By Maxine

Time efficient social networking is all about creating a strategy that works for you to extend your connection, communication, and collaboration in a manageable way.

A good place to begin is by identifying what your goals are – do you have a specific focus for your online activities? Your goals will help you to focus on what’s important and avoid wasting time. Plan your weekly activity so that it is always contributing to your goals.

Once you’ve identified your goals you can then begin to locate sites, discussions and content sharing that will help you get there. Be selective about what you view, read, and listen to. Which sites give you succinct, accessible, useful information that you can incorporate into your library services and an opportunity to share knowledge back with others? Don’t be afraid to regularly review your choices, sites that may have been relevant six months ago may not be now.

Consider which tools will help you to monitor your selected sites and groups whilst providing access through a single interface. RSS feed readers are a great way to pull in content from multiple blogs for daily review, sifting, and discarding as suits your needs. Be careful not to subscribe to too many blogs though, or you will find that you simply can’t keep up. Social listening via Tweetdeck allows you to ‘listen’ to multiple voices at once and curation tools facilitate reciprocal sharing of pre selected content.

This might be a good time to reflect on your online activity and review your habits. In summary the three keys to overcoming overload are:

• Identifying your goals
• Choosing your sites, groups and content – be selective!
• Selecting tools to help you consolidate your access

What other ways have you found to manage social networking overload?

Further reading:

• Social networking overload
• Food for thought here in terms of a unified online social presence as opposed to separating your personal and professional networking - Social network overload
• Social networking time management tips

Image by webtreats