeuseof.com)

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Tobin Truog

Thanks for the useful post. New Media usage is a great study in how different personalities using the same set of tools will come up with different approaches, so it is very useful to see your usage / priorities.

As I get busier and busier myself, I have found that having a flow to each day has helped. I use Feedly as an awesome way to organize my reader info, and I am on FriendFeed all day long via the desktop tool. I CC key posts from FriendFeed over to Twitter and then I use Seemic to manage my Twitter only stuff. (I use Seesmic because it allowed multiple Twitter accounts + Facebook integration before Tweetdeck, plus I think Loic is a cool name!)

I am getting ready to launch a new blog, but have found the flexibility of FriendFeed so awesome that I am having a hard time adjusting back to the longer form.

Not sure why I am sharing this...it's just how I use this stuff.

At this point, my belief is that HOW you do this stuff is less important than WHAT you do. By that I mean that no matter what tool you use, real participation in that community, and real person to person engagement is more important than if you are using LInkedIn every day or not.

Thanks for the post. I will share it on my FF!
tacanderson

Tobin,
Thanks for the comment. I totally agree that how you do something less important than what you do. But having a how is crucial or you never get to the what. I think most people struggle with the work flow behind social media. Because they never figure out how to make it work it either becomes a time suck or it wallows on the sidelines, neglected.

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