In this hyper-connected world, social media plays an important role in influencing us on where and how we are spending our time on a daily basis. Given that there are many social media channels to choose from — LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, Tumblr, YouTube and Reddit, among others – they all are screaming for our time. How can one make peace with social media, yet feel productive in our daily lives?
Interestingly enough, when I search for statistics on how much average daily time per day Americans spent on selected social media network, among Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram alone, it’s drawing close to 2 hours in total. If some of us are on all of these social media channels, this could easily add up to 6 hours on average per day. When do we get to work, eat, sleep, and have a little “me” or “family” time? I may be having a knee-jerk reaction to the statistics shown, thinking some of us could be on a slippery slope to real-time social deprivation with friends, families, and people we care about.
Drawing from my own experiences, staying sane with social media while still feeling productive in your day takes disciplines. Developing rituals will also help make your social media experience enjoyable. To round out my thoughts on how to make productive use of social media, I’ve interviewed a social media veteran1. Together, we’ve developed the following guideposts.
1) Set meaningful goals on social media usage to build your social capital. If you own a business, you would want to use social media to build your brand image and make positive promotion of your reputation, so others who follow will learn of your thought leadership and develop trust of you as a brand. If you are using it at a personal level, it’s still important to project the right image of you as a person. Set objectives for each medium that you will be actively engaging with. For example, LinkedIn is a popular B2B social media channel. It’s great for building networks, relationships, and thought leadership; build relationships first, business second works well in this channel. Instagram, on the other hand, is less formal, where you could display your personality in creative ways to help you sell or position who you are. Ones who do it well seem to blend their creativity with a bit of business/social savvy to their posts/stories to make them enticing for their followers.
2) Find your social media tribes. With a rich list of social media channels available, choosing ones that you are comfortable in hanging out with and investing time in are important. Channels where you hang out are likely going to be where your potential customers/employers may be hanging out. Pick your tribes and stay active in those communities by sharing and commenting on each other’s posts. Overtime, people will get to know you. Next time, when you have a favor to ask, they would more likely respond to your inquiries quickly.
3) Set up rituals when you are spending time on social media. I’ve read that Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group, that he likes to get on social media in the morning so he can catch up with his friends, share and reciprocate news to his tribes. Best times could vary by channel because of the different audiences and how they use it. Here’s a resource link that highlights some best times by channel, worth a read! And don’t worry if you miss a posting time, don’t beat yourself up. You can try the next opportunity and get your rhythms in place. Pretty soon, posting to social media will be a cinch!
4) Share your post with a purpose to engage your audience and your brand. When you do a post, think of people giving you a piece of their valuable time to read it. So think of content and format that will engage your audience, be it a short video, a quote, a short analysis of an article, or fun emojis, they all convey what you want to communicate in formal, personable, playful, compassionate, or altruistic ways. Let your post be your voice, and use the right tone in each medium so people will get to like the energy that exudes from your post, and get to “Like” you even more?!
5) Build disciplines on social media usage and be mindful of over-sharing. We are all humans. Our emotions and behaviors are all wired differently. Don’t fall into the trap of using social media as the only outlet to resolve conflicts or bigger problems that could have been done in more productive ways by using off-line means. Over-sharing or over-expressing could cause fatigue from your followers, and they may just tune out on your posts. When you are sharing on social media, be the best version of yourself, be uplifting and inspiring in your own ways, because people will find the positive in you attractive and memorable!
I hope my collective thoughts and perspectives shed some lights on building a healthy social capital for you and your business. How productive social media is in your life depends on your objectives, how you use it, what you find helpful for yourself and to others.
Happy posting, tweeting, sharing, commenting and liking!
Sources:
- Social media insights from Oscar Garcia, Founder and Empowerment Officer at Aspira, a community relations, workforce development and training firm based in Mountain View, CA.
- Curatti.com, 7 Ways that Social Media is Affecting Us Positively, December 2018.
- statistica.com, Average daily time spent on selected social networks by users in the U.S. from 2014-2019, December 2018.
