Posts tagged twitter

10 tips for coping with social media

How we deal with social media and information overload in our busy lives has always been an interest of mine. I’ve blogged before about Soren Gordhamer’s excellent Wisdom 2.0 book and the Pomodoro Technique.

Over on Tricycle.com, Lori Deschene (founder of @TinyBuddha on Twitter and tinybuddha.com, a multi-author blog that features wisdom and stories from people all over the world) gave 10 great tips for ‘staying mindful in social media’. I’ve called them “coping with social media”  ;-)

Here they are (copied directly from Tricycle.com):

1. Know your intentions.

Doug Firebaugh of SocialMediaBlogster.com has identified seven psychological needs we may be looking to meet when we log on: acknowledgment, attention, approval, appreciation, acclaim, assurance, and inclusion. Before you post, ask yourself: Am I looking to be seen or validated? Is there something more constructive I could do to meet that need? 

2. Be your authentic self. 

In the age of personal branding, most of us have a persona we’d like to develop or maintain. Ego-driven tweets focus on an agenda; authenticity communicates from the heart. Talk about the things that really matter to you. If you need advice or support, ask for it. It’s easier to be present when you’re being true to yourself. 

3. If you propose to tweet, always ask yourself: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? 

Sometimes we post thoughts without considering how they might impact our entire audience. It’s easy to forget how many friends are reading. Two hundred people make a crowd in person, but online that number can seem insignificant. Before you share, ask yourself: is there anyone this might harm?

4. Offer random tweets of kindness.

Every now and then I ask on Twitter, “Is there anything I can do to help or support you today?” It’s a simple way to use social media to give without expectations of anything in return. By reaching out to help a stranger, you create the possibility of connecting personally with followers you may have otherwise known only peripherally.

5. Experience now, share later.

It’s common to snap a picture with your phone and upload it to Facebook or email it to a friend. This overlaps the experience of being in a moment and sharing it. It also minimizes intimacy, since your entire audience joins your date or gathering in real time. Just as we aim to reduce our internal monologues to be present, we can do the same with our digital narration.

6. Be active, not reactive.

You may receive email updates whenever there is activity on one of your social media accounts, or you might have your cell phone set to give you these types of alerts. This forces you to decide many times throughout the day whether you want or need to respond. Another approach is to choose when to join the conversation, and to use your offline time to decide what value you have to offer.

7. Respond with your full attention.

People often share links without actually reading them, or comment on posts after only scanning them. If the greatest gift we can give someone is our attention, then social media allows us to be endlessly generous. We may not be able to reply to everyone, but responding thoughtfully when we can makes a difference.

8. Use mobile social media sparingly.

In 2009, Pew Research found that 43% of cell phone users access the Web on their devices several times a day. It’s what former Microsoft employee Linda Stone refers to as continuous partial attention—when you frequently sign on to be sure you don’t miss out anything. If you choose to limit your cell phone access, you may miss out online, but you won’t miss what’s in front of you.

9. Practice letting go.

It may feel unkind to disregard certain updates or tweets, but we need downtime to be kind to ourselves. Give yourself permission to let yesterday’s stream go. This way you won’t need to “catch up” on updates that have passed but instead can be part of today’s conversation.

10. Enjoy social media!

These are merely suggestions to feel present and purposeful when utilising social media, but they aren’t hard-and-fast rules. Follow your own instincts and have fun with it. If you’re mindful when you’re disconnected from technology, you have all the tools you need to be mindful when you go online.

The Four Stages of ‘Getting’ Twitter

via vincenthaywood & others.

Digital Age Presents New Problems for Historians

Some of today’s children will grow up to be Presidents, artistic luminaries and notorious criminals. A century from now, long after they have completed their noteworthy deeds, historians and biographers will attempt to document their lives and times. And thanks to the shift from written to digital records, those scholars of a future past will face a challenge very different from the job of contemporary academics.

Through Twitter, Facebook and email, a child in 2010 will, over their life, produce a body of writing that dwarfs the collected output of even the most prolific Founding Fathers such as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. This volume will shift the problems of historical research from the archeological recovery of rare texts and letters to the process of sifting through vast fields of digital information that weave through legal gray areas of corporate and private ownership.

“The problem we are going to face isn’t the loss of literacy, or the end of electricity, but having too much information,” said John Unsworth, dean of the University of Illinois’ Library School. “It’s the abundance problem, not the scarcity problem, that we should be focused on. There’s very little that isn’t recorded [these days]. The big problem we’re going to have is ‘I know it’s in there somewhere, but where is it?’”

» via [Live Science](http://www.livescience.com/)

 (via infoneer-pulse)

Did online election campaigning really influence 40% of voters?

The 2010 General Election was dubbed the UK’s first Digital Election with 56% of adults reading or seeing political information online during the campaign. Around 40% of the great British voting public said their voting intentions were influenced by online political campaigning. 

Digital channels including Facebook, blogs and political websites had the greatest impact on traditionally apathetic young voters aged 18 to 24.

This was the finding of a recent survey of 2,300 people by YouGov.

Despite the hype around Twitter’s potential influence in the run up to the election and the creative tools (e.g. 10 Downing Tweets below) being produced to analyse election content within this channel, only 5% of UK voters claim to have read any political content on the site. Among voters aged 18 to 24, Facebook was far more influential, with 36% reading political information from the site compared with only 13% on Twitter.

While ‘online mums’ were courted by Cameron, Clegg and Brown on sites such as Mumsnet,  blogs and forums were actually twice as popular among men (15%) compared to women (7%) as sources of political news and commentary.

Online video content was a focus for all the main political parties, however only 8% of the public watched political videos on site such YouTube during the General Election campaign, but this figure is significantly higher at 25% for 18-24 year olds.

Online advertising was also a prominent part of the online election campaign, with both Labour and the Conservatives investing in PPC and other online advertising campaigns on key sites.  According to the research 12% of adults and 25% of 18-24 year olds recall seeing online political advertising during the election campaign. They obviously weren’t doing enough though…

Changing My Mind covers one person’s online journey through the election: 

“I didn’t notice that many examples. From all the hot air generated about the power of social media I was expecting to be subjected to an Obama-style groundswell buffeting my sails.  This failed to materialise. Online display was low on the horizon and search advertising was absent.”

Was email a missed opportunity? Email was a cornerstone of Barack Obama’s campaign, but only seems to have made minimal impact in this General Election. Just 13% of those surveyed can recall receiving any emails from political parties and organisations in the run up to May 6th.

So…from reading a few articles that contributed to this blog post, chatting to friends and my own experience, I’m surprised to see that people influenced by online was as high as 40%. I found that ‘traditional media’ and debates with friends actually influenced me far more than anything online did.

Do you all agree? Did you see anything that swayed you? …or did you just vote the same as ever?