Social Media Tip: How to simplify your social media life
Social media has become an integral part of most people's lives these days. In the UK, 13 minutes out of every hour online are spent on social networking and forums (marketingprofs.com). What's more, on average people spend close to 700 billion minutes on Facebook per month. That's a lot of precious time used up right there.
Whether for personal or for business use, social media is a valuable commodity. For most people, it's necessary. But it doesn't have to eat up your time. The amount of information available on social media can be overwhelming, and the tasks generated just too much. Organisation is key, in the online world just as much as it is key in the offline world. With good organisation and the help of some great apps, you can participate in social media without wasting your time.
Source: brucesallan.com
First things first, it's important to get your basic networks and email cleared up. Managing your everyday social media makes it easier to manage all the other bits and pieces you may be involved in online.
Clear up your email inbox
We've all been there; emails come in, and you don't quite have the time to answer or filter them. Before you know it, every time you log in, the number of unread mails grows exponentially, and the task of clearing out all 1,052 emails is just too daunting. Unsubscribe from those emails you signed up for (thinking they would be useful) but which you delete every time they appear in your new mails.
Manage your notifications/updates
Notifications and RSS feeds can be distracting and, if you're subscribed to too many of them, can become a bit overwhelming. Similarly, notifications you get on your smart phone from apps or updates can interrupt your working day. Filter out all the unnecessary distractions, bearing in mind that less interruptions can mean better concentration.
Once you've got all of that figured out, then you can start looking into other aspects of your digital life. If you want to save time and improve productivity, there are a few tools out there to help you do it.
Sunrise
Source: lifehacker.com
Sunrise
These days, you're more likely to be using your iCloud Calendar or Google Calendar than the classic Filofax or diary. This way, all important events and appointments are digitised and can be accessed from any device.
Sunrise, an iPhone app, does all that your classic calendar apps can do, and more. It incorporates your other online calendars, plus integrating social data from your other social networks. You can send and receive event invitations from within the app, and if you get lost on the way to one of your scheduled appointments, then it will provide you with a map. It looks good, with a two-week calendar sitting above a schedule of your day. What's more, it tracks the weather, informing you of changes throughout the day, so you're never caught out without a coat.
Zipyap
Zipyap is the perfect app to streamline you social life, by combining all your favourite social networks under one platform. Not only can you view all of your networks at once, you can also post across all of your platforms at the click of a button. On top of that, the app will suggest places to go and what to do based on your mood and your friends activities. You can select various activities (eat/play/relax) and relevant locations nearby will appear. It has its own social platform, allowing users to upload pictures and write a status/comments. You can play Instagram and Facebook videos from directly within the social stream, and the timeline feature allows easy management of your posts and friends. The app currently only supports Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, but is looking to include more platforms in the future.
Evernote web clipper
Ever been browsing the web, made a mental note to read something interesting, and then kicked yourself for forgetting the website later? It can be the most frustrating thing, and you end up cluttering up your bookmarks and procrastinating in an attempt to keep on top of all those interesting online tidbits.
That's where Evernote web clipper comes in; it lets you 'snip' out all those interesting tidbits and store them in an online cloud to access later. You can save anything - full pages, videos, images or even full articles. You can highlight or add text, reminding you of exactly why it caught your eye in the first place. You can even share anything you save via email or on your social networks.
Source: web.marsdenassociates.com
LastPass
LastPass, "the last password you have to remember", helps you to manage your passwords and login credentials. If you have multiple accounts, with multiple passwords, then LastPass can help you to save time by doing all the hard login work for you.
The app can also create hack-proof passwords, if you're worried that yours is a bit too weak. Some have voiced concerns that, should the LastPass account get hacked, then all of your accounts could be exposed. It is safe, storing all of your data online in a form that even the company can't access, let alone the NSA. They also provide a two-factor authentication option, so that nobody else can pretend to be you.
Hootlet
Hootlet is a very handy tool for managing your social networks. It is easy to install on your Chrome browser, and enables you to share any webpage across any selection of your social networks. you can even schedule exactly when you want different platforms to post updates. It is also useful with your searches; showing you relevant tweets when you search for any particular topic, company or product, and if you put a location in to your Google maps then it will show you tweets sent from nearby.
So go ahead and simplify your social media life today, you may be amazed at the amount of spare time you'll find on your hands.
Charlotte is a trainee journalist, who loves writing about anything and everything. Currently an intern at Social Media Frontiers, you can follow her @charlotteatsmf and @CharlotteR_4
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Social Media Tip: How to simplify your social media life
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Wednesday, February 19, 2014
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