Recently, two of my favorite bloggers posted tips on how they handle social media overload.
Trish McFarlane wrote an excellent post on How To Simplify Your Social Media Life where she suggested you schedule time for social media and prioritize your access to social media sites.
Naomi Bloom also write an excellent post about her experiences with social media called Reflections Of A Digital Immigrant Gone Semi-Native: An Embarrassment Of Riches where she let us know she is going to set aside Facebook and limit the number twitter followers to keep from being overwhelmed.
I’d like to add on to these wonderful suggestions and offer up my own secret for keeping up with the firehose of social media information. What’s my secret, you ask? I steal…time. There, I said it. I steal time. When I am sitting in a conference room waiting for a meeting to start, standing in line waiting to board an airplane, waiting for my mocha at the local coffee shop or walking across the office building, I steal that time and catch up on social media. I’m sure by now you have figured out my secret weapon for stealing time and that weapon is my iPhone. The iPhone has native applications for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and email and with mobile Safari and the Google Reader iPhone mobile website, I can breeze through my blog roll. But wait there’s more. The iPhone also has several native applications to manage your blog while on the go. When I steal time for Twitter, my favorite application is TweetDeck. With the iPhone TweetDeck application, I am able to automatically sync my TweetDeck groups between my desktop and iPhone. When on the go and stealing time, being able to selectively view tweets via TweetDeck is a must for me. Did I mention that Google Reader mobile website for the iPhone is amazing?
Stuck on network other than AT&T? Hate the iPhone (for some inexplicable reason). Can’t be separated from your Blackberry or Android phone? Never fear. So long as you use smart phone that has a fast 3G data connection with the ability to download native social media programs, you too can steal time.
Okay, let review. YOU too can steal time for social media by:
- Acquiring a smart phone such as an iPhone, Android device, Palm Pre or Blackberry
- Downloading native Social Media applications for sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn
- Downloading native applications to manage your Blog
- Configuring access to all your email accounts via the built in email application
- Bookmarking the mobile Google Reader site
Oh, one last thing. I’m not going to go into any details here but you might want to read this blog post of mine about a particular place to steal time.
I know there are probably a ton of other ideas out there so please leave a comment and tell me how you steal time for social media.
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Thanks for the mention and for the great tips on stealing time. Like you, I have my phone to help me stay connected. I could certainly get better at that and will definitely take some of your tips. I have the myTouch (android) and it is great for staying connected to my blog, Twitter, and FB. We don’t have the cool Tweetdeck option, but it’s still workable. I haven’t checked out mobile Google Reader but that will be a priority for me today. Thanks for the tip!
Please do check out mobile Google Reader. I think I catch up on at least 50% of my blog reading using my iPhone. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before TweetDeck is available on Android.
Mike, these are great tips. Thank you for NOT mentioning catching up while driving. It seems a no-brainer, but I’ve seen far too many people operating their digital devices while driving. Bad, bad, bad!
Thanks for mentioning not catching up while driving. It is actually good to call this out specifically. Thanks for the great tip of what NOT to do!
Mike, thanks for the shout-out and these very helpful suggestions. I’ve been using Palm software and my Treo for years, but 2010 is the year of the smart phone upgrade, and now I have one more incentive to move that action item up the priority list. If only they had a waterproof version, I could “steal time” while doing laps — if it every warms up again in south Florida.
I was a Palm user from the nearly the beginning: Palm Pilot Professional -> Palm Vx -> Palm Treo 650. The conversion from my Treo to an iPhone was pretty easy. Let me know when you are ready to talk smart phone upgrades. By the way, there are waterproof cases for most smart phones.
I would be LOST with my iPhone, lost. There’s an app for every thing I need when it comes to social media and you summed it all up. There’s also an app for checking Google Analytics that’s nice.
I steal time between meetings, during boring meetings (shh, dont tell the boss), sitting in drive thru lines; pretty much anytime that something else doesnt hold my attention. Great post!
An app for checking Google Analytics? Cool, thanks for the tip. Not that I *ahem* check my web statistics every day.
What a great post. I catch up when I can – days are tough for me and I grab a few minutes here and there. SO well articulated. May use you and this in one of presentations.
Glad you found some time to read this post and comment. Feel free to pass on the information in a presentation.
Great tips! ‘I steal time’ well said.