Social Media Hysteria-You Can Change the Channel

If social media is overwhelming you with the plethora of tools, platforms, fan pages, accounts, usernames etc, then it’s imperative to stop for a moment and organize your thoughts and process.  You may be voicing your frustration and throwing up your hands and saying there is nothing but a bunch of noise going on.  Or you may be wondering how in the world you can keep up with the pace that these platforms are growing.  Let’s reflect on another platform that morphed and that we quickly evolved the ability to control how we used it.

Jump back a couple of decades in the television world and reflect on what was available.  Mainstream television did not even become available to most people until the 50’s.  Those were the days when you only had one or two channels tops and you had to get out of your chair to turn the TV on.  As the decades past, the amount of options and information increased.  Currently you can make a choice on what kind of channel package you wish for yourself.  Some can be as low as 200 and then the options continue to climb.  Within these packages are channels dedicated to certain topics.  We have The Weather Channel, The Food Network, ESPN and many others.  Does this mean that you leave your TV on just one of these channels all day long?  Of course you don’t.  What was the premise behind making channels that focused on just one topic?  So that the viewer would always know where they could find the specific information that they need.  Maybe at first people as the viewers were a bit perplexed at seeing an information specific channel available, however we learned the ability to change the channel.  You got to love remote controls for that!

So where can this be applied for the current social media hysteria.  Social media platforms do have the ability for you to change the channel; you just need to learn how to use the remote.  Facebook has a feature at the top of its page called “Top News”.  Facebook uses its own algorithms to ascertain users and pages that you interact with most often and makes these its suggested “Top News” for you.  You can also set up various lists that can quickly change your feed.  I currently have 6 different lists (channels) that I have made for my Facebook account.  I know I will be adding more soon.  This enables me to change channels so to speak in order to review information based on my categories.  Twitter also has this feature.  You can now create lists based upon different categories of information you may want to review.  Third party platforms like Tweetdeck allow you to add as many columns (channels) as you wish so that you can review information at your leisure that is topic or industry specific.

Just as with choosing a channel package for your home television, you also have a choice as to whom you will friend, who you will fan, and who you will follow.  Some may provide value and some may not.  Some you may be interested in slightly but not as much as something else.  This is where your choice comes into play.  The difference is you are in the driver’s seat.  You get to make your own channels.  Some people started throwing their TV’s out because of this radical change but that did not make sense.  Neither does it make sense to just completely shut down your social media platforms.  You can reduce your “channel” package or set up your favorites so to speak.  So if you feel you are in hysteria mode at the moment, remember that it was not too long ago when television had a similar impact when it went from 2 channels to 2000 in a matter of decades.  It did not take decades for this to happen to social media but the ability to control the information has not changed.  The remote control is in your hand and you get to choose your channels.

If you have any other suggestions on what has helped you to control the flow and overflow of social media information, please feel free to share with the rest of us.

Written by Jonathan Saar

Enjoy this post? Check these out

• Social Media Our Case Study Part II
• Social Media and the Art of Sharing
• Social Media and the Scientific Method

Jonathan Saar Recommends

• The Metrics of Social Media  (Danny Brown)
• The Real Cost of Social Media  (Danny Brown)
• Using Social Media Right – For You  (Danny Brown)

Ask Jonathan Saar -The Training Factor To Recommend Your Posts