After finally pulling the trigger and restarting this blog, I already find myself juggling my social media activities and my day to day 'Director of the House' duties. Miss B has just gone down, I'm tired but I couldn't help but jump on the computer and already I'm feeling like I'm neglected my blog. When I set out to do something particularly professional, I always like to give it 110% and this blog is no different, although this 'little project' I have created is not exactly professional (at this point in time anyway), but having said that, I'm not doing this simply because I have nothing better to do but wash dishes. So where do you draw the line on how much time to dedicate to your blog and others, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest? I haven't even looked at Linkedin yet! Yes, this blog is in early days but there's not much point in dedicating a considerable amount of effort into the content and it not being read so it's not only finding time to write it, it needs time to promote it. This social media thing could seriously be a full time job! Perhaps I don't need to pull the 'real trigger' after all? Nice thought but I'll cross that bridge when I start taking sponsorship proposals.
It doesn't feel that long ago, I was working for a classifieds website. From memory, MySpace and Facebook were still battling it out and I hadn't bothered with either. I seriously thought it was a time waster and even now on days when I look at the clock and wonder where the last 2 hours of my day went, my thoughts are often the same, although Facebook can't be entirely blamed for that. When social media popped up in our strategy, in particular Facebook, I thought I had better get on board and find out exactly how to use it! Remember I mentioned that feeling of being out of my depth, this was around that time (pregnancy hormones didn't help!). I started jumping on occasionally, but definitely not every day. I remember reading about women, in particular mothers becoming obsessed by it and admitting humorously, that it was interfering with their parenting. I shook my head at this notion as I still wasn't convinced of its influence. In fact, it has taken me quite some time to be convinced of it as a marketing tool. I still don't think it works for everyone and I also think that there are many organisations that use it, because they think they should, but don't understand exactly what they want to achieve from it, so of course it's not going to be effective and tangible. That's another post altogether and not by me.
So as a mum, I was a Facebook converter. It made me feel connected and in touch with my pre baby life but also it was great to keep everyone up to date with all the aspects of being a new parent. As an expat it's great for updating family and friends with pics and status updates. You're away from them but you still feel very connected. Mr A refused to sign up. Instead he chose to live vicariously though my page and still does, despite the fact that he now has a page of his own, that I created, in an attempt to stop missing my new notifications and messages. You can imagine my thoughts when Mr A, out of the blue became 'addicted' to Twitter. I still didn't see the point in Twitter. What has the world come to with their celebrity obsessions? Who cares if Paris is laying on a beach in Mexico? Seriously don't these 'twits' have better things to do with their time? I didn't get that he would tweet over Facebook. However, when Mr A start updating me on the latest, up to the minute local traffic, which can be a life saver here in Doha and latest openings, sales, weather (also vital, although for about 5mths, it doesn't change from DAMN HOT'), and various other up to the minute handy snippets, I thought I might give it a go.
Last week, without Twitter, Doha News (a local unofficial news website) and Facebook, I would have been completely oblivious to the tragedy unfolding. The sense of community I felt as a direct result of being connected through social media was an amazing support to the strange grief that I experienced as a complete stranger to all those directly impacted, and thanks to Twitter and Facebook, I know that I wasn't alone in feeling like this. In fact at times, it may have influenced my own parenting as I just couldn't take myself away from it. In the aftermath, it has kept me up to date and connected once again with reactions from authorities and the community and it's given me a voice. It forwarded me to blogs, that I am now reading regularly, which have inspired me to start my own again. We've been in Doha going on eighteen months now so I was living in the Middle East as the 'Arab Spring' evolved and regardless of hearing over and over again, the impact or influence that Twitter had on these events, I found it difficult to comprehend. Well, now I get it.
So where does Pinterest come in? I love Pinterest, it's a little break or escape from the day. It's probably the least important site I visit on a regular basis but it's also the one I could waste the most amount of time on. It inspires me and I'm not sure if this makes sense but it's a consistently nice experience. It's not political, it never winds you up, it's not judgemental, it's full of creativity and it's just a happy place to go to look at nice things and stick 'em on your board. A nice, simple time waster and I love it!
So once again, I come back to 'balance'. Every week is not going to be like last week. You've got to crawl before you can walk and I have the time to crawl today. I can be extremely impatient and I would love to write a quality post every day to make this blog feel worthy and established but it's just not going to happen. Once you become a mother, you learn that 110% is not always possible. Something has to give and sometimes the dishes do have to be done!
If you've got some time on your hands, I'd be rather interested to hear how much time other bloggers dedicate to their Blog, reading others and social media in general. How much are you influenced by blog income or the potential of it?
It doesn't feel that long ago, I was working for a classifieds website. From memory, MySpace and Facebook were still battling it out and I hadn't bothered with either. I seriously thought it was a time waster and even now on days when I look at the clock and wonder where the last 2 hours of my day went, my thoughts are often the same, although Facebook can't be entirely blamed for that. When social media popped up in our strategy, in particular Facebook, I thought I had better get on board and find out exactly how to use it! Remember I mentioned that feeling of being out of my depth, this was around that time (pregnancy hormones didn't help!). I started jumping on occasionally, but definitely not every day. I remember reading about women, in particular mothers becoming obsessed by it and admitting humorously, that it was interfering with their parenting. I shook my head at this notion as I still wasn't convinced of its influence. In fact, it has taken me quite some time to be convinced of it as a marketing tool. I still don't think it works for everyone and I also think that there are many organisations that use it, because they think they should, but don't understand exactly what they want to achieve from it, so of course it's not going to be effective and tangible. That's another post altogether and not by me.
So as a mum, I was a Facebook converter. It made me feel connected and in touch with my pre baby life but also it was great to keep everyone up to date with all the aspects of being a new parent. As an expat it's great for updating family and friends with pics and status updates. You're away from them but you still feel very connected. Mr A refused to sign up. Instead he chose to live vicariously though my page and still does, despite the fact that he now has a page of his own, that I created, in an attempt to stop missing my new notifications and messages. You can imagine my thoughts when Mr A, out of the blue became 'addicted' to Twitter. I still didn't see the point in Twitter. What has the world come to with their celebrity obsessions? Who cares if Paris is laying on a beach in Mexico? Seriously don't these 'twits' have better things to do with their time? I didn't get that he would tweet over Facebook. However, when Mr A start updating me on the latest, up to the minute local traffic, which can be a life saver here in Doha and latest openings, sales, weather (also vital, although for about 5mths, it doesn't change from DAMN HOT'), and various other up to the minute handy snippets, I thought I might give it a go.
Last week, without Twitter, Doha News (a local unofficial news website) and Facebook, I would have been completely oblivious to the tragedy unfolding. The sense of community I felt as a direct result of being connected through social media was an amazing support to the strange grief that I experienced as a complete stranger to all those directly impacted, and thanks to Twitter and Facebook, I know that I wasn't alone in feeling like this. In fact at times, it may have influenced my own parenting as I just couldn't take myself away from it. In the aftermath, it has kept me up to date and connected once again with reactions from authorities and the community and it's given me a voice. It forwarded me to blogs, that I am now reading regularly, which have inspired me to start my own again. We've been in Doha going on eighteen months now so I was living in the Middle East as the 'Arab Spring' evolved and regardless of hearing over and over again, the impact or influence that Twitter had on these events, I found it difficult to comprehend. Well, now I get it.
So where does Pinterest come in? I love Pinterest, it's a little break or escape from the day. It's probably the least important site I visit on a regular basis but it's also the one I could waste the most amount of time on. It inspires me and I'm not sure if this makes sense but it's a consistently nice experience. It's not political, it never winds you up, it's not judgemental, it's full of creativity and it's just a happy place to go to look at nice things and stick 'em on your board. A nice, simple time waster and I love it!
So once again, I come back to 'balance'. Every week is not going to be like last week. You've got to crawl before you can walk and I have the time to crawl today. I can be extremely impatient and I would love to write a quality post every day to make this blog feel worthy and established but it's just not going to happen. Once you become a mother, you learn that 110% is not always possible. Something has to give and sometimes the dishes do have to be done!
If you've got some time on your hands, I'd be rather interested to hear how much time other bloggers dedicate to their Blog, reading others and social media in general. How much are you influenced by blog income or the potential of it?
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