A lot of people approach me in person and comment on the sharing I do on-line. And truth be told, I share a lot. Ever since we made Aliyah, my social media posting has hit all time highs.
Why? Simple. Keeping in touch is important and I want to share our life with our family and friends. What easier way than to mass post on social media!
You Spend All Day Online Don’t you?
But I do get lots of odd questions from people.” Do you spend all day on the computer?” “Don’t you have better things to do?” “Doesn’t it take a ton of time?” “Who the hell cares about what you post?” “Really, who the hell cares?”
The answers to these questions are:
- Yes & No
- Yes (which is why the last one was a hybrid)
- No
- People
- Lots of people.I will explain
Turns Out, People Do Care
How do I know people care? Because in a strange twist of events, many people talk to me about social media offline. I never expected that, but I don’t care. What stinks though is the perception people have of my online behavior. The truth is, I do spend all my time on the computer, but not on social media. While my job is on the computer, 90% of all social media I am involved in comes from my trusty phone. And more specifically, it happens when I have “free time” or need a break. From a time perspective, I make it take as little time as possible, while getting the most “reach” possible.
It actually takes me very little time.
How I Share Online
Lets break it down. I really only share a handful of things online, which is pretty limited to Facebook and Twitter (I dabble in Google+ but still haven’t jumped in head first yet aside from work):
- Images of my family, interesting observations, and funny things
- Articles mainly related to technology, SEO or Social Media.
- Random tweets: Much less often than anything else but I share them.
How Do You Share Images?
My go to for sharing images is Instagram. Not because I love Instagram, but more because it allows me to share on Twitter and Facebook at the same time. The wrench in this was when Instagram started fighting with Twitter and images stopped showing up. For a while there I just dealt with it, but I almost left Instagram because of it. Then, I discovered this IFTTT formula which takes every image I post to Instagram and converts it into a Twitter Pic, which means the image shows up on Twitter natively. People actually get to see it again.
What About Article and Video Sharing?
The little secret here is that while it might seem like I post all the time, the reality is, most of the articles are scheduled. Buffer is my go to app for tweeting. I love the idea that I can read an article and share it at a later time. it spreads out engagement over the course of a day. Not only that, if you sync it with Followerwonk, it creates a schedule for you based on when your following actually is active on twitter. With the very simple click of the share button, I can easily send it directly to buffer to go out later.
And Then There Is Blogging
So this is the obvious biggest challenge because to do it well takes the most time. I put up my first blog post on a blogger account Tuesday February 10th 2009, and it is embarrassing (good luck finding it). I can see how my writing has evolved. How I took on my own voice. And I have gone through waves to figure out what “works best” for me. First it was just random no direction blogging. Then it turned into a news outlet (for about 2 weeks). Then I started writing about work which is where things started getting the most serious. Only later did I realize that I liked writing about life more than anything else. Well, life and my social media life. The point is, blogging is where I have seen my work life and personal life intertwine more than anywhere else. Which is why, usually, it will have the most personal twist to it.
And after I write, I share. And this is practically the only one I do manually.
How About Browsing, Reading, and Just Being Social
My go to app for finding information is Feedly. It is on my phone so whenever I am in a tremp, or waiting room, or whatever, While it is the best replacement for google reader that I have found to date. It’s not perfect. For instance, it doesn’t send me to the actual article. I can only browse from within the app… which is more annoying than you would imagine. Especially when you want to share that article.
Pocket is awesome, but I basically save articles I want to read and rarely get to them… which stinks.
Here is the crazy little secret. I don’t use any special apps on my phone to browse through my social networks.
- For Facebook I use the organic app
- For Twitter, I use the organic app
And That’s It
As much as I want to be social, I also don’t want it to take over my life. The above ways are what I have found to limit that as much as possible. So, I hope this post helps some of you. And if you have some other tricks that can make it easier for me, I would love to hear about it.