How much social networking is too much?
August 13, 2007 by Kevin
Filed under Social Media
I found a post on webworkerdaily.com last week about people discussing social networking and how they are “over it”.
Due to the fact that I write about social networking, use social networking to promote my various blogs, and I am getting my Masters Degree in Digital Media Studies I am a member of just about every social networking and social bookmarking site under the sun. I honestly can’t imagine not checking some of my social networking websites for more than a few days, just because they have become a part of my daily routine. With that being said I don’t spend a lot of time on them per visit, I used to do that with MySpace at my old job and while I was helping consulting clients. It taught me that these sites are good in small doses.
Reading about people discussing “social networking fatigue” all I could think about was the simple concept of moderation. Social Networking sites are valuable sources of not only traffic but contacts and information as well. Creating a schedule or a routine on how to use these sites is something that can help keep them from overwhelming you as well protecting you from being sucked in and using too much of your time on them.
Currently I use a few sites daily:
-MySpace (post links to blogs, respond to messages)
-Hi-5 (through bot program only)
-Facebook (check up with people from school)
-Blogcatalog (participate in discussions, network with other bloggers)
-MyBlogLog (check stats)
-StumbleUpon
-Digg
My usage of all these sites is under half an hour combined. I do what I need to do on them and leave them, except for blog catalog because I like participating in the discussions on there throughout the day.
I am keeping track of my schedule and how much time I spend on what to put together a post about using social networking sites to promote your work for half an hour a day. Hopefully this will shape into something useful.
Just out of curiosity what sites do you frequent?
Technorati Tags: social networking fatigue, myspace, Hi-5, Blogcatalog, MyBlogLog, StumbleUpon
I visit MyBlogLog once a day to add my 15 contacts. Currently up over 6,000. Then I read my comments and reply. Then I check the blogs I like. The other social network sites I visit once a week just to see if anyone left me a message.
BeachBum
Yeah the 15 contacts is a great way to go… 6000 wow.. .
I use Ryze, MySpace and various Yahoo Groups daily; LinkedIn, Ecademy, Gather and a few entrepreneur/small biz discussion forums are several times a week; Xing, Facebook and various Ning networks are about once a week. I have a big list of others I want to explore more.
Kevin,
I also have profiles on multiple websites and keep visiting them on a daily basis to keep up. This certainly is a growing problem. We surely need some consolidation here.
Here is a post I wrote sometime back around this. Take a look.
http://abhishek.tiwari.com/2007/08/12/social-network-overload-socialstream-to-the-rescue/