Balancing Your Time on Social Media II - Your Response


Last week's topic was about the time you spend on social media, and how you balance that with everything else you need to do. It included a brief survey, and I have to admit, I was surprised by the results. According to you, social media isn't the big Time drain that many fear it is or will become.


Here is the response:


The highest percentage of you spend only 1 -2 hours per week on your Facebook fan page, with the next percentage down being almost equally split between spending slightly more (3 - 5 hours per week) and slightly less (less than 1 hour per week). Only 14.2% of respondents do not have a fan page. If you don't it's time to get on! Facebook has now passed Google in hits. Only 2.7% spend more than 15 hours per week on their fan page.


42% of respondents are not using Twitter, of the remainder, approximately 25% spend less than 1 hour per week, and approximately 19% spend 1 - 2 hours per week.


Linkedin was the least popular site for business, with a whopping 47.9% saying they spend no time on the site for business.


The biggest surprise for me was how much time you devote to your company website: Over 10% of you spend over 10 hours per week on your website,

Here are some of your thoughts (I am sorry I don't have room to print all of them):

"Should you even use Facebook if you can't put in the time? we had others posting things that had nothing to to with us but we didn't know it for quite some time because we don't update it very often. If you can't use it right, ie put in the time, should you have it at all?" The answer: No.

"Getting the balance right seems to be very difficult as results from social media time are not always measurable. Although I take quite a lot of pleasure updating, tweeting, blogging etc I feel it sometimes interferes with other more important issues and seeking direct immediate contact with potential customers."

"Twitter - I haven't yet figured out why anyone would want to hear drivel from me every 3 min. I sure don't want to hear what anyone else is doing or thinking every couple of minutes." If you are tweeting every few minutes you are over using! There are varying opinions, however I don't follow hyper twitterers, I don't have that much time to follow, and I only want to see something that matters to me. Here is a blog on the subject.

"I spend a couple hours a month coming up with "targets" for social media: ideas/recipes for blogs, our schedule of events, themes for posts, etc. It makes knowing what to write about much easier, and frees up time during the day for me to log-on and focus on interacting with our Friends. Since taking on this strategy, there's been a huge upswing in our online activity!" Good strategy!

"The "Flock" browser makes a simple "one window" experience of all my social networking sites! Easy as email!" Thanks for the tip!

"Social media is a MUST in this day and age....anyone who doesn't have a page is totally missing the boat."

"Very difficult as we are a franchisable model looking to eventually move in to other markets, so we are busy networking and planting seeds in potential expansion areas. Additionally with social media technology changing so rapidly right now hard to take a breath and and relax! Maybe we need to develop a social media support group!...Hello my name is Mike and I am addicted to Social Networking!" Hang on Mike, someone's probably working on it!

"I had not really worried about Facebook, especially since our website generates well over one million hits per year, but a social site could add that little bit of business which puts us over the top. The growth of Facebook has been phenomenal over the past year."

"I find much social media too intrusive and overdone. Hearing from a company more than once a week invites deletion from dilution." This is why it's recommended that only 1 of 10 posts have anything to do with sales - SM is about connecting and conversation, not sales!

"More important, where does my customer go for information and buy my product? What does a fan club do... create a customer community that keeps that buying my brand instead of trying another wine? Twitter is so in the moment I'm not sure yet how to use this Then I need to match my customer demographics to usage of the following social media outlets." Exactly, which is why I conduct customer surveys on social media usage for clients. Need one? Email me or call me at 707-933-0687."

"I think it's a fad that will run its course and will revert to communication for teenagers or others who do not have serious work to do! Honestly, who cares what people had for lunch today?" I think time will prove this isn't a fad - it's technology, which keeps on marching forward...

"I run my business by myself and could use training on how to streamline the social media time sucker as now I don't think I'm very proficient and don't take full advantage of it." I am happy to help / coach! Call me at 707-933-0687.

"SM serves as a customer service for us. It is critical to monitor what people are saying about our food, service and over all dining experience. The time I spend on SM each week varies. The amount of time I spend each week monitoring boards/sites/reviews is in-valuable because it is our best opportunity to communicate directly with customers. This was a hard sell for me initially to the owners of the restaurant but, the results pay off every time I comment or respond to user feedback weather it’s good or bad!"

For the complete report, take the survey; if you have already taken the survey and would like an updated report (the numbers may change as more people participate) simply click through, the survey software should remember you, simply hit submit again (it will not count your answers twice).

Balancing Your Time on Social Media

I've been asked a lot lately, mostly from people not yet venturing into social media, how people balance their time, now that they have to manage a fan page, tweet, and so on. I know the answer I give: Figure out how much time you have to put into it, and then schedule that time, work it and move on. However, I also know that for many it isn't that easy. Social Media can be quite "sticky." Meaning it has a somewhat addictive quality, and some people find themselves going back more than they anticipated to check a comment, see what's happening, and connect with their friends or fans.

There is a natural tendency for people to get caught up in the latest craze, to the extent that they can neglect to continue doing the things that worked effectively in the past, or may even neglect other necessary aspects of their job.

I wanted to find out how you are managing your time on social media. Is what you are doing working? Do you feel you've reached that perfect balance? Or do you feel out of control?

I created a brief survey - if you take it (it will take less than a minute) you will also immediately get the results. I also share the findings next week.

Please, take the survey; and thanks in advance to those of you who do!

Intuition in Business, Are You Your Own Best Advisor?

I received a call last week from a business owner who was looking for some advice. It seems that she had a new client (she is a service provider in the hospitality industry) who was referred by another client. She told me that right from the beginning, this new client wanted to change what her typical agreement is. He wanted to negotiate a lower hourly rate, then a shorter number of minimum hours. By the time she called me they had gone through 4 revisions of the contract (and this was only a small job, for one partial day).

She said she was worried, because she felt like he had negotiated her down to the point that she wouldn't be able to provide the level of service she was known for. She didn't know what to do.

I'd like to say I gave her some sage advice, and saved her business. I didn't though, all I told her was exactly what she already knew; she needed to fire her client. She questioned herself (and me) a bit, however in the end , did exactly that. She simply wrote to the client and told him that she would need to remove herself from the negotiations, because she felt she was not going to be able to provide the service he expected within the parameters.

A load was lifted, she no longer had this weight on her shoulders, the client quietly went away, and she didn't have to go through a miserable day working for someone that was not going to appreciate it. The interesting this for me, is why didn't she listen to her own intuition? It started with the first phone call with the client and continued to grow until she fired them - she intuitively knew it was a poor fit.

I know I have done this myself, and I bet most of you have too. These are hard times, we all want business, sometimes maybe even at our own peril. What is intuition, and why do we sometimes heed it and other times not?

Wikipedia:

Intuition:

• Intuition (philosophy), the act by which the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of two ideas.
• Intuition (knowledge), understanding without apparent effort.

Michael Ray, PhD. taught Personal Creativity in Business in Stanford's MBA program. Dr. Ray relates five truths about intuition; he claims that if people begin to live with these truths, they begin to develop their intuition in remarkable ways-in business and in life.

His five truths are:

1. Intuition must be developed. Each of us has intuition within us, but we must accept the responsibility for our individual style of intuition and its development.
   
   
2. Intuition and reason are complements. It is the combination of reason, experience, information and intuition that is so powerful.
   
   
3. Intuition is unemotional. It is paying attention clearly to the most appropriate alternative that comes from the creative Essence.
   
   
4. Intuition requires action. Follow-through is key to successful use of intuition in business. It requires timely hard work.
   
   
5. Intuition is mistake free. There will always be "rational" reasons to support intuitive leaps. Beyond this we must have absolute faith that the intuitive part of us does not make mistakes.

On of my goals is to spend more time truly listening to my self. I think that to do so requires some quite time, some time to simply be alone and not working on a task - or multi-tasking! A hard balance perhaps in these lean and busy times. As it feels like time is constantly speeding up, perhaps we all need to slow down. And listen...