information

5 Tips On How to Filter Through The Fluff!

Marketers are constantly inundated with information on the #digitalmediasphere – felt like a hashtag was appropriate for this post! The amount of information our brains have to consume on a daily basis is mind blowing, literally. According to Mail Online, each person is drowned with “174 newspapers’ worth of information every day.” FastCompany also published an infographic in September 2010 based on the book The 24-Hour Customer, indicating that we will generate more data in the next 4 years than in the history of the world, adding that the average person is connected 12 hours a day to some form of digital media which translates to 34 billion bits of information per day (an equivalent of two books).

The biggest concern for marketers is the ability to sort through all the fluff and not get bogged down. Recent studies are showing that the level of information we are being asked to break down can cause increased stress levels. So how do we keep on top of the abundance of information and still keep our sanity? Learn how to filter through the fluff and manage your time. Here are 5 tips that can get you started:

TIP #1. BE SELECTIVE. Don’t follow every single person on Twitter who follows you, or subscribe to every blog with the word “digital marketing” in it. Be selective to what you subscribe to and who you follow. Similarly, don’t feel the need to subscribe to every single news outlet, most likely they all end up publishing the same stories within 24 hours of each other anyway. By being selective you can start filtering through the noise and choosing what you really want to focus your brain cells on.

TIP #2. TAKE TIME OFF. Set aside certain time periods when you are active on social media, reading the news, updating your blog, and so on and so forth. We spend most of our waking hours connected to some form of digital media. Sometimes it’s nice to tune out. Take a break and set rules and regulations. For example, when you are at the gym don’t be the person on the treadmill who is replying to emails and tweets. It’s okay to not reply back right away. Let your body relax and do something else. You can set time limits for yourself of when you are on and off, even computers need down time.

TIP #3. UTILIZE DASHBOARDS. Dashboards help aggregate various accounts and create search tabs to sort through specific content. Hootsuite is a great dashboard that allows you to do both. You can add all your social media accounts to this one dashboard so that you don’t have to keep switching between tabs or windows to get up-to-date on all the new content. You can also create search tabs with specific keywords such as “online marketing” or “search engine optimization” and Hootsuite will then aggregate content based on that filter. That way you can sort through the fluff without actually having to do it yourself, the dashboard does it for you.

TIP #4. ACTIVATE GOOGLE ALERTS. There are a ton of free tools available online that help you filter through the data, Google Alerts is one of them. Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results based on your queries. You get the most up-to-date information sent directly to your mail box.

TIP #5. CREATE YOUR OWN READER. Setup a RSS Feed Reader or News Aggregator by adding your favorite blogs, and websites to it so you can keep on top of the latest content without actually having to visit the site. Feed Reader or News Aggregator software allow you to grab the RSS feeds from various sites and display them for you to read and use.

Hopefully these tips will help you stay on top of your content, and help save you a little time and stress!

Maryam Mehrtash @socialmaryam

Tags: data, digital, facebook, information, marketing, Social Media, stress, Twitter

Information Touch-Points

Last week, I spent a couple minutes watching the Global Morning News before heading to work. What made this particular morning interesting was how many different touch-points I used to gather information.

That morning, @weslawong was giving the morning traffic report and briefly mentioned the Millennium Line in Vancouver was experience some delays. I quickly jumped onto Twitter to see if my morning commute would be affected.

I searched on Twitter and found the @translink Twitter account posted a message saying, “SkyTrain Service Alert – Millennium Line is experiencing up to 4 minute delays due to technical issues.”

I would have gone on the Translink website, but past experience told me I’d likely find more timely information on Twitter.

If I was on Facebook at the time, I might have checked the Translink Facebook Page, but Translink doesn’t appear to be using Facebook to inform its customers. Missed opportunity maybe?

With the large variety of communication channels and how different people choose to receive information, it’s important to consider all channels and how they can be used and integrated to serve your customers.

Victor

Tags: global tv, information, media, news, Social Media, touch points, translink, Twitter, welsa wong