www.Wednesday: Help?! I’m social networking and I CAN’T STOP!!!!

Most of my posts on the topic of social networking are geared to encouraging political conservatives to try new techniques, visit new sites, join new groups – be bold, take a step out of their comfort zones, and just go for it.

Well, what happens if you’ve done that, and answered “yes” to every other invite you’ve received from your network of online fellow activists – and now find yourself awake in the wee hours of the morning trying to respond to all of your alerts, messages, diggs, seeds, superpokes, nudges, @replies, stumbles, friend requests, DM’s, group invites, shouts, retweets, and #feeds – not to mention your regular blog posts, cross-posts, comments, reciprocal link requests, and, of course, hundreds and hundreds of e-mails.

I knew I was in trouble a while back when I received a reply to an e-mail I had sent a state legislator at 3AM from my mobile phone…I’d gone to bed that night at about midnight. I vaguely remembered the e-mail, but thought I had dreamed about sending it. Seriously, you have to draw the line when you catch yourself sleep-e-mailing. Fortunately, I’d been “professional” in the e-mail, but it was truly a “wake-up” call in more ways than one.

So, what to do? If you find yourself in this situation, it’s time to set priorities, and cull the time-sinks. Following are some techniques I’ve used and/or that I’m working on. I hope you’ll add your own.

1. Unsubscribe from any newsletters you don’t read. Use the “unsubscribe” option provided on newsletters through professional news services, ask to be removed from the more informal lists, and if all else fails, start marking those particular e-mails as “spam,” so they’ll be filtered out of your regular in-box.
2. Consolidate groups. If you’re finding that you’re on 27 Ning Groups, for example, and you have pretty much the same friends on all of them – nix the smaller or inactive ones. (Note to all of my NING.com friends – I’ll be doing this in the next week.)
3. Change your settings. Most social networks give you an opportunity to choose if/how often you want to be e-mailed with alerts, friend requests, etc.. Take time to review these options so that you’re e-mailed only about things that are time-sensitive.
4. Differentiate “productive” v. “fun” v. “obsessive.” Take Twitter for example. For me, 10 minutes a couple of times a day adding new followers, responding to @replies, retweeting the best of the best, and posting a great link or two is “productive.” Taking a break from work a few times during the day to exchange sarcastic tweets is “fun.” Staring, mesmerized, at my home feed for hours and re-tweeting 1 out of every 10 tweets is “obsessive.” (I mean, I can imagine it would be…not that I would know from personal experience…ahem…I’m just sayin’…b-b-but, it’s “research,” right?)
5. Know the difference between “socializing,” and “networking.” If you’re in a group or network that started out being a link exchange and has deteriorated into a place to exchange numerous e-mails a day debating the finer points of who is the most “conservative,” amongst yourselves…you’re now socializing. There’s nothing wrong with socializing if you have time for it, but don’t kid yourself into believing that the several hours a day you’re spending there is necessary “networking.” It isn’t.

Bottom line: Time is valuable, and we need to spend it wisely. Likewise, our social networking time should be spent on activities that help us meet our goals. Sure, it can (and should) be fun. But there’s no need to let our social networking activities keep us from the other important things and people in our lives.