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    mkulka
    The Social Networking Challenge
    Entry posted October 21, 2009 by mkulkaElite Contributor, last edited January 19, 2012
    583 Views, 3 Comments
    Title:
    The Social Networking Challenge
    Entry:

    I have found myself challenged with finding time to maintain blog every other week.  In fact it has been closer to every three to three and half weeks.  My blogging for dummies handbook tells me I must be consistent with a routine pattern as much as twice a week.  My fault is I am human.  The Internet hosts some a large volume of information that we have all been consumed with data and that means reading other blogs, news websites, industry websites, LinkedIn groups, twitter, etc.  Because I feel I am lacking in keeping up with my blog I am developing a sense of guilt.  Do any of you find yourself with this challenge ?  My race is against the clock.  A demanding career, a demanding family (three boys under 6 years old), health and fitness, holidays and lets not forget our traditional networking live and in person.  Monday morning I completed my normal weight lifting routing, drove my son to school, worked, evening networking event until 8:30, home, talked to my wife and went to bed.  I just did not have it in me to write a blog.  Yesterday I had school drop off, coffee meeting in the morning (live networking), lunch presentation on environmental risk an hour away, report reviews, conference calls and finally made it home.  I went for a three mile run (health and fitness) with two of my boys in the jogger stroller (family), then took the whole family in my wife's car to get fuel, got home, put them to bed and had about 45 minutes of just my wife and I time.  Again no time for a blog or other social networking.  Multi-tasking is a must.  Tomorrow I have a squash tournament which includes social in person and fitness (I will get a little online while responding to comments on blog on my blackberry too).  Well my guilt was buidling too much and I am writing my blog first thing in the morning before the chaos starts over again.  I am honored to host a blog on commonground and will be ramping up my efforts.  Today's blog is my new online self therapy to shed my guilt and get back on track for a active fall and winter social networking season. 

    I am in no way discounting the importance of blogging or social networking but rather opening a forum for others to discuss the challenges of hosting a blog, keeping up with your LinkedIn, Commonground or other social networking sites, traditional networking and overall living the game of life.

    Comment

    • bhannan
      posted October 21, 2009 by bhannanElite Contributor

      Mike -You are not alone!  You have put into words what I believe all of us (bloggers and non-bloggers) are experiencing - or more accurately suffering from - on a daily basis as 2009 winds down.  Everything on your daily to-do list is important.  That you prioritize health and fitness is critical - and something many of us have left off the list.  You will be the wiser one for it many years from now as a result. The only thing that is a waste of your time is time spent on feeling guilty.  All you can do is all you can do.  

      For what it's worth, we'll take your posts whenever we can get them.  Just as you did in this post, you consistently provide us with an honest, candid, fresh perspective on issues facing the industry and you as a professional in it.  Do what you've got to do and we'll be here.  Oh, and good luck in that squash tournament - let us know how it goes! 

    • Mark Wallace
      posted October 21, 2009 by Mark WallaceElite Contributor

      Hey Mike:

      Really great post.  First, I want to confirm that you are not alone.  I have the exact same struggles and feel guilty about it all the time.   Today, I posted my first blog in well over a week as I, like you, had to priortize what I needed to get done in my professional and personal lives.

      I have included a link to an old blog of mine called Work, Life, Social Media Balance addressing this constant struggle of trying to balance way too much that includes a few tips. 

      I hope you find it helpful.

      Mark

       

       

    • Jay Gaines
      posted October 21, 2009 by Jay GainesSuper Contributor

      Mike,

      I feel your pain. I get similar guilt from magazine and newspaper subscriptions. Not long ago I subscribed to all of the following:

      • NY Times - daily
      • WSJ - daily
      • Harvard Business Review
      • The Economist
      • Fast Company
      • AMA Journal of Marketing
      • BusinessWeek
      • Various marketing blogs

      Every day/week/month despite my best efforts I would watch these great publications pile up mostly unread. As the pile got bigger the guilt weighed on me more and more. Eventually, I realized that I needed to simplify and cut a couple of these out - so I did. Still didn't help.

      Finally, I reached the point where I decided that something/anything was better than nothing, so I changed the way I read the publications. I started simply scanning headlines and TOCs - and would only commit to reading full articles that seemed most relevant or critical. I actually created a system where articles would be categorized in 3 ways - must read, should read, and somewhat interesting. I almost always get to the must read pieces and rarely get to the others. The system works great for me. This might seem like an obvious solution to some, but for some reason I had previously put pressure on myself to read everything that would fall in all of those categories, and since that was impossible I would usually end up reading none of it.

      I've also written and abandoned two personal blogs in the past because of time constraints and "blog guilt." I think the reason for that was that I put pressure on myself to make every single post something BIG. I'm gearing up to start a blog on commonground and I plan to take a very different approach. I will, of course, focus on making sure all of my posts are as relevant, valuable and even entertaining to readers as possible, but I I'll be focusing primarily on bits of information. I think readers will appreciate very brief posts. I expect my posting will look something like this:

      • 90% - brief insights, thoughts, marketing tips, questions for the community, recommendations, etc.
      • 10% - longer (2-3 paragraphs) posts that get into the details of some topic or issue that I think will be most valuable to readers

      There is a lot of research that shows that readers far prefer very short posts. The following is from one of the most popular blogs . . . about blogging:

      "There’s a time and place for long posts, but if you want to generate comments, keep your posts as short as possible. I’m not recommending that you exclude information from your arguments, but the longer a post goes, the more people skim, and the less likely they are to get the information they really want; the information that’s going to get them to comment."

      So, that's my plan. The only problem is that sometimes being brief is the most difficult thing to do.