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Filtering the social media firehose
That’s it. I NEED A SYSTEM.
While that statement can (and unfortunately, does) apply to far too many areas of my life, it’s probably the thing I say most often when faced with the daily influx of Twitter streams, Google Waves, RSS feeds, Facebook and LinkedIn status updates, and all the other sources that form the social media firehouse.
I NEED A SYSTEM.
It’s a natural cycle of gathering information: when we first start learning about something (or join a social network), we cast the net wide, and follow every rabbit hole.
Every new blog post leads to at least one new person to follow on Twitter (i.e., the author, if it’s good)—and many more if we’re impressed with the commenters. Every new tweet on Twitter leads to a new blog to subscribe to, which means more email coming in, or more feeds in our RSS readers. Every new Facebook update holds the potential for finding a new site, or connecting with a new—or very old—friend (or even the opportunity to creep on an old enemy). Every new LinkedIn group means another daily digest, and yet another place to spend even more time we don’t feel like we have.
After a while, it’s too much. The tide is overwhelming. You can’t hear the quality signals for all of the noise. You miss updates from those you care about. You start to avoid whole sections of your network, or even entire platforms, entirely (hellloooo, LinkedIn groups!!). And you hear yourself say it:
I NEED A SYSTEM.
We all seem to want a system, and so we read eagerly how everyone else manages the influx, hoping to find the one that’ll work for us, too. The funny thing is, no two people’s systems are the same. Just this week, Ian M. Rountree and Justin Kownacki told us they’re going to read it all (and challenged us to), while Amber Naslund told us she’s razed it all (and challenged us to).
Ultimately, what works for me is unlikely to work for you, and vice versa.
And yet we keep looking. Or at least I do, because I hope that something about how someone else does something will resonate with something in me.
I NEED A SYSTEM.
My Twitter system is months old—so old as to now be completely useless. I rejiggered Facebook a few weeks back, but that’s only helped me with whom I publish to, not how I take in information… so that, too, needs a fix. I’ve already admitted my problem with LinkedIn, I turned off Google Buzz within 48 hours of its launch, and thankfully, I’m on few enough Waves that my lack of system there doesn’t hurt me overmuch.
But I’m frustrated. The only system that’s working for me right now is my RSS reader (I use Google’s).
So, in the hopes that by showing you mine, you’ll show me yours, here it is:
I’ve figured out over time whose stuff I like to read, and how I like to “try out” new blogs. So, forced high on my list are the blogs I won’t miss (Zen Acorns is an inside joke amongst those folks, so no, you’re not missing out on some new social media term). Next are the “Faves,” those blogs and feeds that reliably deliver great content to share, comment on, or keep for future reference (one of those feeds posts about 50 times a day, which is why the unread number is so high).
Then comes the “Need to Know,” which (as you can see from the partial list) is a group of blogs whose posts are often linked to and talked about on Twitter and other blogs. I don’t read all of those every day, but do scan to find an interesting post here or there, and to keep an eye on trends and patterns in topics (like the whole wave of influence-related posts two weeks ago). Sometimes I’ll move a “Needs to Know” feed over to the Faves, or vice versa.
The “Watchlist” is comprised of new subscriptions I’m watching for a while to see if they’ll eventually make it to Faves status, and feeds from folks I know who post less frequently, but whom I see or interact with on a regular basis (either in person or online). The “High Volume” folder holds those feeds from sites that update multiple times a day. Corralling them there keeps me from being scared at the unread number that would show up if they were allowed to mix with the other feeds. Then the subject matter folders start.
Basically, I organize my feeds by reading priority. The more time I have, the further down the list I’ll read. A lot of the topic-specific folders go unread much of the time—the best of breed of those is captured in the folders at top—but I hold onto them for those times, whether for client work or personal interest, that I want to dive deep into a particular area.
It’s been working well, but it’s my only system that is.
I NEED A SYSTEM. Several of them.
So tell me some of yours. What works for you?
Image credit: wbaiv
Categories Digital Media, Strategy and Management
Twitter
LinkedIn
Tamsen, I’ll share my Twitter system with you, if you can call it a system.
First to manage all the Twitter new follower notifications, I basically ignore them. There are so many would-be gurus playing the Twitter following game that it was taking too much of my time to review new followers. I send new follower notifications to gmail, where I have set up a filter to keep them out of my inbox. When I do want to check them, I just type Twitter into the gmail search box and there they are. The downside is that unless a new follower engages me, it’s unlikely I will follow them back. The upside is I have more time.
Next I use Hootsuite and Twitter lists to manage my streams. I have seven separate lists and each has their own column in Hootsuite organized left-to-right by their importance to me. New follows or followers go in one of those seven lists or they just become part of my general stream, which has its own column too. When I fire up Hootsuite, I engage my columns left to right. My unlisted Twitter stream is the far right column. The amount of time I have dictates how far I get. I try to get to the unlisted stream once per day.
That’s my Twitter system.
Thanks, Jay! Would you be willing to share what lists you use? I’m thinking I want to treat them similarly to my reader lists, but I’m always curious about how others do it.
Great question, great post! I have the answer: Laziness.
A fb friend the other day posted that she was closing her eyes and just hitting the delete button on 13,000 inbox email messages. It made me cringe, but I’ve done the equivalent of that with some of my other online media consumption.
First, I unsubscribed from all the LinkedIn group push email notifications/digests. I know where LinkedIn is. My group memberships are still on my page. I can still find these guys. When I want to engage in that part of the conversation, I can get there. I’ve been disappointed in the quality of conversations there, so this is partly a knee-jerk reaction to feeling the signal:noise ratio was too off.
Then, I count on my FB friends to filter the news. When the same article shows up in my feed two, three times, then I consider reading it. Some of my friends in certain communities seem to just blindly forward some articles without reading them in any detail, so sometimes I get some losers (today was one of those days – an article that was attempting to debunk a scientific journal article in a methodical way but didn’t make any sense while doing so. Looked good, read poorly, I didn’t repost.) Mostly, though, if I read a few paragraphs and like them, I repost.
This does two things – my fb friends love it because I am a member of some niche communities that many of them are not, so they gobble up these wide-reaching articles I post. Second, it makes it so I can find the blinkety blinkety article again. Can’t tell you how often I’ve read a yummy recipe but then lost track of it. Posting things on my own wall gives me at least a temporary paper trail (I find it cumbersome to go back more than one page on my FB wall, so I only use this for a day or two storage. More permanent storage and I either bookmark the link or email it to one of my sisters.)
I’ve been aggressively managing down my subscriptions to newsletters that are junk – places that ask you for your email address but then just deliver you junk mailers daily or even less often but still devoid of content or any real value. Note to JCrew – it’s not a “great sale” to get 10% off and free shipping for over $150. No need to special email me for that puppy. I figure that’s the ENTRY point for an online shopping experience…email me the OUTFITS, email me the EXPERIENCES, email me the BIG HUGE DISCOUNTS, the additional % off clearance, the new collections arrivals (even without discounts, so I can see how unfashionable I now am) – etc.
I, like your previous poster, have also begun totally ignoring twitter followers. Don’t have time. I only use twitter marginally, I much prefer the FB interface and two-way conversation.
I also realize and recognize that, as with other things, other media types, other ways of getting around digitally, I consume media in spurts. There are weeks/months where I’m on a kick of checking a set of blogs/commenting/etc. and then kind of forget about them for a while. There are online communities that I drop in on periodically and then drop out of. I think this is the nature of our 2010 online life and I’ve tried to reach a place of satisfaction about it. It’s not ideal, but it’s a compromise…the alternative being to go batshit crazy from media overload.
Wow, I rambled all over with this but you’ve given me the beginnings of a new blog post for myself on this topic so thanks!
Glad to hear I could get the gears turning. I find that I use Facebook a lot less now than I used to. I tweet too often to have my tweets be my status updates, and then I get all tied up with what kind of status I want to have hanging out there for a day…my perfectionism rearing its ugly head, no doubt.
I love your comments on email newsletters, and am with you in having recently unsubscribed from all but the most valuable (Hello, Old Navy and 30% off!).
And yes, here’s to spurts. My consumption definitely goes in fits and starts, but that seems to mimic the inconsistent nature of the quality of what’s out there–that goes in fits and starts, too.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Karen!
Well Facebook is mostly friends. 99.9% of the people on there are people I know/have met/hung out with/etc. I do like to check in a couple times a day, but there’s nothing too earth shattering on there and I’ve hidden posts from people that continuously post random app updates so it’s easier to scroll through.
Twitter I’ve slimmed down recently. It’s what I check the most. If a company/feed links to Facebook or a newsletter, I’ve stopped following them. Until Twitter offers a better search, I prefer an e-mail newsletter archived in my GMail that I can find later. If the company doesn’t reply when I ask questions, I’ve also stopped following them. This includes social media community managers who prefer e-mail. heh Same goes for gurus/hoohahoftheminute… unless… the content is REALLY good. Otherwise, if they’re such a big shot, I’ll see their blogs/revelations/links retweeted by people I trust. When I don’t have time, I do have a private Twitter list that I check. It consists of about 20 people/orgs.
My LinkedIn is small enough that I can check that feed once a day. And well, 75% of the time people have posted content I’ve already seen. I do get e-mail notifications about my LinkedIn Groups. I check subject lines and then archive if it doesn’t mean anything at the moment. I have a pretty good photographic memory, so it’s important I read/see the headline so it’s somewhere in my head in case I need it later.
My GMail is a little bit out of control since. as I mentioned, I like to read every newsletter that I get. I also don’t delete people’s e-mails like some people do when they “cleanse” their mailboxes. I just think that’s rude. That being said… I have about 30 folders in my personal GMail alone. Yeah. It’s true. But, hey it’s my system and I’m stickin’ to it… for now.
[...] what I’m looking for. I blatantly stole the idea for the set-up from another good blog post “Filtering the Social Media Firehose”. I now have the following private (don’t want to offend anyone!) list [...]