My periodic Utterz on the way to work produced a question on Tuesday that I thought would make for good discussion here. I recorded my thoughts and the question in a Seesmic post Tuesday evening.
If you don’t have time to watch the video, I am essentially wondering how much microblogging is too much for you. Do you use Twitter? Do you use Jaiku? How about Utterz? Seesmic is a video version of microblogging. Are you there?
In addition to the Facebooks and MySpaces of the world, social media users are inundated with options for their time. People love to sign up for the latest thing, but who has enough hours in a day to keep up with more than two? Three? More?
It’s my job to play with social media tools, to understand them and the communities around them, so I have to juggle a lot of community commitments. But what about you? Where do you spend your time? How many communities are you a part of? How do you manage that time and how much more can you handle without dropping the ball elsewhere?
Please discuss in the comments. And everyone leave your profile links on Twitter, Jaiku, Utterz, Seesmic and others. I’d love to introduce members of my circles in one tool to members on another and vice-versa.
You can find me on Twitter, Utterz and Seesmic, among others.
Technorati Tags: microblogging, Twitter, Utterz, Seesmic, Jaiku, time management, community, community management
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Jason Falls is the director of social media for Doe-Anderson, a brand-building agency in Louisville, Ky., specializing in building brand enthusiasts. A public relations professional by trade and writer by craft, Falls is co-founder of the Social Media Club Louisville. This blog is his own, contains his opinions and observations and does not necessarily reflect those of Doe-Anderson or its clients.
I should start by saying that I didn’t like microblogging in the beginning. For instance, when Twitter hit the scene, I immediately signed up but didn’t get it. I could not conceive why I would want to give a 3rd party complete control over my content when I could just as easily send a short post from my phone to http://realityme.net/. I was missing the social aspect concept. My blog would have a handful of readers and fewer commenters but Twitter connected me to the shakers and movers in my industry, to presidential candidates, the editor of my local paper, and thousands of people I otherwise would have never come into contact.
The line in the sand for me was when my wife commented, “you don’t blog anymore.” Microblogging services of Twitter, Utterz, and Seesmic completely changed my style of publication on Reality Me. My post frequency went down. The number of short posts (microblogging on the blog itself) lessened. My blogging fire seemed diminished simply because I was spreading myself thin.
Now I think that I have a better balance. Instead of looking at the services as competing for my time, I have learned how to integrate them to compliment one another.
There are so many of these tools that I have created a page on Reality Me specifically to list the services I use (it is horribly out of date).
February 13th, 2008