When is Too Much Social Media Too Much?

I read an interesting post on a cool blog called Blogclump asking where people draw the line on social media. Like the post's author, Matt, I sometimes feel like my blogging, Twittering (@brucehammond), Facebooking, MySpacing, LinkedIning, and commenting on other blogs that I like, get to be a lot...

My personal answer to his question is that for the most part, I go to places and am engaged on tools where I know someone, or tools that I have heard will be beneficial to me. Since most of my friends are not on Friendfeed, or since they aren't using Digg or StumbleUpon, I just don't use them... I haven't figured out how they will benefit me, so I have yet to take the leap. My guess is that a lot of people feel the same way.

I have met people on Twitter, and that's the reason that I am engaged on that tool. As for Facebook and MySpace, all of my friends are there and we are able to easily keep in touch. As for LinkedIn, I am professionally networking with many people, some of whom I already knew.

As to Matt's final question about how to get out - I'd say don't, unless you aren't finding value in the tools you're using... If the tools, as Lisa points out in her comment, don't enhance your capability to act or give you value, they're not worth your time. Why feel as though you're behind, when you aren't necessarily getting value from the tools you're concerned about? If you were finding value, you'd find time to keep up with them.

As we in associations talk about often, stick to what gives you value and you'll be alright!