I love social media.
Let’s get that out there right now. Ten years ago, I was an avid participant in online networks and discussion groups, proselytizing to everyone who would listen on the professional benefits of online engagement.
I learned a ton from the people in these communities, made business contacts around the world, had fun, landed projects and contributed ideas and information where I could.
Those early networks (anyone remember Ryze?) morphed and solidified into what we now call social media, a ubiquitous part of today’s business environment, as basic a tool as websites or business cards used to be.
In recent years, social media’s power, usefulness and market penetration has grown exponentially, a trend I have embraced and participated in. So the question I’m about to raise doesn’t come from a social media pooh-pooher. Quite the opposite: I’m as much a proselytizer as ever.
But here’s the question:
When social media enables you to be ever-present and always on, what are the consequences of choosing to turn off for periods of time?
The question hits home for me. For the past 5 months, I’ve been juggling a full-time job (one that doesn’t allow for social media interaction) in addition to running a company. The demands on my time have been intense and in the little personal time I manage to carve out each week, I need to disconnect from work and technology entirely. My sanity and my marriage require it.
As a consequence, I’ve been tweeting very little, blogging not at all and visiting LinkedIn only rarely. To my dismay, my Klout score has dropped from a respectable low 50s to a decidedly average 20. It feels like what took years of careful effort to build is slipping away in a virtual instant.
My rational side tells me to be calm. “Jennifer,” it says, “relax. Klout is an interesting measurement but it’s certainly not an indication of the full scope of your skill set or network strength.”
Then my alarmist side chimes in. “Klout matters to the people in your industry! You’re jeopardizing your career prospects and your ability to secure engaging work!”
Klout isn’t important in every industry but I suspect people in the circles I work and hobnob in – marketing, media, publishing – will check my score, especially when considering whether to hire me.
I’m reminded of a book I read last year, Susan Maushart’s Winter of our Disconnect, a captivating chronicle of her family’s choice to disconnect from all screens and internet devices for a full six months.
I wonder, if you rely on social media and web connectedness for your job and you unplug for six months, would you find it a career-limiting move?
What if you’d like to take a sabbatical or parental leave? What if you’re on vacation for a month or are fighting through an extended illness?
How long can you be out of the social media loop before it begins to negatively affect what you’ve previously built? Do you have to choose between sustaining your career and taking a sanity-preserving time-out?
I’ve already seen what removing myself from the social media loop has done to my Klout score. I wasn’t monitoring it these past five months, so I’m not sure when it started to fall or how quickly it dropped.
My follower counts on Twitter have remained steady, and even grown a tiny bit, but I notice my engagement is down. I’m not exchanging tweets with people anymore and I’m being retweeted much less. I haven’t blogged in months so naturally my web traffic has dropped. I’d like all that to change.
As a New Year’s pledge, I’ve decided to work on rebuilding my Klout score. It will be an experiment in what it takes to raise my number and what consequences or benefits raising it will have.
I’ll still be aiming for balance, though. I’m not the sort of person who can be tied to my digital device during both work and personal time and be happy about it. I don’t like to tweet about what I’m baking, or upload pictures when I’m out with my friends, or check into Foursquare when I stop in for coffee.
My social media m.o. has always been mostly work, some play. There will be breaks: weekends off, week-long holidays, that sort of thing. I’ll track the effect those have on my Klout score, too.
In the meantime, I’d love to know what experiences you’ve had with Klout or with social media engagement in general. Have you taken extended breaks and found it’s had a negative effect on your profile? Is Klout important or not important in your industry? To your career?
I’m no linguist but it seems to me that up until a decade or so ago, the English language was still evolving so slowly that it was hardly noticeable, like a glacier creeping forward by an inch every year.
