When I first received the invite I have to admit that I was a little ecstatic and my first plan was to give as many people as I could an invite. Immediately, I called a good friend of mine and asked him if he wanted an invite to this new service. Without hesitation he agreed but, what he said next left me at odds. He jokingly said, “Wow, I’m not sure how many more of these social networking sites I can take.” I paused for a bit and I said to myself, neither can I.
MySpace represents to me an old site being reborn in hopes of making a comeback and it really is an underdog story. I’ve been on MySpace for only a day but already I’m hoping to experiment with it periodically. Google+, according to my RescueTime tracker, has taken much more of my time in recent months so I believe it’s safe to say that I’m pretty much a Google+ power user. My Facebook also has been steadily receiving activity due to some added leisure time. The point is, among the three sites my time, attention, and energy, are being spent in all three. That is simply unacceptable.
Social Media is great because it allows us to connect with the people, topics, and ideas, that we all care about most. So why is it so difficult to have one site dominate all the others? The answer is simple really, since each Social Media service is appealing for different reasons. Facebook has the people, MySpace has the music, Instagram has the photos, and Google+ has the ideas. Each service is great because they each provide something unique. However, is it beneficial to actually use all three together?
As I’ve said before plenty of our energy is being invested into these sites and I can’t help but think that being involved extensively in all three is really unhealthy. This thought hit me as soon as I decided to update my profile pic on my new MySpace page. As soon as I uploaded the photo I asked myself, am I really going to do this for all three sites? What about for a status update? Let’s say I get married, graduate, get a job promotion etc. am I going to update every single website that I am on with the same status update? Talk about counterproductive!
There’s absolutely no way that I am going to update every status, post, or photo, on all three sites. It really is extra work that is highly unnecessary (excluding business purposes). Plus, I only really enjoy one out of the three. So, my solution to this dilemma is simply to focus on one site rather than the three.
I’m already a Google+ power user and I’m on the site more often of the three. There is where I’ll be updating my page more frequently than the rest. MySpace is nice and I’ll experiment with it to see if it develops into something better, but only occasionally will I visit the site. Everyone is already on Facebook and just as I’ve done for months past, I will be on the site but my updates will be minimal.
This however is only my solution and might not fit everyone’s needs. Here are a couple of ways to decide upon a solution. Do you enjoy Facebook the most? Focus on Facebook. Do you enjoy Instagram more? Focus on Instagram. What if you still want to use all three? Try setting up days/times/weeks focusing on one site over the other. In reality, there are plenty of solutions out there. Try experimenting and try to discover which one fits your own needs.
With so many Social Media websites out there it definitely becomes difficult to manage a combination of them. There are benefits to each site accordingly and my suggestion would be to focus on the service you enjoy the most so that your time is being well spent.
How do you manage your combination of Social Media sites? Do you focus on one? Or do you divide your attention amongst your combination?
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