8 tips for those who want to use social media only for their own benefit

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

"Social media is evil," "Social media is the main waste of time," how Facebook and VKontakte affect our lives. The most radical bloggers advise to remove their accounts from all social networks altogether, preach “reverse escapism” and call for switching to offline reality. But for work and personal reasons, for example, I do not want to turn into a "digital hermit." How can I be and is it possible to change the situation and turn the "time killer" into a source of benefit for myself? I recently asked myself this question while analyzing, and here are 8 rules that over the next 100 days I want to try myself in using social services and invite all readers of Lifehacker to do the same.

Rules for those who want to benefit from social media instead of "killing time"

1. Create page lists and filter content … A tip that is suitable for Twitter and Facebook users (VKontakte does not have this option yet). Everything falls into the general feed of news and statuses: did you have the imprudence to "like" / "follow" some page or brand? That's it, now it will periodically "pop up" in your news feed from time to time. Of course, you can go into the settings and clean up the list of a couple of hundred / thousand brands, companies, publications, people, celebrities, bands and blogs that you have visited at least once and clicked on the "Like" / "Subscribe" button. But instead, it's much easier to split all pages by subject, language, country, content type, importance to you - and view the most important of these lists separately once a day.
2. Subscribe only to what you are really interested in … While Facebook was young and fresh, we liked everything. Now, when even cement plants for some reason acquire their own page, it makes sense to pay attention to what exactly "you and 20 other users like."
3. Install a plugin that restricts your social media usage throughout the day … Blocking access to "time killers" will help you focus on work. If you don't want to use such a plugin, try at least the “4-hour rule”,.
4. Organize your friends lists … All these couple of hundred people - who are they to you? Is the acquaintance of a friend of a classmate with whom you crossed paths 2 times in your life at someone's party? Do you still keep your ex-boyfriend as a friend? A colleague in your first job in your life, with whom you have not communicated since 2007 - seriously, this person deserves new photos of his dog / girlfriend / salad to appear in your news feed after 5 years ?! You are picky about social connections and dating in real life - so why are you in such a mess in the online world?
5. Divide content types across social networks … Try going to Twitter for news, personal events and friends' opinions on Facebook, for visual notes and impressions on Instagram, for interesting infographics on Pinterest.
6. Use topic groups and hashtags to search and consume the information you are interested in. In the Ukrainian segment of Facebook, for example, there are groups and pages for residents; in the Russian segment - specialized groups by interests and areas of activity (for example, those interested in advertising in new media can apply to, and those who want to raise funds for their own project - to the group).
7. Use aggregator services to collect content from different sites. You can read about which services are suitable for this purpose.
8. Spend your weekends without social media at all … This, by the way, is one of the good ways, and not constantly digging into the Web. Disconnect from the digital stream and pay attention to real people, and not to their beautiful avatars on a laptop or tablet screen.