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Social media signal and noise

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How do you separate the signal (those messages that matter) from all the noise that exists in the social media universe? Without a strategy and some tactics to back it up, it’s very easy to get lost in the noise. I’m not saying the noise isn’t interesting and even fun. Instead I’m personally concerned with how productive I can be when the noise overshadows the signal.

image of social media signal and noiseFiltering strategies to find the signal

The idea of filtering signal from noise was originally presented to me by Phil Gerbyshak almost a year ago. It’s one of the best pieces of advice I have received and followed up on to make social media more manageable.

Filtering Twitter for signal vs noise. When I met Phil I was following less than 500 people on Twitter. Still a pretty manageable number to monitor in a single stream. At the time Phil was following thousands. He provided two pearls of wisdom. First, use Twitter lists to make sure you see what those people important to you are saying. Second, Never go back. He’s right, the important message will be re-tweeted by your network. Twitter is not something you “catch up” on. It’s now, it’s real-time. Today, I have several lists and I almost never go back in the stream.

Which social proof matters? I recently read Mitch Joel’s Experience has nothing to do with your social media status and was intrigued by his final sentence.

“The trick is in not thinking that someone with many followers or lots of Blog posts with comments is a seasoned professional. They may not be.”

Mitch is of course correct. I, however, thought to myself or “they may be.” A perfect example is Mitch himself or his fellow A-List blogger Chris Brogan. These gentlemen have lots of followers on Twitter and lots of comments on their blog posts for a reason. They walk the walk, so when they talk the talk people listen. The trick is in being sure the following is authentic and the comments are real and not from a bloggers network. If every post is commented upon by the same five people you may want to think about what that could mean.

Do your part. My RSS reader is full of great content as I’m selective about which blogs I follow. Even then, if I miss reading for even a few days there are hundreds of articles to scan. Then I need to decide which ones to read. I strive to share carefully. I share no more than a dozen articles in my RSS feed each day. Then, I share no more than three or four of those articles via Twitter. These are the best of the best as I see it. So, if you trust my judgement I can be part of your filter. I know when Phil takes time to share an article in my RSS feed I make sure to at least skim it.

Your turn, how do you filter the great from the good each day?

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Comments

  1. I completely agree on the “never go back” advice. It’s just too much time used.

    Also, I favstar a bunch of stuff on Twitter, and I have an RSS feed set up for my Twitter favorites so I get them in Google Reader and can get to them when I want to. That’s part of how I help filter.

  2. Thanks for including me in this. I filter ruthlessly (which is why I, jokingly, call myself a “snob”). I’m looking for relevant, new and interesting voices. I’m less concerned about professional experience. By keeping to that code, those types of places and people have allowed me to learn about more and other interesting places. I do realize that this might limit my ability to see/read new and interesting perspectives (because everything is being filtered on my personal value system), but I get those different perspectives in another ways (TV, newspapers, etc…).

    • Hi Mitch,
      Glad you found the post. I find that my RSS feed contains about half A-List (You, Brogan, Godin, Clark, Rowse, etc.) and about half new voices. I like that balance. I also balance the feed with design, color (my gig), social, printing and my favorite (just for fun blogs that make me laugh).

      I find the comments on your blog are rich and fertile territory to gain multiple perspectives. I try not to read one of your posts without allowing time to scan the comments. Often the comments and your responses are far more valuable than the original post was standalone.

      Thanks for stopping and taking the time to add to this post.
      -Jim

    • Hi Mitch,
      Glad you found the post. I find that my RSS feed contains about half A-List (You, Brogan, Godin, Clark, Rowse, etc.) and about half new voices. I like that balance. I also balance the feed with design, color (my gig), social, printing and my favorite (just for fun blogs that make me laugh).

      I find the comments on your blog are rich and fertile territory to gain multiple perspectives. I try not to read one of your posts without allowing time to scan the comments. Often the comments and your responses are far more valuable than the original post was standalone.

      Thanks for stopping and taking the time to add to this post.
      -Jim

  3. Wow Jim, sounds like I almost know what I”m talking about here 🙂

    Seriously, those 2 pieces of advice save me from a LOT of headscratching, though there’s a 3rd equally helpful bit of advice: Review your lists frequently to make sure they’re still full of the right people.

    I have a list of blogs I call “must read” that I catch all the posts in. Not to flatter you, but you are part of that VERY small list, as not only do you provide your own insights, but you’re willing to share others’ insights as well, which in my opinion makes you a must-read blog.

    Today I went through and whacked everything not in my must-read pile down to nothing older than a day in Google Reader. I doubt I missed anything I won’t see again.

    BTW, I love the tip of adding favorites to my RSS reader. Great trick, and maybe something you could do as a screencast or something some day Jim? Not hard…but I’d bet a LOT of people would find it useful and instructive. Call it “Never Miss a Great Article From Twitter Again” or something like that.

    • Phil, You do know what your talking about – that’s why I listen 😉

      I do a good job maintaining one of my lists but your raise a good point. Time to spend some time on the care and feeding of the others.

      Totally flattered and honored to be among your must reads. (You’re in my A-List group and I’m not even kidding).

      Nothing quite like the “mark all as read” moment in Google Reader. 🙂

      -Jim

  4. I have bunches of blogs too in me reader – whenever I read something that makes me think, I generally tweet about it online.

    Somewhat basic, I’m afraid….

  5. Thank you for sharing this. I’m “only” following 277 people right now, but I’ve recently found that instead of using Twitter for the good I had used it for back when I was only following about 100 people, I’ve been avoiding it all-together. Instead, I’ve started (slowly) to place people into lists and that’s been helpful. I’m still looking for better strategies and apps (blackberry) to use Twitter more effectively, but the lists help so much!

    • Hey Shayla,
      The list I follow most is “my100.” I’ve found that (for me) trying to follow more than 100 people and get any context out of the conversations just does not happen. Maybe your number is 75 or 150 or even 500 but I think we all have a number at which it becomes impossible to keep up.

      Have you tried Ubertwitter for the Blackberry? That’s what my wife still uses (and I used when I was a crackberry addict). There are features in there that I still miss a great deal.
      -Jim