Social Media Overkill

This is a guest post by April Jones of Advantage Online Solutions

I’m sure you’ve probably signed up for all of the social media staples by now – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, FriendFeed – but how much time are you actually spending on them?

I get a lot of emails and see a lot of tweets with links to The Next Big Thing in social media. I’ve tried out a few of them, forgotten about most of them, and eventually stick with a few favorites.

Just because “they” say social media is where its at doesn’t mean you need to be signed up for every new service nor do you have to check in with them all every hour of the day. The trick is to find a few that you enjoy and that will bring value to your business instead of sucking up all of your productive hours.

Which form of social media you use depends on the type of business you have but here are a few of the basics I recommend:

Microblogging – Twitter is definitely King when it comes to microblogging. Sure, there are other services but if you want to cast a larger net, Twitter is the place to be. There are tools you can use to get the most out of your Twitter usage, like TweetDeck and Twitterfeed. But be careful about signing up for, subscribing to or downloading every Twitter related site or service available. It doesn’t need to be that complicated.

Forums – Forums are definitely worth the investment of both time and money. My suggestion is to find one good one for each of these categories: industry-related, mastermind, and target market. Think of them as places you can get ideas, feedback, and potential customers all with the intention of expanding your business. (If you only have time for one, a mastermind group is your best bet. My favorite is Mom Masterminds.)

Sharing – If your business depends a lot on digital media like photography or music, obviously you’ll want to spend more time on places like Flickr and Last.fm than others. Otherwise, be careful about letting these suck up too much of your time. I can easily get lost in pools and playlists so I don’t log into those very often.

Networking – Everyone I know is on Facebook. Friends from high school, my kids, my cousins, girls from my single moms group. Between them all, I have about an acre of virtual plants and a collection of junk that would make Fred Sanford envious. If you’re going to use Facebook for business, limit the number of groups you join and disable applications. Better yet, focus more on networking groups that are specific to your business. There are plenty of networking groups aimed at women and you can find a group for just about every industry or niche on Ning.

News – As part of my business, I like to keep up on trends that can help both me and my clients. Places like Social Median and Twine allow you to subscribe to certain topics, bookmark articles or posts related to those topics, and share them with other users.

Note: You can also consolidate some of these services using sites like FriendFeed, chi.mp or Ping.fm which uses feeds to gather the activity from various SM sites and publishes them all on one profile.

If you’re finding it difficult to avoid getting trapped by the social media vortex, use a timer to remind you to log off or unsubscribe to those daily updates. When you work at home, there are enough distractions around even before you turn on the computer. It may take a little extra effort to eliminate things that are just begging for your attention but like with most things, moderation is the key.

April Jones is a single WAHM living in the Omaha area. She began working at home in 2007 and launched her own business in 2008. April is an Online Business Manager, providing services including blog design, copywriting, press releases, graphics and administrative duties. She can be found via her business site at Advantage Online Solutions or her WAHM blog at April Tara dot com.