Social media isn’t real work, is it?

Using social media without wasting time – by Melanie Mackie

For those who use social media for business or personal use as well as being a lifeline it can also eat into your day and is often used as a fabulous procrastination tool. Hanging out on Twitter and Facebook during your working day can be a big distraction and this activity cannot always be justified as work.

I am a big social media user for business. I share content, connect, comment and raise awareness of my business, so that’s the real work part.

But I know my personal stuff gets mixed in too and I have fallen into the trap of getting completely distracted online, clicking here and there on to different links and articles that I must read immediately, and liking and commenting on Facebook.

Before I know it a couple of hours have gone by and I haven’t made any headway with the to-do list. I stopped and considered how much of this social activity is essential to my day and how much time I waste just faffing about? The answer was things needed to change.

So this is what I did. I decided to create a social planner for my business activity built around sharing blog posts, allowing myself time to tweet and post on Facebook and then logged out until my other work was complete. And only then log back in if I felt the need for more chit-chat. On the whole as a result of making the changes I am more productive and focused on one thing at a time.

If you know you are regularly getting sucked into the social media vortex, you can get back in control and still use social media effectively as well as be sociable, here’s how:

1. Set a time limit for social media. Use an alarm if you need to. When the time is up log out and shut down the browser. It’s too tempting to click back on Twitter if you don’t.

2. To continue to market your business and share essential content use automation tools such as Hootsuite and Buffer. Take some time to schedule in some posts through-out the week in one hit. You can dip in and out later when you do have spare time for more personal interaction.

3. Turn off your smart phone in meetings. Yes it is acceptable to do this and the world does not end because you don’t answer to emails, tweets and status up-dates immediately. If you are seen on-line all day it becomes clear to your social networks and quite possibly your clients that you have very little work to do.

4. Focus on your surroundings when out and about instead of thinking “I’ll tweet that and check in here on Facebook”. Quit reading social up-dates as you walk, not only will you stop bumping into others, you’ll also give your frazzled social brain downtime.

In order to write this post without any social distractions I stuck to my guidelines and did not open Facebook or Twitter. The result was I got the post done in less than an hour.

However, if I had been on Twitter and Facebook first, I would have missed Judy’s deadline and no doubt would be clicking and reading things that regardless of my procrastination excuses were simply not “real” work.

Melanie Mackie runs Scarletta Media, a social media marketing consultancy. She shows business owners, solopreneurs and SMEs how to be social and integrate social media marketing into their business.

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