____________________________________________

Gandhi was fond of saying that we all have the same 24 hours in our day; it’s all in how we use them (source). Especially within the last days I often thought about this meaningful comment. Why? Well, I think from time to time we all blunder into a time trap, don’t we? Mine snapped recently due to a lot of work for university – exams and assignments needed to be done. But it was not the university work that caused me headaches from time to time – I rather think it was the little time left for my Social Media activities.

Social Media: A time suck?

Social Media gives me the great opportunity to communicate and share my ideas online. But I am sure you will agree with me that it can be extremely time consuming, too. Social Media activities could easily take over your day if you try to create new content on your blog frequently, want to respond to everyone who leaves a comment on your blog or be up to date what is going on on Facebook or Twitter constantly. And these are only some examples of how Social Media could suck your time (Brian Solis’ Conversation Prism gives a very good overview where conversations take place online in addition to that). But as I had to put the last finishing touches to important university tasks last week I hardly had the time to dive into Web 2.0 too deeply.

Scaling Social Media

____________________________________________

I believe the magic word to get out of the ‘Social Media Time Dilemma’ is Social Media Time Management. Looking for ways of Social Media Time Management I came across a lot of helpful tips. I don’t want to keep it from you; maybe you are hard pressed for time, too, and can benefit from one or another tip. Matt Churchill published my favourite tips. That’s why I’d like to give you a brief overview about them here – if you want to read more about these tips please read his blog post on socialmediatoday.com

§  Find the blogs that are most relevant to you, and stick with them. Prioritize material that will be most beneficial to you, and read other blogs and websites at your leisure later.

§  Restrict Your Twittering in using an application like Tweetdeck and monitoring specific key words related to your field of expertise. This means you don’t need to follow every single conversation that takes place in the group of people you follow and it introduces you to new people who are talking about the same topic.

§  Have a clear out of RSS feeds you don’t read.

§  Manage Your Social Networks and cull the services you don’t use regularly – focus on the few networks that make a difference to your online experience and engage with them more, making contacts will all of a sudden be a heck of a lot easier!

Apart from Matt Churchill’s steps to manage Social Media time more effectively I really liked the simple but useful advice of Chris Brogan who suggests to use the divine tool of WordPress, for instance, to write some posts in advance and schedule them to launch when you are hard pressed for time. Brogan says: “This has proven very valuable on days when I’m too busy with other projects to get a post out, but when I know I’d rather you have something new to consider.”

Blogs about Social Media Time Management

If you like to read more about Social Media Time Management I found some other interesting blogs for you:

Time Management in the Age of Social Media

My Half Hour Social Networking Plan: The First Ten Minutes

The 10-Minute Daily Guide to Building Your Social Media Profile

Social Media Time Management

7 Ways to Own Social Media Before it Owns You

3 STEPS TO BETTER TIME MANAGEMENT OF YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Social media time management strategy

If you are generally interested in information about how to listen and in turn, participate transparently, sincerely, and effectively in social media and new media marketing I recommend reading Brian Solis’ eBook ‘The Essential Guide to Social Media’.

____________________________________________

At the end I almost missed one essential tip I found out: Set Social Media time and log off when that time is over. Well then, I log of for today

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

______________

“The Web has become our workplace, our water cooler, and our social mixer.” Doesn’t this quote of Chris Brogan hit the nail on the head? To my mind it definitely gets to the heart of Web 2.0. I came across this convincing quote in relation to personal branding – a topic that has been around for a while but that has become much more prevalent in recent years. In his ebook ‘Personal Branding for the Business Professional’ Brogan claims that the reason why personal branding has become more prevalent in recent years partly relates to how the web has become our workplace, our water cooler, and our social mixer. I agree with him. Nevertheless, I am convinced that it is very difficult to convey as much information online as in person.

Shaping the personal brand

An interesting example of how to create a digital identity is Brisbane IT-worker Hailey Turner, 20. She was among the top 50 vying for Tourism Queensland’s ‘Best Job in the World’ (read my recent posts one, two and three to get more information about the context). Apart from the demanded application video she travelled to seven cities in 12 days including Tokyo, London, Copenhagen, New York and Los Angeles to promote her application and the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef. Besides, she raised funds and sponsors and created a website where she uploaded videos, photos and blogs (source one, two, three). Everything Hailey Turner contributed to the Social Web shaped and contributed her personal brand: the pictures and videos she uploaded, the profile she defined on social networks like Facebook, the blog posts she published and the comments she shared on other blogs or the tweets she sent on twitter.

Authenticity and passion matter

Although Hailey Turner did not succeed to get the job in the end her personal brand gave her the ability to stand out in a sea of similar ‘products’ – her competitors. I think she succeeded in marketing herself as something different than the rest of the applicants in any case. According to Chris Brogan in some ways the difference on brands is what you deliver: “Doing something new is a great way to get people to be interested in what you do. (…) In a world full of people doing somewhat similar stuff the person who innovates is definitely ahead of the game.” That’s what Hailey Turner did with her journey, the funds and sponsors and her website.

Apart from that, there is another factor that strengthened Hailey Turner’s personal brand: the mixture of authenticity and passion she delivered in the contents she shared online. In my opinion, passion and authenticity are the two sides of the same coin: Because passion is hard to fake authenticity matters in building your personal brand online and it is very important to be yourself. Branding isn’t playing a role. With reference to Chris Brogan “a strong personal brand is a mix of reputation, trust, attention and execution. (…) Brands are complex and not especially one dimensional.” To my mind, the ‘brand’ Hailey Turner was colourful and interesting.

If you wish to find out more about personal branding I recommend reading ‘Personal Branding for the Business Professional’ by Chris Brogan and Brian Solis’ blog posts ‘The Socialization of Your Personal Brand’ part one, part two and part three.