Stepping Outside The Noise: My Next Phase

I'm not sure if you get newsletters from John Reese, or if you read his latest email?

He sent it on Monday of this week (Oct 11th). It was very candid and honest, and it really gave me pause.

In fact, I read it 3 times.

If you didn't read it, I'll give you the short version. The title was Letting Go of Your Online 'Friends'.

John talked about his personal experience with social media "noise", information overload, and feeling completely burned out. And about shutting down his twitter and facebook and email accounts - and ultimately getting out of the Internet Marketing space altogether to focus on other ventures. (It was a long email.)

The big take-away was on minimizing communications, basically to stop responding to the "noise" - or allowing it to overwhelm you - and to get back into creative or action mode. This is exactly where my own mind has been lately, and so his email really resonated with me...

(No, I'm not leaving the Internet Marketing space.)

For the last few weeks I have been working on a solution to my overall communication system. I've made a lot of changes in that area this year, including outsourcing the majority of my email and "going mobile". It's still a work in progress, and I'm still trying to streamline the process.

You probably deal with much of the same stuff that I do: too much email, too much content, information overload, interruptions & distractions. We have solutions for that sort of thing, of course - but it needs to be reassessed every now and then.

Now is one of those times for me personally...

Stepping Outside The Noise

It's a tough call, figuring out the best way to manage Social Media and the combination of all communication points. I don't want to be completely out of the loop. And I do want to continue to maintain a high-touch business, and a real relationship with my market.

The key is to structure communications so that they are on MY terms. While that sounds selfish or maybe arrogant, it's actually the key to delivering exactly what my market wants: more tips & resources, more help & more actionable content.

Or to put it another way: By giving less of myself, I am in a better position to give (much) more to my market.

And so once again I am unsubscribing from numerous email updates, clearing my Skype list, cleaning out my feed reader, mass deleting archived messages and emails, and basically doing major clean-up on my content stream.

Facebook - Ack! 😯

Facebook is a major issue all on it's own. I recently asked my private group what their #1 distraction was, and the majority gave the exact same answer: Facebook.

I sat down last night and cleared out the majority of the Pages I "liked". More than 60, actually. Many of them hadn't been updated in months (some more than a year). Others had become regurgitated information I was already getting elsewhere - via email, feed reader or Twitter.

I've also decided that I want a personal profile. I want a place to connect with MY friends. I made my profile private, and from this point forward am only adding friends that I already know. I don't want to make friends on Facebook. I want to connect with my friends there. I already have a Facebook Page for business connections & conversations, so there's no reason for the two to cross over.

This is a big undertaking considering I already have over 3,000 "friends" on Facebook. Unfortunately it HAS to be done. My content stream on Facebook is full of marketing spam, and CRAP. I also value my privacy, and now that anyone with a smart phone can sync their Facebook friends list and have me in their mobile contact list... I have to be more choosy about who I friend.

Responding vs Creating

In the end, this is not really about marketing. This is about ME.

It's about how I want to spend my time, and how I want to run my business. It's also about getting out of constant response mode, stepping outside the never ending noise, and getting back into creative mode.

This means I'll have to ignore some things, and say no to others. It's not fun, but it has to be done if I am going to regain my focus and keep my sanity. Both of which I would very much like to do. 🙂

The good news is, this is going to free me up to focus on the things that you like best: fresh new content, creative ideas, new videos, podcasts - all the stuff you enjoy from me most, and that I enjoy doing most.

There's a balance to it all of course. And this is what I'm seeking.

What about you?

I would love to hear how you are managing your communications, your social media reach, and your content stream. What is your biggest challenge? What have you found to be most helpful in maintaining focus & productivity?

Best,