WTL Wrap-Up: “Managing the Overwhelming World of Social”

Denise Buchman, Colleen McKenna & Amy Price

By Guest Host, Colleen McKenna, the principal at Intero Advisory

I love talking social with my friends and colleagues, Amy Price from Wellspring Counseling, and Denise Buchman, a marketing and social media consultant. We could go on for hours, no doubt, partly because there are so many layers to the topic and partly because I love information and am curious about lots of different things.

I couldn’t be happier to be a part of the “content age” but my brain is not that big. I can’t possibly process all the words, images and videos.

Yep, I am reasonably tech savvy and couldn’t be happier to be a part of the “social age”. I know that for others who are either into social media or just more or less overwhelmed with it all, there’s a quandary. How much, when, how and really? 

Amy’s insight and Denise’s real-life examples both personally and professionally are so refreshing and provide great context for our own stories and questions. I’m not sure there is a clear end-in-sight or way to navigate, but there are ways to manage the overwhelming landscape of social media and social business.

We talked about most of these on the show.  Consider our tips and let us know how you manage the overwhelm:

• Be Intentional: Become an active participant in your digital consumption. Make a decision about how many times a day you’ll check social sites. Pick 5-10 top sources to learn from.

• Be value-driven: “Where you invest your love, you invest your life.” –Mumford and Sons. Decide ahead of time what you want your digital culture to look like, and craft accordingly.

• Unplug: Establish a weekly time for a “digital sabbatical,” a couple hours to disconnect from the digital and focus on your analog life. Ask yourself: How could that sabbatical expand my creativity and curiosity? What am I missing out on when I’m plugged in?

• Be authentic: It’s best to just be yourself – conversational and approachable.

• Determine where you want to be socially. You can’t master all the various platforms at once. Pick one, learn it, get comfortable and then go to another. Otherwise it’s a bit like learning how to navigate your Dell and your MacBook at the same time. You just end up all confused.

• Allow yourself a mistake or two. Pushing the next button and testing often means you press it too soon or have a typo. Let it go. If you find it fast enough, you can retrieve it. If not, let it go. Everyone does it.

Until next time, enjoy, catch up with Ann and support WomanTalk Live by listening and participating in her digital dialogue.

Me?  I’m off to see what my colleagues are doing on LinkedIn, what my friends are up to on Twitter and Facebook. Oh, and I need some good images for a presentation so I’d better check out Pinterest, text my teenagers for a location update, and open their Snapchats to see their latest antics. My, I’m exhausted and I haven’t even started yet.

If you missed the show or you want to share it with a friend, it will be posted in the podcast archive.  It’s the July 6th show.