MC Blog: Combatting Social Networking Overwhelm

After getting started on Twitter and blogging about two weeks ago, I got several comments about how it was impractical to fit all of this into their busy schedules. Boy, can I relate.

It seems that for a whole week all I was doing was learning about Social Networking and getting up to speed with Twitter. The first impulse is to put up a zillion posts, try to boost your following and then scramble frantically to get noticed.

That might work for some people, but for me, that was not a winning strategy.

I had to look at it slightly differently to maintain my sanity. First, my main goal was to communicate value. So if I did a few blog posts a week and a few Twitter tweats a day, I was accomplishing this. 

My second goal was to tap into the collective wisdom of a whole lot of other people in the Social Networking world. So I spend a few minutes a day scanning my tweets, but not obsessively worrying if I'm missing something. After all, no matter what you do, even if you're on Twitter 24 hours a day (and believe me, it seems as if many are) you're still going to miss something.

After a very stressful week or two, I'm settling into Social Networking and connecting with some good people, learning some new ideas, and getting inspiration, as well as sharing some things of value. I realize I can accomplish this without being glued to Twitter 24/7.

So if you're thinking of taking the plunge, I invite you to do so. It can be quite rewarding and I think the long-term benefits, just like face-to-face networking, are potentially huge. Take it easy, make it fun and get out there.

Cheers,

Robert Middleton

Comments

[Free and Clear]

As I know the importance of marketing through online methods , i have started implementing these in to my business .

[Jeff Paul Internet Millions]

Now this is very interesting, impressive and never thought of. In simple words well done for providing creative information.

[Jim Newcomer, Ph.D.]

Robert,

This is a wise issue, very thoughtful. I have two comments:

1. You don’t go into ‘middle mode’ when you come from contribution. You go beyond the two sides of the same coin of scarcity and abundance and reach into a new space that includes the right/wrong alternatives and goes beyond them.

That’s the real contribution you are making here, getting beyond the easy dichotomy to the real context – out beyond ideas of right and wrong, as Rumi said it, to the realm of contribution. When you really honor that leap, you empower your readers too by showing them the increase in power they create with that leap, that acknowledgement of the truth about what they are really up to. We can stop striving, stop blaming ourselves, and just get to work doing what’s right.

2. It wasn’t just us ordinary folks and them greedy bastards that set up this crash. Put a mouse in a cage with food, and he’ll eat his way to paradise if you don’t make any rules. In the 1980s the Reagan administration revamped the tax code and cut the taxes of rich people. At the same time interest rates climbed very high – over 20%. You probably remember it. The result was that investments in money that made money were the most profitable things the rich could do, and deregulation of banking made it possible to invent all kinds of games and ways to gamble with derivatives and make more money.

So it’s not fair to blame this mess on our human shortcomings. When taxes on high incomes were also high (75% after WWII, for example), investments went into productive things like machinery and production lines – because that was the best place to make money. When the tax rates on high incomes fell, the investment went into bonds and financial vehicles, and the real investment in production began to occur overseas. And guess what? Jobs went overseas too, and we blamed it on cheap labor, often Chinese.

I don’t want to get into a rant here, I just want to point out that there were some serious manipulations that made our greed seem sensible over these last 25 years, and we have all forgotten about them. It’s not good to forget those things. If we do, we can’t fix them. Washington Post reporter William Greider wrote a great (and thick) book about this period, Secrets of the Temple.

So thanks for making the leap from scarcity/abundance to contribution. It’s a much better place to come from. I’ll bring this to the attention of my consulting group (environmental transitions for companies – and especially for hotels).

Jim Newcomer, Ph.D., partner
Green Lodging Partners
Portland, Oregon

[Joan Silva]

Hi Robert,

I am a financial counselor, helping people with their day-to-day monies. Your advice and ideas on the scarcity & abundance modes is so 'right on!' I truly liked the solution as the CONTRIBUTION FACTOR. I have been speaking to this very thing, again and again, both with clients as well as my e-newsletter, and recent publication of a guidebook. It is so uplifting to see like-minded people out there!

Yes, we consumers must take on a new paradigm. It is time! Thank you for bringing this to our attention!

[Milli Thornton]

Hi Robert,

I joined Twitter after seeing it suggested in your newsletter. After a few days of it, I thought perhaps I'd been right all along to avoid the Twitter madness. I couldn't keep up (and felt overwhelmed seeing the frequent posts by others) so I dropped out.

After maybe a week, I came back and started Tweeting again - this time on a more low-key basis. And I'm picking up followers without any effort on my behalf. I'm finding that a relaxed attitude (and treating it like fun instead of work) makes it less overwhelming.

This evening I downloaded a free e-book from one of my Twitter followers who happens to be an expert at public speaking ... something I'm currently seeking skills in. I'm also joining Toastmasters, so her e-book was perfect timing. I would not have known about her Website or services if I had not joined Twitter.

Hopefully, it will also work the other way round, for those people who would benefit by discovering my book for writers.

Thanks again - Milli

[Richard Krasney]

Robert,

Great connecting with you during your experiment. I had received your newsletters in the past, but now that we're connected on Twitter, it's taken up the level of contact with you and what you do. That's valuable.

Richard

[Bradley Hunt]

It's been fun watching you during this process, Robert. I hope you continue tweeting and blogging regularly.