In Part 1 of this series, I reviewed my top site
recommendations for news, research, and training in the social media sphere.
However, I understand that it's easy to get buried under the avalanche of
information streaming in on any given day. If you want to stay on top of
industry news & research, as well as manage the "buzz" that
occurs around your company or product, you must consider setting up a system to
manage that information flow. What follows here is an overview of the system I
personally use, which takes me about a half hour each day. Best of all, It's
completely FREE! Depending on your industry and area of expertise, your
learning style, and personality you may find some tweaking of this system
necessary before it works for you. I encourage you to read on and then adjust
this as necessary to fit your own needs.
1. Use Google Reader
to set up RSS feeds of your favorite content (Time Est: 10 minutes). This is a FREE service that you can use to
create your own personalized information hub (a custom online newsfeed). Be
careful here, however, to limit this service to your most vital sources. If you
have multiple sources that update daily (or multiple times per day) your
newsfeed could become overwhelming. Stick to just your top few and then add on
as you become accustomed to checking your Reader daily. Feel free to
"clear the deck" at anytime if you get behind and want to start
afresh by simply clicking the option to "Mark all as Read". This
custom feed could include some of the sources I mentioned in Part 1 of my
series, as well as online magazine sites, cartoons, Flickr or Digg feeds, and
more. I recommend you dedicate a Reader account just to manage your
industry/company information. Take a tour of Google Reader Here.
2. Set up and scan
Google Alerts for company/product "buzz" (Time Est: 2-5 minutes). Again, this is a FREE Google service!
Just enter your search terms and select how often you'd like to receive
updates. Then, when people mention your keywords (industry terms, company or
brand name, products, whatever you indicate) Google will send an alert to your
inbox. You can read and respond once per day or as the Alerts happen. I
recommend doing it in the morning as part of this daily organization system.
Check out Google Alerts Here.
3. Use a dashboard
platform such as TweetDeck or HootSuite to manage and post to your social
profiles (Time Est: 5 minutes). Personally, I set up a FREE TweetDeck account and have it linked to my
Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn profiles so I can see streaming updates from
all my social networks in one place. You can also choose to post updates to one
particular feed, or to any/all profiles at once. You can leave TweetDeck (or
HootSuite) open as a background application as you work, but I prefer to check
mine once or twice per day and then log-off in between so I'm not derailed by
all the constant updates to my newsfeeds.
4. Check your email
account(s) for pertinent updates and research briefs (Time Est: 5-10 minutes).Avoid the temptation here to begin answering
all your work emails! First, just scan your subject lines/senders and read or
file any research data or industry information you may have need for later.
Then you can delete those messages to de-clutter your box before you dive into
your work day! Personally, I maintain a freeDropbox account and have a few research folders
set-up there for incoming research reports. That way, they're accessible no
matter what device I'm using (I have Dropbox installed on both my home and work
laptops as well as my cell phone) and they're easy to retrieve by category when
I'm digging for research insights.
Don't even have a half
hour daily? When I'm pressed for time or just want to "drive" more of
the experience myself, my minimum routine is to check the headlines at Mashable.com and de-clutter my email Inbox.
Have a different routine that works for you, please comment and let me
know! FYI: I am not sponsored by any of the services noted above, and have not
received any money or goods to endorse them.
One final word: If you
want to monitor your social presence or identity in more depth, next up is an
article about that very topic with sources that will go deeper than simple
Google Alerts.
