I’m drowning in Social Networking. Are you?

by Zahra Petri

These days it seems as if new social networking tools are surfacing every few days between iPhone applications, twitter, Facebook and the many other computer and phone operated plug-ins. Along with each of these are the endless email notifications that quickly fill up your inbox. When faced with this daily increase of new information, questions begin circling in my mind: Which tools are the best? How many should I use? What do I do with all the emails? How do I manage all the information coming and going??

A feeling of overwhelm sweeps over me and I am brought back to my days before I had my EDGE System and my inbox was a black abyss of read and unread emails; back when I felt like I was jumping from crisis to crisis and everything was an urgent matter. Instead of going into panic mode, I decided to expand my EDGE system and apply the concepts to these social networking tools.

On Facebook I turned off all the email notifications except for alerting me of a message in my Facebook inbox. This way my email inbox is not cluttered because, frankly, I don’t need to know when Sara commented on John’s profile status or that Jenny put a smiley face on my wall. I will still be notified of these actions when I log into my Facebook profile, so why do I need an email to tell me as well?

For my iPhone applications I turned off ALL the notifications and sounds, but the notifications may be different as there are a wide variety of applications. For example, I have a chat application that runs in the background of my phone even when I don’t have that application open. It works similarly to text messages. I turned off all the notifications including sound, pop up message, text sent and received chime, and friend’s status alert. These are all distractions that I don’t need. If Tom wants to tell me he heard the new Modest Mouse song on the radio, I don’t need to know that right away. I can see the message when I check my phone later. However, if Tom has something urgent, he knows my notifications are off and to text message or call me.

It is very important when setting the standards for yourself and your notifications, no matter what the tool, that you let the people who contact you know what they are. Tell them that Facebook is not the place to let you know they won Longhorn Football tickets for a game beginning in one hour and to reply immediately.

For more updates and tips on how to manage your tools and applications, visit the ‘Programs’ tab at www.effectiveedge.com to view Whitepapers and OnDemand modules to help expand your EDGE.