A while ago I posted on the difficulties of keeping active in all the social media streams that are now available. Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Linkedin etc.
It can be quite time consuming to try to keep engaged conversations going in all these streams1. Some people lessen the digital workload by setting up services that cross post across all the mediums. But for me, I seem to be spread out jumping back and forth from one to the other. After a few months of exploring this, it is now time to focus a little more on what works for me.
First: I have decided to completely untether from Facebook.
Make no mistake: There are some fantastic nurses posting here, and I have had some of the most thought provoking and insightful conversations that have really made me reflect on my own practice….like wow, who are you people?
Its not the people that is the problem, but the venue. The structure of FB is just getting too complex and self indulgent for me.
Plus, admit it…..there is an imensitude of crap you have to wade thru each time you open it.
Triage of social media. So this is what works for me.
impactednurse.com: I want to spend more time generating interesting content and developing my writing voice here on my website which will be my primary dwelling place. This site has always been a work of love for me. I am just a little bit proud of it, and I want to grow it as I grow myself.
Google+: is where I will try to encourage conversations and relationships. I guess you could say on my website I talk at you, on Google+ I am able to talk with you.
The decision to move form FB to Google+ surprised me, as it is still finding its feet and although there are increasing numbers of medical folk signing on to it, there is really not a lot of presence, as many users hesitate moving across from Facebook or dont like the different way it is organised.
Its very much a case of everyone waiting for the first followers.
But I do like the way that it is organised, the clean layout.the fact that the signal to noise ratio can be easily adjusted. And from my experience thus far, once you establish some quality circles, the information and stories that you can tap into are fantastic.
Google+ has tons of potential for development.
Twitter: is something I have only just started using regularly and after initially thinking it was stupid… I have totally changed my opinion. Twitter seems to be by far the most information dense social media environment. By dipping in and out of the stream and identifying a core of useful information tweeters, I have already discovered a whole new repository of references and useful information. I use it both as a scratch-pad to ‘mumble’ my unparsed thoughts and ideas, and as a ‘live’ environment to share information and interesting links.
So there you are. I will shortly stop visiting FB. Thanks to everyone using this medium for your fantastic interactions and conversations. I hope you might also consider exploring these other options to see if they might be a useful alternative (or addition) for your own social media presence.
- and very easy to get caught up in the whole trap of posting with the primary intent of increasing the number of people following you. [↩]
See you in google land