Here are four steps to help you better manage your school's social media:
1. Clear your mind. Before you begin working on your school's social media outlets, have a clear mind and vision of where you're going to put attention. Ask yourself how much time you should spend on Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, YouTube, etc. Then ask yourself, what is the message you're trying to address first and foremost. If your mind is swimming with other deadlines and issues, walk away and come back later. If you're scattered, most likely your communications will be too—and that can be a fatal mistake when publically addressing the masses.
2. Stay centered. Now that you've cleared your mind and you're focused on your online mission for the day (or week), stay centered. Don't try to juggle more than one thing at a time, and don't allow others to interrupt you. As we all know, it feels great to multitask—feels like you're moving at an office speed of ultraproductivity—but, in reality, doing more than one task at a time is counterproductive. It's been proven time and time again—the more you try to do at once, the more errors you make. You don't want to make a mistake when communicating to an audience of a million, which potentially is exactly what you're doing.
3. Don't think too hard! You're centered, you're focused, no one is disturbing you for at least the next hour, but yet your fingers seem to be frozen. Don't overthink your online communications. Get into the zone. If you're new to social media and social networking sites, start out by playing with your personal pages at home until you feel comfortable enough with all the controls and options. If you're experienced, then it's probably not comfort you're challenged by, but instead burn-out syndrome. Don't try to force anything. Sometimes you might not have anything to say, or anything ask for those of you who are using Twitter, and that's OK. There's a whole Internet out there to inspire you—the lull won't last long.
4. Know where your attention is needed. It's easy to get sidetracked from tweet to tweet, from comment to response, or from one conversation thread to another. Spend the appropriate time needed on each site, and then find your way to the next. Or, download a desktop application that will automatically alert you to comments, posts, and the like as they come in. These are designed to keep your various social media sources organized.
