Stop wasting your time on social media
Last week I caught myself thinking ‘get some work done and stop being distracted by the conversations with my followers and friends on social media’
I am a fan of: twitter, LinkedIn and facebook. I haven’t got to grips with google+, Pinterest and tumblr yet.
I have since spent some time reflecting on this, am I indeed wasting my time and using social media as an excuse not to do the important jobs?
I slowly began to build a picture of the new and wonderful connections I have made through social media. Here are just three of them:
- Sara the spiritual coach based in Canada – we have skyped twice, we will meet up when she visits the UK later this year and she is going to interview me for her radio show. She shared her perception of me through our social media interaction, which was really illuminating.
- Jessica the Ecopreneur based in the Netherlands – Jessica found me via my video, we have since connected on twitter and facebook. Although we have never met, it feels like we speak every day.
- Phillip the Business author based in the UK – we connected through twitter and Phillip invited me to his Global You course, he has since connected me to fabulous women interested in my forthcoming book.
There are countless other new connections and people that have found me, such as TV and radio shows that have sought me out, who I know wouldn’t have done so without social media.
What I like about social media, is that it is direct. You get your message across, you are unapologetic about who you are, and those who like your message get in touch. In addition sometimes you can attend an event and don’t get any airtime with the person that you really want to speak to.
In some ways it is slower than if you met someone at an event and had an instant connection because then you might arrange to meet the next week, whereas you would require a number of interactions over time to get to the same point through social media I think, but if it’s good it’s worth waiting for.
So am I wasting my time with social media?
I think not – although I admit I can be easily distracted by it!
Take some time over the long weekend to think about the relationships that you have made through social media, I hope that you find many.
If you find it difficult to think of any, think about what you could do to change that.
Maybe you need to:
pose more questions,
post useful information for your followers and friends,
respond to their comments more,
and my big no no, stop talking at people or selling to them.
Have a great day.
My book Rocking Your Role – the ‘how to’ guide to success for Female Breadwinners, will be out in June 2012
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