Matthew Lang

A lot of people use social media as their means of keeping up with news, topics and communities. I’ve always struggled with this aspect of social media, as the number of accounts I end up having to follow results in a constantly updating timeline that often just makes me turn away. It’s too much.

It’s just an observation on my part, but I think more and more people are looking elsewhere for their fix of valuable content. Social media is a firehose of data and digesting it at a sustainable pace is close to impossible unless you keep a tight reign on how many people you are following. Thankfully there are other means of finding valuable content.

Newsletters

The humble email is still the most reliable and manageable form of content that you can get. Which is why newsletters are probably more popular than ever. Subscribe to the topics that interest you and digest them in your own time. It’s that simple.

Newsletters are more valuable than social media in this respect because they are curated so that you can read the entire thing in a few minutes and get all the relevant information.

You also know when it will arrive. Newsletters are delivered on a regular interval and that consistency means that you always know when you’ll get the next edition of that newsletter.

RSS

Social media networks might not be keen on including RSS feeds in their own websites or even for individual users, but the RSS is still as popular as ever.

Although Google retired their Reader app, there’s now an abundance of RSS reader apps available and almost all websites include an RSS feed to subscribe too.

This openness on the web means that you can pick and choose the content that you want to follow, including the most valuable of content.

Subscriptions

A newcomer to the digital world but certainly not to the old paper-based world of publishing is magazine subscriptions. I’m surprised that these are now offered on an increasing number of sites, but when you think about it, they’re a great way of digesting your topic of choice.

I’ve got a subscription going at the moment with [99U] and I must say I have enjoyed having the magazine sent out to my home so that I can enjoy it in a more offline environment.

Podcasts

Podcasts have also risen in popularity over the few years. The audio version the blog offers a much more personal experience when you listen to the host and possible guests discussing a particular topic.

I like to listen to podcasts while I’m coding. I probably shouldn’t, as I do notice that I miss half the things mentioned on the podcast, but it’s the only way that I can listen to them on a regular interval.

If I was being honest then I would say that this is my least preferred way of digesting content from the web. I like podcast shows that keep their episodes short, but many of the shows I listen to a close to an hour in length. Even with the speed boost on Overcast, it can still take a fair amount of time.

Social media is a great tool and it does have value but relying on it as the means of consuming information will have you checking that timeline more often than you need to. For the content that matters you should consider exploring some of the options above. They're easier to manage and you'll know exactly what you'll be getting rather than the mixed bag of emotions, rants and knee-jerk reactions that social media provides.

I have an up and down experience in finding value in using social networks. Twitter is definitely not my goto place these days and App.net is now a distant memory due to it's lack of participation. It was these two networks that I always thought I would spend my time on when online. What has surprised me in the last year though is that I'm regularly turning to Instagram as my preferred social network.

I always thought of Instagram as just a photo sharing app. I can already share photos on Twitter so why would I bother doing the same thing on Instagram?

Here’s the thing though. Instagram is just a photo sharing app. It allows you to share photos simply and easily. The biggest change I’ve seen in the time I’ve used Instagram is probably it’s user-interface overhaul a couple of weeks ago and yes I do love their new icon. Since joining I’ve yet to see any major change in the way Instagram works as an app. And that’s because it doesn’t need to. It works well without needing to continually change.

Since coming back to Twitter, it hasn't been everything I thought it would be. I have a public account there and I like sharing photos there but I don’t like to share everything. I'm also on Path but that's a private app and is mainly for keeping in touch with the family. Instagram fits the gap in-between the two. My account is private and I keep followers down to a minimum.

In this case Instagram is well worth investing some time in because it doesn’t demand too much of my time. I can drop in when I want to and because the timeline is visual, it’s easier to scroll through without getting sidetracked. It has value for me because I can easily keep up with friends and family across the world and it offers a simple way to share online.

Being a valuable social network isn't always about having the most features. It can be about having a minimum list of features, but making the most of these features and Instagram certainly ticks that box.

Yesterday I wrote about the value of Twitter on a personal level. While I don't place much value on my personal Twitter account, I have found that having a seperate social media presence can let me split my time online and have that time spent in a more focused way.

I operate as a sole trader in the UK which means I trade as a business under my own name. It also means that I can use a trading name for my freelancing work. The added benefit to this is that I can give myself a corner of the web dedicated to that aspect of my life. I could publish technical articles under my own name and on my own personal blog but as I already blog on a frequent basis on other topics then I would end up two different audiences on the one blog. To keep them separate I decided to start a separate blog for my web development writing.

This year I decided to apply the same tactic on Twitter and so I created a new account (@digitalbothy) for my freelancing business. The idea behind this is to act as a social media funnel for the web development blog I mentioned above to be able to found on at least one social media network. As I’m already on Twitter it made sense to start there.

There’s another benefit to this. Lately I’ve been trying to limit the amount of people I follow on Twitter, but it seems that no matter what I do I end up with more people on the list that I would like. Fear of missing out syndrome is hard though, and even though I unfollowed most of the occasional tweeters there’s too many people to follow.

Instead of cramming all these people under one account, why not bump the web developers, freelancers and other people that mainly tweet about this topic over to my Digitalbothy account? So that’s what I did. I started following most people related to web development and programming from my freelancing account and unfollowed them on my personal account.

Having two accounts running side by side isn’t much harder to manage than having two lists under the same account. In fact I would say that it’s probably easier.

Tweetbot’s multi-column feature on OS X means that I can see both timelines through the day when I’m working. As a rule I don’t check my freelancing account out with my usual business hours. If I’m checking Tweetbot on my phone it only has my personal account on it which removes the temptation to check on work related topics when I’m not at home.

I might not place much value on my own personal account, but at least now I have a place for the work aspect of my life online and it's another way that I can be found by prospective clients.

I do. It was great. It's a shame it fell into obscurity and was eventually closed down.

After months of private beta testing, FriendFeed opened to the public in early 2008 to enthusiastic response. Louis Gray, an early adopter, saw the potential for a new kind of social networking. “[W]e can expect the service to grow tremendously,” he wrote, “kicking off the next wave of social networking services aimed not at posting busy profiles, but instead, aimed at collaboration, sharing and communication.” Tech and Web 2.0 journalists flocked to the site, using it as a kind of proto-Twitter to find breaking news and distribute their own stories.

— The rise and fall of FriendFeed, the social network that brought you the ‘Like’ button by The Kernel

I think of social media as one of those necessary evils in life. I'm well aware of the benefits of globally connected platforms that keeps people in touch, especially in the event of a natural disaster or event. Social media has proved itself as great way to keep people in contact with others. Like I said, that's all good, but a good social media platform has value. Things that interest me as a consumer. Links, text, images. Anything that falls within my interests is valuable.

Lately it seems that Twitter has been failing in this respect. There's doesn't seem to be any value in Twitter anymore. I'm in a constant battle of finding people to follow and unfollowing people that don't tweet anymore. This wasn't a problem when I first used Twitter as I could see the value from my timeline. Interesting tweets and links had value and it kept me checking into my timeline on a regular basis. Now, it seems that I can go a couple of days without checking Twitter and not miss anything.

I was an early user of Twitter. A year after it launched I created my Twitter account. After a few years though I wasn’t seeing the same value that I seen in the early years of Twitter and so I closed my account. I ended up re-creating my account on Twitter last year. There’s a problem though. The problem lies in the fact that I haven’t a clue what I’m using Twitter for. Since starting my Twitter account up again, I’ve had a few interactions with others and it serves it’s purpose in a few areas, but mostly I’m wondering if I even need it at all.

These days though I'm stepping back from Twitter and using it mainly as a source of content to consume rather than to publish things. I’m also keeping my use of it sporadic. I’ve noticed a few other people are changing the way they use Twitter as well. People that I know would tweet all through the day are now down to just tweeting a handful of times a day at most. I’ve even stopped using tools like Buffer for sharing content. I just don’t see the need in tools like that when I’m more of an infrequent visitor to Twitter.

So is Twitter still valuable? I think it’s largely lost it’s value for me. I only check it a couple of times a day. Twitter has it’s uses but I don’t see the great need for it like I did a few years ago. It still has a value for my freelancing business and I'm in the process of moving some of the people I follow to that account, but that is a topic for tomorrow's post.