Proactive in Practice: Examining Social Media

 When I started blogging, I was really just keeping track of our homeschooling adventures for myself and our family.  As we have gone along, we've grown and expanded, and becoming visible on social media has become important.  In addition, over the last few years social media itself has grown, and I've found myself attached to groups and liking pages that may have been pertinent at the time, but that I've outgrown their scope.  I hate removing myself - because I know that while sometimes it's a numbers game trying to outsmart programs (especially the current incarnation of Facebook's Pages algorithms), it's just too much clutter.    Usually every Lent, I take on a "40 in 40" Challenge - decluttering my home and getting 40 bags of "stuff" out of it.  Some bags are filled with things to be donated or passed on, and sometimes it's papers that should have been recycled long ago but just got piled up "until later." I'm still working on the house, but this year, I decided my main decluttering would be in the virtual world.

First up - the big one - Facebook!  There are so many things I don't get to see on Facebook. I know their algorithm is to show you more of what you interact with, but how can you interact when you don't see it in the first place?   I figured maybe if I could weed out a bunch that I didn't really care about any more, that might give the others a shot - kind of like thinning plants. 

I started with my personal account and Pages I had liked.  Some were no longer active, so those were pretty easy to leave, as were some pages that I had liked because they sponsored giveaways and fundraisers - many had been "Like this page and we'll donate" likes.   Sure, they want me to keep up with the rest of their stuff, but either I wasn't interested beyond the donation, or hadn't seen it in so long I might have been but wasn't anymore.

Then I left a few groups.  There were a few - ironically, social media promotion groups - that either I didn't fit in or the tone wasn't supportive, so I left them.  There were a couple other groups where I had to say "I can't keep up with everything, and unfortunately, it's time for me to move on."  And then...the friends.  I really try not to overdo it there, but there were some people that it was just time to let go.

Then I went to my Adventures with Jude Facebook Page.  While there were a few pages I unliked, I actually added pages to my feed - so that I could more easily share items.  I chose the pages that tend to share from the most, so that I will easily be able to find and share things, rather than hoping they make the grade on my personal page.

All in all - I had way more than 40 items decluttered from Facebook alone.  Time to move on!

Next up:  Twitter. This is a format that even after several years, I struggle with. First, the whole 140-character thing is hard.  But it's popular with a lot of people, so I'm learning.  Here, I went through my list and unfollowed about 100 people.  Again, some were from giveaways and contests, some were celebrities that no longer really interest me, and some were just people that seemed interesting when I started following them but after reading their tweets just aren't my thing.

Then came the the mysterious Google+ on my list.  I follow the concept, but I just haven't been able to make it work for me.  First, I think it's because the number of followers is smaller than elsewhere, but then again, I'm not likely to have followers unless I start finding people and getting my name out there, right?  I've been making a concerted effort to add people to my circles, and sort them according to relationship - bloggers, vendors, etc.  I'm also trying to find groups where I fit in.  Even though I'm adding to my circles, I still consider it "decluttering" because I'm trying to use it well, rather than just having an account that sits there. 

Next on my agenda is to make a list of blog parties I want to attend.  I have a whole bunch that I did at one point, but have gotten away from -- not that the parties and hosts weren't wonderful, but they weren't a good use of time spent searching the site and linking.  I like to link the post back, and am starting to keep better track of what post I've linked where (so I don't inadvertently link the same thing over and over), so while it's five minutes here and five minutes there, it adds up quickly and next thing I know I'm online another hour.

Finally, I've started taking advantage of a scheduling program.  I've been using Buffer App to schedule things like status updates, shared posts, retweets, etc.  This way, I can spend a few minutes a day sharing things I find interesting, but have the posts spaced out evenly so that others have a chance to see them.  It's also great for things I want to schedule on a particular day.  Just because I remember it today doesn't mean I'll recall it on the "right" day.  For example, I've pre-scheduled a sharing of our Mary, Queen of Heaven lapbook for March 25th - the Feast of the Annunciation.  I know that Tuesday is going to be a crazy day for us, and I probably won't remember until after dinner (when I usually do a lot of my blogging and social media work).  While I often will do "live" updates, sometimes if I have a discussion question I want to pose to my readers, I will use Buffer, because I think "Oh, I want to know something about my readers, and I'm truly interested, but I know that nobody will see the question because of the rhythms of social media."  I can write it down and schedule it for when people will be able to see it (because I'm sure not all of my readers are insomniacs!). 

I don't want to miss updates from family, friends, and other blogs on Social Media. I also want to try to cut my time down to spending only an hour or so a day promoting my blog, but that means I have to be more focused.  I'm hoping that by spending a little extra time organizing things now I'll be able to be more efficient in the future.




©2012- 2014 Adventures with Jude. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://adventureswithjude.com