social media fatigue Archives

A Social Media Policy for Awesome Knowledge Workers

May 11, 2011 by Ian 4 Comments

If you are a knowledge worker – whether a marketer, a programmer, a blogger, any other form of writer, a critic, a human resources professional, support personnel for a company, or even a cook – you have one purpose inextricably tied to all your public activities, on and off the web.

You are here to be awesome on your clients behalf.

Your better understanding of social media, traditional media, and the communicative web will help you be awesome. It’s really not that hard; You Cannot Suck. How you achieve this is where it gets complex – but it’s not complicated out of intention, it’s usually complicated because of lack of savvy and situational awareness.

Doing better work, in any position, requires that we recognize just how in-public our lives are, and get used to living that way – or making adjustments in our behavior to allow only what should be public to be public.

Awesomeness includes, but is not limited to:

Making positive comments on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and other social areas about your employer, your clients, and yourself.
Adding perspective where it can be helpful, through status updates, blog posts, and links to other helpful perspectives.
Helping people by providing information
Helping people by passing along useful tools
Making connections between people in your network, and others who can help
Not always being the most important person in the room
Allowing others to do what they do best
Recognizing awesomeness when you find it

… And just all around being a good, helpful person.

Awesomeness expressly forbids, for everyone:

Grumpiness
Stoicism
Self-deprecation
Self-abasement
Anger
Fear
Expressed angst
Passive aggression

… and all other forms of public nastiness you wouldn’t want to see on a first date (or a fiftieth).

If you are a knowledge worker tasked with communicating, you must acknowledge that;

… living in public is not for everyone.
… your best work can still be misinterpreted.
… your employers deserve your best at all times.
… your employers need to provide you with clarity of purpose and message.
… only you can set your own limits (awesomeness requires that they are not beyond your grasp).
… you must set goals which are achievable by your own level of awesomeness (which will, and should, grow over time).
… you should avoid promises on behalf of others without prior confirmation or consultation.

If you are an employer of knowledge workers, be aware:

Not everyone is capable of living in public.
Those not willing or capable of living in public will do better work when they are allowed their privacy.
Media savvy workers do better work – providing training is a good idea.
It’s bad form to make promises on behalf of others without prior confirmation or consultation.
People will make mistakes. To deal with mistakes, first educate, then punish, then eliminate – in that order.
Not all mistakes you perceive will be received as such by the public, or even the clients on behalf of whom your employees are being awesome.
Not all successes you perceive will be received as such by the public, or even by the clients on behalf of whom your employees are being awesome.

Social Media is constantly evolving.

As such, by the time this policy is published, it’ll already be outdated. So, a challenge. Write your own personal social media awesomeness policy. Keep it people-focused. Think about the human costs of your holistic publicity. Let your people – whether clients, employees, or employers – shine with awesomeness in the way that’s best for them to do so.

What would you add?

(Obligatory note; this is not a lawyer-approved document. It’s intended to make you think. Did it achieve its goal?)

Notes From #tweetdiner – Social Media Fatigue

March 26, 2011 by Ian 4 Comments

Tonight, Nic Wirtz and I cohosted #tweetdiner (it was my second run at this – last time, @MyAgenda and I took the reins) – thanks to Earth Hour crossing the continent just as we began, it was a small, tightly-knit crowd in the chat. Made for a lot of depth which, ironically, was a bonus to the subject.

As with any twitter chat, I’ve missed things – that’s what the transcript is for (read it all, no tl;dr allowed)

The questions were fairly simple;

What are the signs that you’re suffering from social media fatigue?

Some diversity in answers here; I mentioned an increase in effort, Nic feels he gets crabby when he’s fatigued with something.

Also, finding that the time it takes to realize that arguments you’re making are pointless, or finding that more often what you say is not advancing the conversation can be a clear sign of fatigue. When we have high energy, natural optimism often helps us continue to persevere in difficult discussions.

@MyAgenda – “For me is knowing that I’m spreading myself thin and not being productive up to my standards (is a sign of fatigue)”

What steps can we take to overcome or avoid social media fatigue?

Some suggestions include;

Take regular breaks, and schedule time for yourself.
Set goals – have a purpose behind your work.
Vary your activities. Spending all your time on one platform is tiring.
Set expectations, and let people know when you’re not available.

From a comment by Daniel Hewitt came: Taking a break can work in the short-term but what if that is not enough?

Daniel mentioned he goes into “Airplane Mode” – a reference to turning off his connections. Occasionally this does mean missing some things – big events, scheduled things. However, the corollary for this is that perceived consistency (in broadcast) is often just as good as real consistency.

For example; one could schedule a number of blog posts, tweets, and other push messages for the sake of taking a few hours – or even a few days – away from the keyboard.

Do you have a long-term plan for your social media usage?

SMSJoe – What’s long term in socmed, 6 months?

Joe’s point is that so many goals set in social media are blinds. They appear to be long-term, but can’t be sustained; they’re “build a house” tasks, not “run a household” jobs. So how do we set goals? Joe mentioned that some metrics-based goals are useful for building upon, but relying exclusively on statistical goals is weakening.

Personal note; having been working with online communities for twelve years, this is the first year I set myself any goals as far as actual involvement and activities go. Oddly, having the goals (even if some of them have already proved wrong) has led to less struggling and grasping for ideas.

final note; watching the numbers is a zombifying experience, and an incredibly easy trap to fall into regarding goal setting.

What one thing would improve your social media experience?

This one got crickets. I think it’s hard for people to nail down “that one thing” with social media. which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Quick-fire round!

We ran out of time, so I tossed these out at the end – if you have any comments about the last two questions, please leave them here.

Do you find it’s difficult to promote yourself consistently, rather than just puttering?

(and)

Which app do you find you spend the most time on? Is it a web version of a platform, or a mgmt app?

Blog-only Bonus Round!

For those reading here: How often do you take what you’ve learned in chats and create an action plan because of them?

Co-Hosting #tweetdiner – Social Media Fatigue

March 26, 2011 by Ian 1 Comment

Tonight on #tweetdiner, Nic Wirtz and I will be helping the crew tackle the idea of social media fatigue.

This is at once an old topic (Liz Strauss talked about social media fatigue in 2009) and a renewing concern (the tipping point I saw recently was Amber Naslund writing about social media fatigue here).

It’s hard not to feel exhaustion sometimes – always being on stage, always working the crowd. Always facing concern and disregard from the people who need your help most (if you’re a consultant or marketer as I am)… It’s stressing.

Or, for those not acclimated to the social media sphere, facing their own fatigue in the face of the unknown. Building habits that aren’t taxing, working the social muscles until they build memory and the effort needed drops – it’s a lot of work, and needs a lot of input! So how do we avoid it?

Better yet, should we avoid it?

Fatigue is a sign that growth is happening in some cases. Should we put it off, it’s like dropping from run to walk just as the hurt starts – the hurt is a sign of growth.

So, join Nic and I – along with (of course) Margie Clayman, Stanford Smith and the rest of the crew, at 8pm central time tonight – let’s talk it through.

UPDATE: The chat’s gone down, Notes From #tweetdiner – Social Media Fatigue are live!

Image by o5com.