Are you spending too much time on social networks? Sounds like we all are; a recent study stated that we spend 16% of our time on Facebook. Is that too much? Does that include us poor folks who have small businesses or is that figure about everybody?I see a lot of people that tend to "babble about nothing" all day, posting constantly. Lots of games being played too. Do they work? Maybe not. Maybe they’re looking for work? Facebook can serve as a networking tool but isn’t the place to find a job. And no, I’m not knocking anyone for having fun on Facebook. I enjoy reading posts and making posts. In fact, I comment on others posts far more than post myself. Personally, I may do a fresh post on my personal profile on average, once a day.
But what about those of us with small businesses that are vying for the attention of a potential 750 million people? Oh, okay, maybe there’s merely 10 million that have the potential to be my audience among my two endeavors. That’s not small potatoes. Yes, this is where my time is going; reaching those folks with my offerings and create an awareness. But 16% of my time? I’m not so sure about that.
I spend time on LinkedIn, Twitter, Plaxo, and Google+ too. I’m probably spending the least amount on time on LinkedIn, yet this is THE professional social network. And LinkedIn just announced that they will be creating a whole new aspect of their services that will place more emphasis on businesses. Google+ is also swiftly moving towards bringing businesses on board. So which playing field is THE one to throwing the ball?
Who knows how all of these social networks are going and where your company’s place is with them. It’s exciting to be a part of it and learning more about social media nearly every minute of the waking day. It’s exciting because jobs have been created through social media and IN social media as it has become a whole new profession. Meanwhile, there’s many of us wanting to be trendsetters within social media and a few rising stars will write books that grab them enough attention to catapult themselves into fame and fortune.
So is it all worth it? If you enjoy being a part of social media as much as I do, absolutely! If you find a new twist on some social networking ideas and you can write a book about it, great. But in order to do that, you need to spend the time and get as tied in to social media as much as possible. So that 16% is starting to sound like a low figure.
My guess is that I’m spending about 25% of my time on Facebook between maintaining my own pages, have a little fun personally, training clients and maintaining client’s pages.
Thinking of conducting an experiment; next week, starting Monday, October 3, I will track my time on social networks for five days. And I'll report back to you as far as where the time goes. If you want to join me in the experiment, by all means do and let me know how it goes.
