How do you manage your social media?

Over on JustBento I just posted about a new Pinterest board dedicated to bento ideas, as well as a list of all the social media places to find me. I don't want to be redundant so if you are interested in finding me elsewhere, please take a look.

As I put together that list, I started thinking about all the time I put into those places. In a way it's a lot of work, even though I do love interracting with people and everything. For me writing and blogging are now my fulltime job and top priority (I'm slowly ruminating at the moment about another book too), but these days staying within the confines of your own blogs is not enough, and you have to put yourself 'out there' so to speak. And it takes quite a chunk of time to do it properly.

Recently I tried tracking the time I spent on various tasks during the day. (If you're interested in trackine where your time goes, I highly recommend the Emergent Task Timer by David Seah, which is what I used. I've used this sheet periodically over the years when I've felt my time wasn't being spent very well.) I spent a total of 12 hours (!) in front of my computer only 4 1/2 of which were spent on actual writing and research for writing projects. The rest was taken up by reading and replying to email, computer maintenance type things (I'm in the middle of reorganizing my photo archives), general reading and surfing, and so on. What really shocked me was that I spent more than 2 hours on social media things and other sites besides my own.

How do you manage your social media time? Do you find it cumbersome, or just fun? Is it a necessity for your line of work? Are there specific ways in which you use say, Facebook vs. Twitter vs. Google+ and so on?

Submitted by maki on 2013-02-28 12:38.
Filed under:  essays not food

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Comments

Mirza

28 February, 2013 - 14:49

I like to use new networks since they tend to produce interesting products by just letting people try out different things (like Vine does).

Otherwise, while I was at an ad agency, using Facebook was a very common occurrence, although I keep my private Facebook to people I know in person and keep in touch with.

Twitter is good for reporting from happenings, since the 140 character limitation doesn't let you drift away.

Google+ is brilliant because of hangouts. You can stream a cook-off, or just have a Q&A session.

Instagram is good for food, if you know basics of food photography.

Hope this helps

anon.

2 March, 2013 - 04:56

Manage them? I hate them! I think social media are all a waste of time. But, I confess to checking Facebook a couple of times a day because friends use it and it's a good way to keep up with the cat posts! (Maru and Henri le Chat Noir.) I loathe Twitter and "trending." My main time-waster is email. I love corresponding with distant friends but I have subscribed to far too many political lists and have to daily live with the agony of reading about our (Canadian) government's stupidity; the neighbour's government's stupidity, the European...well, you get the idea. And then every day I have to check out my favourite comics on GoComics. Far too often the heap of books beside me is neglected while I check out what's going on in the world (mostly stupidity, of course.) Once in a while I do some work, feed the cats (5), or cook a meal. That's often where you come in, Maki. Thank you. You are definitely _not_ a waste of time.

Kyandasu

4 March, 2013 - 01:15

For my own personal use, I don't use that much social media. However, because I am trying to get more readers for my travel blog, I am currently doing a lot of social media networking. I got a twitter account, opened up a facebook page dedicated to my blog, a flickr account for extra pictures, and I'm probably going to use Pinterest, too. It's a lot of work, more than I thought, and more than most people believe when I tell them about it. On the one hand it feels like screwing around, but it's real work, and it has made a difference to my readership. It definitely takes up a lot of my time, though.

maki

4 March, 2013 - 11:15

What's the URL of your travel blog? ^_^

Kyandasu

5 March, 2013 - 04:17

Oh, I'm so glad you asked! It's http://languageofcuriosity.weebly.com/language-of-curiosity.html

There are a lot of posts about Japan, but I am starting to add posts about the other places I have been.

maki

5 March, 2013 - 13:40

Great Kyandasu! I still remember when you were having trouble convincing your parents that you should go to Akita after the earthquake, and I'm so glad you got to go after all. ^_^

anon.

4 March, 2013 - 22:39

Since I haven't build my own website yet tumblr is basically my blog (+facebook). I'm using LeechBlock to lock myself out from social media (and all other blogs I use to read/waste time on) during the week (lockdown from 8 am to 6 pm) to make sure I'm actually studying. Unfortunately it's a BA of Applied computer science so I didn't took me long to figure out how to hack LeechBlock, but I made it annoying enough to do so, so most of the time it works.

kogia

6 March, 2013 - 06:01

I use facebook as an address book and to share links with the few of my friends who haven't left facebook yet. I NEVER look at stuff on facebook. I use google+ as a way to share the interesting things I find on my google reader feed with others who might be interested. I have flatly refused to get a Twitter account and have never been presented with a compelling reason to do so.

therufs

6 March, 2013 - 19:54

Facebook is for any random interesting thought or witticism. I have been spending more time than I'd like on FB, but I've been working on decreasing my tolerance for bullcrap lately, therefore making a lot of FB posts more annoying than they had been, therefore making me not want to spend as much time on it.

Twitter is for random interesting thoughts &/ witticisms &/ reports from when I'm out -- I have no internetophone and am sure not giving FB my phone number.

I have a higher standard for what goes on g+, mostly because I'd like to see it /not/ become another FB. Probably asking too much.