I read an article recently where a young professional opted to cut out social media from his life for 90 days. He did it because he wanted to see what it would be like.

It’s an interesting commentary on our culture and I think he makes some great points about how much time social media eats up, as well as how interactions change as a result of using social media so much. Truth to tell, one of the reasons I limit my time on social media so much is precisely because I want interactions with people that are more genuine and I find social media diminishes to some degree, if that’s the only way you interact with people.

But I don’t think its realistic to live in a social media free world anymore. Social media has become part of our culture and lives. Companies are even starting to use it as a primary method of communication. The challenge isn’t how to live without social media, but rather how to balance it in your life so that its something you use as needed, but not something that replaces your interactions with people.

I schedule a weekly game night. I use it as an opportunity to see friends and do an activity that allows us to not only play a game, but also catch up with each other. I go out to dinner or host dinners. I do other activities that involve spending time with people. And as a result I don’t feel like all my interactions occur just on social media.

What do you do to make sure you get the time you need with the people who are important in your life? What do you do to balance your social media time with in person time?

One of the distractions I deal with everyday is Facebook. Until recently, I kept Facebook on my browser at all times, until one day I decided to count how many times I checked Facebook. I found out that I checked it about 20 times. I didn’t even do much on there, but I quickly realized it was a distraction that was keeping me from working on my business. Facebook isn’t the only culprit. Twitter and Google + can be just as distracting.

A business owner has to use his/her time wisely, especially when you’re working on your business as opposed to selling a product or working with a client. Working on your business can sometimes be tedious work and the temptation to check Facebook or some other social networking site can really disrupt your productivity.

What I’ve taken to doing is turning Facebook off, and not just from my browser. I’ve turned off all the notifications as well. I get on in the morning and check my notifications and do my business activities and then I shut the tab down and I don’t look until sometime in the afternoon, and once late in the evening. Needless to say I can already tell there’s a difference in the amount of time I’m putting toward my business.

Are you distracted by social media? Do my exercise to find out. Pick one social network and count how many times that day you checked in and record what you did while on the site. After you’ve counted up the times you checked a site, ask yourself how much of what you did was productive for your business and how much was just to distract yourself.

It is okay to use Facebook as the occasional distraction, but if you’re checking it frequently, chances are that you aren’t getting as much done, as you want to. If that’s the case, turn off the notifications to your email by clicking the arrow close to your name and clicking account settings. Also when you’re done looking at Facebook, shut the tab down. You’ll save time and effort that can be put toward your business.

Book Review: The Power of Habit (Affiliate Link) by Charles Duhigg

This is a must have book if you are a business owner. The author provides case studies that show the power of habits and how habits can make a difference in your life and business. He also supplies excellent ideas on how to change negative habits. The book is well-written and the core concepts are easy to understand. You’ll come away with a new appreciation for habits as well as tools for how to change them!

The other day I did something radical. I decided to turn off all email notifications from Facebook. That probably doesn’t sound very radical, but I realized that every time I received an email from Facebook, I’d end up going onto Facebook and in the process waste a bit of time to answer a comment or check whatever else it was that brought me to Facebook. And when I looked at my other social networking accounts I saw similar distractions being sent that clogged my email.

As a business owner, I have to protect my time jealousy. If I don’t, I won’t get a lot done. It’s very easy to get caught up in social media sites, because someone answers a post you wrote or or some other conversation starts up. Notifications only make it more complicated, and are a reflection of a cultural push that we have to be notified of everything, or we’ll miss out on an opportunity or something else.

In Europe, companies are doing away with internal email. The argument is that email wastes time and decreases productivity. It’s an accurate perception of email, and notifications from social networking sites is also part of that information pollution.

The other day I got onto my Facebook account and under account settings, I turned off all the email notifications for my personal account. The only email notifications I left on pertained to my business pages, because I do want to offer a timely response. But I turned the rest off. I consciously chose to step back and let go of the need to be informed. I did the same with my Linkedin, Twitter, and Google Plus accounts.

And the result? Less email clutter, less distractions, more focus on what’s important. I check my Facebook once or twice a day and I can address the comments, likes, etc. Same for the other sites. Most importantly I’m not putting more time into social media than what needs to be there.

Turn your notifications off. You don’t need to be notified about every little thing on your social media accounts. Just go to the sites consistently and you’ll get the notifications you need to see when you visit the site.

I read a blog entry today about transparency in Marketing. The author asked why people thought businesses didn’t become more transparent in their marketing. In thinking about it, I think the main reason boils down to fear. Fear of what?

Fear of loss of income. Businesses live and die by the bottom line and one of the main fears is that by being transparent they will anger their customers and lose business as a result. Businesses think its better to not be transparent to avoid making someone unhappy. The problem is that those approach no longer works in a social media era. It’s very easy for people to post a bad experience and share it, and when companies seem to hide the problem it only makes people more unhappy. Lack of transparency hurts the bottom line more than being transparent and honest with customers.

Fear of Customer unhappiness. Similar to the fear above, businesses are afraid of customer unhappiness. They want to keep customers happy, but often approach it in a heavy handed manner, instead of doing what they should do, which is listen to the customer, and work toward resolving the issue together. Businesses also need to realize that you won’t make everyone happy, but making a genuine effort to resolve a situation will stand out more favorably than anything else.

Fear of competition. Some businesses are afraid of their competition and what it will do if it has access to their marketing. While such a fear can be legitimate, its also true that as long as you can differentiate yourself in your marketing, it will make your business stand out.

These are just three fears. What are some others fears that you think businesses have, when it comes to being transparent?

The other day I attended a talk where the presenter claimed that all of us needed to be on social media and all of us has had to have a certain number of people following us to be relevant. With Facebook it was 1000 fans, LinkedIn 250 connections, Twitter 500 people, etc. To be honest my Facebook page only 280 fans at the time of this writing. I exceed the minimum numbers on the other accounts, but numbers doesn’t matter that much to me. What matters is that I have relationships with people that have chosen to follow me.

The relationships you have are what define your business. I have over a thousand on Linkedin in my connections. I don’t know even half of them and of the people I know, most of them are casual acquaintances. Some of them turn into business connections, based in part on getting to know me via my social media interactions. But the people I connect with choose to move that connection beyond social media. Likewise the majority of people on my Facebook page are mostly passive observers. A few of them comment regularly and it is with those people that I have the greatest breadth of relationships.

Social media is sometimes treated as a posting platform, where you belt your message out to everyone and hope someone will respond. I prefer to instead engage people and develop relationships. If they really want my business, they’ll get involved and we’ll start getting to know each other. All numbers really does is expand my exposure, but nothing is guaranteed until people start to interact with me.

My advice? Let your numbers grow organically, treat your followers with respect, and build relationships. You will get business if you approach it from this angle. Most importantly you’ll develop true social influence and be able to help people who need what you have to offer.

More than ever social media demands transparency on the part of companies, but even more so it demands that people who work at companies show more awareness of the consequences of their actions. All three examples mentioned above are passive aggressive swipes at people. This doesn’t excuse what has happened. If anything, it highlights the reality that companies need to simultaneously empower employees and at the same time inform them of the consequences of their actions.

Customers will use social media to raise awareness and accountability on the part of companies. Customers know that if nothing else, companies will rush to save face, because they all know that if the customer stops shopping, the business loses more than its face.

Employees need to consider whether its really worth it to lash out at customers. Why are they really taking those actions out on customers? Is the customer the reason they are acting out that way? What is it the employee really wants?

The employer needs to listen to those questions and not dismiss them casually. Such incidents never occur in a vacuum, and while the employer can fire employees who have taken such actions, it’s only addressing the symptoms of the issue, instead of the underlying problems.

I’ve also gotten the credit card reader application. This will definitely prove useful anytime I want to sell books or other services to people. Being able to take credit cards on site makes people feel much more comfortable and cuts down on paperwork and costs.

I have added skype. Since I have a plan where I can call anywhere in the U.S. or Canada with skype, I’m thinking I can use it to save on minutes, which will be useful for my phone bill.

I’m in debate about Google Plus, Facebook, and even Tweetdeck. Part of that is due to my data plan and part of it is because I do almost all of my social media updating at my office. It focuses my time, and makes things easy. On the other hand, it would be nice to update occasionally from a place I’m visiting. I’ll see how I use those applications, if at all, for the next month and if I find that I’m not using them, I’ll probably get rid of them, so they aren’t a distraction.

My smart phone needs to be a business tool. That’s my primary reason for getting one. By figuring out exactly what apps I’ll use for my business, I can ensure that I’m not spending too much time on the phone or getting distracted from using it for what its intended for. That’s how it should be with any business tool. Define its purpose, define how you will use it, and get rid of anything on it that doesn’t contribute to fulfilling that purpose. You stream line your time and effort when you take that approach.

If a company is so concerned about the potential loss of followers, my suggestion is that they start an official company account and make sure that their employees use that account instead of letting employees use their own accounts. I don’t think their case holds any merit because the person used his own Twitter account, and also because he’s mainly used it to tell people jokes or details of his life outside of work.

On the other hand, originally the employees account had the name of the company in it. Even though he changed his handle, it can be construed as company property because he associated the handle with the business.

Does your company own your followers? I think it’s a gray area right now, but it’d behoove both companies and people to carefully define what virtual property really means, and whether or not a follower constitutes “property” within that virtual account.

Let me use a personal example. Up until recently I’ve resisted the idea of getting a smart phone. I know a lot of people have them, but I didn’t feel it was worth the hassle of learning how to use one when all I really want it for is to make calls and send occasional texts. Recently, however my feelings about this technology have changed and I’m recognizing how I can actually use it to enhance and simplify the running of my business. Until I could understand how it could benefit my business, I didn’t see a point in getting the technology, and in fact there wasn’t a point. what I had already worked well enough for me. But once I understood how a smart phone could improve my business, then it made sense to upgrade to one.

And how does getting a smart phone improve my business? Square up offers a way for me to take credit card cheaply and efficiently using my smart phone. That tool will allow me to save money each month I don’t use my credit card service (I currently get charged a base fee even if I don’t use the credit card service, while square up is pay as you go). I also recently realized that I could set up appointments via my phone, getting rid of the need for a physical calendar, and I’m even going to use my smart phone for more of my social media activities. All of these actions tell me that I can implement this technology and it will benefit my business.

What about you? Do you know why you are using technology for your business and how implementing it is actually benefiting your business? Are you using your tech to help you save time and streamline your activities? These are good questions to ask that can help you determine if you are using the right technology for your business. Unless you know why you are using the technology and how it will benefit your business, there’s no point in using it.

I took a picture of this sign the other day at a Quiznos. When I saw it, it confirmed something to me that I’ve come to believe about social coupon sites. They don’t help small businesses. One might argue that quiznos isn’t a small business, but someone who chooses to franchise a store essentially is a small business owner and deals with some of the same issues other small business owners deal with.

When I see a sign like that, I see a rebellion against the social coupon sites and what, for a small business, is really a less than good deal. Such sites are frequented by people who want deals and those same people are less than likely to be loyal return customers, because they will still be looking for deals the next day and day after. That’s not to say that social coupon sites can’t work, but business owners have to provide a compelling experience and when your business is overwhelmed because lots of people have opted into the deal, its hard to provide that kind of experience. The result is people who complain about the service they received on both the social coupon site and the social review sites such as Yelp and Angies list. The consequence is a business which is hurt simply because it tried to use a social coupon site to get more business and wasn’t adequately prepared to handle the traffic.

Social coupon sites won’t go away until small businesses stop supporting them. While the concept looks good in theory, in practice social coupon sites doe less to help small businesses. Their main concern is getting people to use their site to sign up for deals, so that they’ll keep coming back to that site. Additionally when existing clients see that the small business is doing a social coupon deal it may cause them to devalue the small business. Helping a small business is a low priority for a social coupon site.

If businesses want to get more clients, consider offering a coupon deal through your own site and marketing efforts. And remember as well that a successful business has to develop relationships with its clients. A deal is always nice, but people commit to your business when they feel that you want to know them and know what they need.