College students are notoriously busy. With classes, extra curricular activities, going to the gym, and friends, it is a miracle we can fit all our activities into one day. So how does one add social media to the mix? 
How do you become an active participant without becoming a social media addict? That question has been on the minds of many of our staff members. Here are some great tips from PR pros who have managed to find a balance between real life and the virtual life.
You can’t do it all!
It is impossible for you to get your fingers in everything! So be selective. PR professor Kelli Matthews suggests that students pick a few social media tools they want to invest time in and select a few more to check once or twice a week. Subscribing to RSS feeds to your favorite or influential blogs will also help you keep up! Personally, I enjoy Facebook, Twitter and reading and writing blogs. I spend a couple hours a day conversing on Twitter and Facebook. I also spend a few hours each week working on the two blogs I contribute to and a couple more hours reading the various blogs I follow. Once you establish your priority list, you can slowly integrate these tools into your daily schedule.
Don’t let it take over
Ever log into Facebook just to check your wall and browse through a few photos only to find yourself an hour in looking at photos of someone you don’t really know? It is easy to get sucked into the social media blackhole that seems to go from link to link, on and on. Jason Falls, director of Doe-Anderson and active social media participant, says that he sets a time limit for himself when checking Web sites like Twitter. Jason reserves the majority of his social networking for his spare time. Checking it after hours allows him to enjoy the time he has on various social media networks without having to worry about it taking away from his productivity. Kelli says that she has learned to replace her old media tools with social media ones. Instead of reading the newspaper, she gets her news on Twitter, news feeds, blogs and other social media tools.
Be Efficient
Just as you should be selective with what social networks you want to participate in, you should also be selective in what you do on those media tools. Only share information that is valuable and adds to the conversation. You do not need to follow everyone on Twitter who is following you. Follow those whom you have engaged in conversations with or who add value to your field. Take time to grow your network. Learn how much activity you can manage and then decide how many people you can actively follow. Utilize social media tools to help make your networking more efficient, not more distracting. I like using TweetDeck because I can be notified when someone has directly replied to my tweet versus when someone makes a general update. I can use these pop up messages to determine the importance of checking or responding to these comments in a timely fashion.
Do you have any tips to add? How do you manage your social media activity as a college student?
Amanda Ip
Assistant Firm Director of Internal Communication
