Managing the Digital Noise

How do you manage the digital noise?

As an entrepreneur do you feel like your life is full of digital noise? I spoke with my business coach a few weeks ago and she encouraged me to get my e-zine started. Since I have dragged my feet significantly she questioned my reticence. My response was…

“I want to make difference and not add noise. I want to make sure what I am bringing my clients and audience is valuable and wanted.”

Am I Making a Difference or Making Digital Noise?

I have been writing about business, marketing and social media since 2007. I am aware of the consequences of digital noise in our business. One of my main concerns with blogging is that I don’t add noise to your life but add value.

Several weeks ago I was reading Jim Connolly’s blog and came across his insightful post Are You Training People to Ignore You. In this post he writes?

Training people to ignore you

You can’t benefit from the noise deficit, because there isn’t one. So, all the noise makers do is train people to ignore them. Sure, they may have followers, but no one is listening to them. They may have our email address, but their emails don’t get opened or acted on. If they stopped making their noise, we wouldn’t miss them at all.

The difference deficit

Where there is a deficit, is with people who are making a difference. These are the rare people we eagerly subscribe to. These are the people we look forward to hearing from. They add something of value to us and our business. They make a difference. A positive, meaningful difference.

Ouch! We definitely do not want to train people to ignore us. I urge you to quiet the noise in your digital life.

Managing the Digital Noise

Is your email box full to overflowing. You can’t find the mail that needs action because you have too many emails to scroll through?

Unroll.me

I started using Unroll.me around 2 months ago. Unroll.me allows you to get one email a day will all of your newsletters curated for the day. This allows you to see at a glance if there is something you want to read. You can adjust the settings easily. I recommend that you watch their 1-minute video. The service is free but does not work with an Exchange account.

Unsubscribe

I really pause now before giving out my email address for the latest infographic or report. I now know I will get a zillion follow-up emails that add a lot of noise to my in-box. If you must have that infographic then remember you can always click the unsubscribe link usually at the bottom of the email. That extra 10-seconds of time to unsubscribe will save you many hours of deleting, scrolling and ignoring the noise.

Social Media

Confession time! I am so guilty of using social media to procrastinate. I don’t want to complete something I buzz over to Facebook and scroll through stuff. Twitter? Yeah those 280 characters wasting my time and distracting me. I call them my “squirrel moments”. LinkedIn has tons of posts to read, group members to approve, discussions to moderate. Can anyone say “digital noise”? Here are few tips to help quiet that noise.

1. Scheduling your social media time and only sign in several times a day. Give yourself a time limit and stick with it.
2. Consider paring down on your social media audience. Has you niche changed since you started on social media? Do you need to refine your target audience? Every six months take a look at your audience and see if they are getting your message or are you making noise for them.
3. Turn off email notifications. If you are on your social media sites every day stop receiving email notifications. Every time you have to delete that notification you are wasting your valuable time.
4. What is your ROI? Are these sites really benefitting your business? Do they bring you satisfaction or enjoyment? Evaluate your social media marketing and whether it is meeting your needs.

As I contemplate my new e-zine I am evaluating the digital noise coming into my life and look forward to making a difference in your world.