What are Your Social Media Tasks
I’ve been talking and working a bit with the guys from Radian6, and during our talks, David Alston and I got interested in knowing what makes up your day to day with social media. Where do you go? What do you do? How does it tie back to your projects or goals? To that end, here are a few questions:
- What’s first in your day? What do you do before any other social media task?
- How do you listen? (example, I use Google Blog Search and Technorati search)
- Where do you connect with your communities?
- How many communities do you visit?
- Is your social media use primarily for personal use or business or both?
- What are your goals with using social media?
- If you could list a bunch of tasks you perform with social media, what would they be?
I’d love your ideas on this. And, if you’re going to either Web 2.0 Expo or New Comm Forum next week on the left coast, please let me know. I might want to interview you for a project.
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Comments
For the last couple years, the first thing I’ve done when I get into work is make my morning stroll through the blogosphere in Google Reader.
This is an interesting topic. I’ve often wondered what other people do. For me, the first thing I do every morning is post my blog post of the day, which is always prepared the night before. This I check on the activity of my site, comment on other people’s blogs via Iowa Avenue and the Healthy Lifestyle Bloggers, then, it’s on to the health news of the day.
By doing this, I’m listen to my community’s concerns, finding out what the next “hot” topics might be, and how I can incorporate those topics in future blog posts.
I belong to too many social communities, so one of the items on my agenda is to try to figure out which ones are working for me and which ones aren’t.
I’m always looking for different ways to expand the reach of my members and community. Right now, I’m especially interested in branching out to different communities not necessarily related to my core topic. It’s amazing to me how life’s all intertwinned.
My day always starts with catching up on Twitter- but then it’s all about feeds.
I’ll echo the Google Reader comment. But I seem to have completely bogged it down for a) personal interest b) company resources c) client resources x ~15
It gets difficult to track them all- but is much more manageable than browsing around. If I ever find myself visiting a site more than once a week- I’ll throw the RSS feed into Google reader.
The amount of time I save by having everything in one place and not clicking through bookmarks is well worth having a packed feed reader.
The real trick is prioritizing my feeds. Which do I read before any coffee, which do I read during coffee, and which are read continually throughout the day. Then once the day gets going I find myself checking into other communities a bit more sporadically.
[…] Chris Brogan asks this morning, “What are your social media tasks?” He asks six specific questions, and rather than leave a monster of a comment on his blog, I’m intentionally fragmenting the conversation (sorry!) and responding in this post. […]
Out of respect to your readers and commenters, I weighed in on my own site here:
http://www.unjournalism.com/2008/04/17/my-social-media-tasks/
1. Sign into Meebo (AIM, MSN, GTalk) for both work and personal. Turn on twitter IM updates.
1. Open Google Reader (usually between 400-600 items) and start scanning for interesting stories while moving on to number 2. Share interesting or funny stories.
2. Read FriendFeed daily activity via email.
3. 2-3 times a week check Facebook, looking at newsfeed and requests.
4. 1-2 times a week check MySpace, looking for comments/messages.
5. Multiple times thru out the day, check FriendFeed and Twitter. I know I have twitter IM open, but it’s too noisy with all my tracks that I miss many follower updates.1. open google reader and see what jumps out at me.
2. comment on other sites
3. toss out a Twitter or two
4. check Facebook
5. Check feedburner.
twitter, ryze, plaxo,linked in , blogs
read posts, reply to posts
get involved in the communitywatch their videos, listen to thier audios
etcFirst I check the blog stats, look for any particular spikes of traffic from a new link or a Stumble, so I can thank the person. Then I look over the comments and respond as needed.
Then it’s Twitter, and if I have a few minutes I click through to links there (like this one).
Later in the day I’ll check Google Reader. I have it prioritized by Daily (about 6 feeds), Comment (maybe 15-20 that I like to participate in regularly) and Whenever (all the rest of it).
I love this thread of conversation…
I process feeds in the morning for all the blogs and content pipelines I support and launch the links to things I will reference in the back ground. Then I go through those links and write the content, post and pre-date if I need to..
Listening is still scattered at best but I am just getting ready to start using Raidan6 which I am pumped about.. beyond that google, technorati, etc.
Next in my day I will either settle down on a certain client/project and start moving through the campiagn tasks or schedule, progress, do any reporting and make sure to move work forward 7-10 days.
Or I will check Basecamp and check overall status on projects and look for any fires, overdue items or new updates - and then move in “for the kill.”
I am trying to adjust email habits with some new search folder zen to only address email at 1-4 times a day when I can actually do something with the information instead of flagging and forgetting.
I will end the day trying to close any loops I can, and trying to prepare for tomorrow - but that rarely happens…
Chris, my ay starts with my day job. I start early 6am, so my social media day starts about 3:30 PM. I usually go with the flow. I check into twitter where i have built a nice community of like minded people, and i also have select twitter updates that go to my phone all day long. I use the “Track” feature to find others that are interested in the same things I am and I also use it to find people in the businesses that I sell my woodturning too.
I will usually only blog about 3-4 times a week, uploading photo’s of my work to flickr, and I use email to stay in touch with former customers as well as generate new business.
Finally, am also using Ustream to stream live my woodturning process.
Future services that I plan to use are:
YouTube, MDialog, and iTunes for Podcasting, as well as other podcatchers.Thanks for the great post as always
Keith BurtisWow, what a great topic, very fascinating…
1. I usually start off the morning reading feeds in Newsfire - I find my reading concentration is the sharpest then.I try to go through them as quickly as possible, seeing what catches my eye. I read very carefully the posts that interest me and make a mental note of it if it’s something that I want to post a comment on.
2. I work on blog posts throughout the day, whenever I get larger chunks of free time (in the morning before my practicing sessions/work starts, during my lunch break, or in the evening after everything settles down).
3. I also try to catchup and post on Twitter when I take shorter breaks during the day - I’ve also begun to find it an interesting place for links to blog posts or blogs I never found or encountered before.
4. In the evenings, after everything settles down, I go to the blog posts that I wanted to comment on, and leave one. I also try to have more extended conversations on Twitter during this time as well.
5. MySpace and Flickr: I add new friends, update and comment about once or twice a week.
It can be a lot, especially if your main work does not entail being at the computer all day long. But I find that it’s easier to give consistently in small doses on a daily basis rather than to try and catch up with everything once a week or over a weekend. I’m still trying to figure out a more efficient and effective workflow for dealing with it…
The first thing I will do is check certain tags in my feedreader.
I listen through comments and recommendations in other posts
I’ve trimmed down my communities so while a member of many, I’m only an active member of a few blogs, facebook, last.fm and a music messageboard
It is very much for personal use (I work in old media) and I participate because I am an “infomaniac” who is genuinely interested
The only real task I perform through social media is informal peer to peer PR
Awesome questions. Here are my brief answers, but if you want to know more I’d love to meet up with you at Web 2.0 Expo. You can reach me via http://twitter.com/bardow or the email address i’ve attached to this comment.
1. Things have changed lately for me. Nowadays it seems like twitter and friendfeed are quickly becoming my first and most commonly watched social media sources. I also check my company intranet which is based on Jive’s Clearspace.
2. I listen mostly via Netvibes. I’m constantly adding new feeds as I stumble across things and deleting old feeds that I don’t follow anymore.
3. As in #1, I’m finding myself using friendfeed more (as I convince more of my friends to use it) as my beginning point for connecting with people. But I also have quite a few friends that either just use Facebook or MySpace, so I check those pretty often. Livejournal is another place where I have a whole network of friends that seem to be content to stay only in LJ-land. Lately I haven’t been checking in there very much and in fact my few posts tend to revolve around convincing them to venture out into the wider social web :)
4. I guess I just answered this one in #3
5. Definitely both. I originally got hooked for personal use, but I now actually use it more for business.
6. My goals now are mostly around participating more. I’ve learned so much from “lurking” around on others blogs, and I now what to start contributing my own voice back to the community. In addition, as Technology Director for an interactive marketing agency, I’m always researching and looking for ways to apply the latest technology and trends to my clients needs… so i’m currently putting a lot of thought into how we help our clients participate in the social media landscape as well.
7. I’ll have to keep thinking about this. Maybe if we meet up next week at Web 2.0 I’ll have some answers to this one for you :)
1)Twitter
2)Google Reader
3)Friendfeed
4)emailI use social media both personally and in business, and to create a seamless, transparent portrait of myself.
Tasks: Blog post for RealSelf, Twitter for Earth911, blog post for Stealthmode. Scan the horizon for things of interest to our incubatees, clients, and friends, and forward them on.I like this question, but I wonder if I can add to this? Someone mentioned Netvibes as a way to manage all the apps, so what are other ways people are managing all their apps to catch up on all news, both with friends, bloggers and the traditional media? Link hopping isn’t fun anymore when there’s a task list to tackle as well.
The guys from Radian6 are great. There product is a great solution for what I’ve been doing manually for a year & half.
First off for me is to check the google alerts that stream into my email (the rss isn’t reliable).
I’ve found a new tool called Yahoo Pipes & have them in Netvibes. They’re bringing in some diff searches than the other two. It was painless to set up.One thing with those types is to remember that google doesn’t search many forums that are behind passwords… so I use google & search by keyword & then go into the forums & search by brand.
We provide assistance (monitor) over 55. We use Trailfire to provide the weekly path.
Customer service is the priority & helping people in the extended community is the goal.In regard to tasks - as Francine said on a previous post social media provides the tools. It’s not the end all be all. I believe that you need a community manager or someone behind the listening to provide the engagement. That’s the next step after identifying where the conversation took place.
I wish that I was going to NewComm. Sounds like a great time! Have fun!
I get a few tabs going in Firefox. I check the following: Google Reader - I read and see what looks interesting - and I leave comments. I also check MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog and respond to new messages, look at stats and check out new hot communities. I fire up Twitter and send out a few. I check email, Myspace, and google stats. I keep a Trailfire path so I can go back to specific sites that inspired me so I can give credit. To stay “in touch” I primarily use MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog and Twitter. To stay informed on upcoming stories and popular links, I like to check StumbleUpon, Digg and Technorati. I haven’t started using FriendFeed yet. I think I’m going to try it out since it seems popular. I rely on Trailfire, Twitter, and MyBlogLog the most. I have over 200 items in my Google Reader. I use social media for personal and business. I seem to get a lot more done since I’ve stopped using an instant messenger but I like to fire it up once in awhile and chat one on one with my friends.
[…] для блоггера в Social Media“. Вообще-то статья называлась What are Your Social Media Tasks, но я немного изменила […]
Here is an example of what I would have to do with a product launch at a company in terms of social media:
Update corporate blog with post and tag.
Make sure Technorati profile is setup, blog is claimed and pinged
Update Facebook fan page with photos, videos, and message to fans
Update MySpace page with post and message to “friends”
Update your statuses on Facebook (your personal account if you promote yourself as the company evangelist), Twitter (your corporate account), Tumblr, and Pownce
Post, create sets, and tag photos to Flickr (if time join groups related to company and add photos to group)Leave a comment
FriendFeed had this many likes and comments: hide
First in the day: netvibes which I have set up as a quick “check out the blog” as outlined here: http://internetducttape.com/2007/09/25/blog-maintenance-tip-netvibes-start-page/
Then it’s usually Friend Feed to see what’s new.
I have a few aggregator sites I use to check into communities.
I’m probably part of 5-6 distinct communities.
I use social media for personal use and to keep myself entertained.