Janet   |   Jul 9th, 2009

With the social media buzz swirling through the world faster than swine flu, I was both baffled and amused, upon finding in my inbox a friendly e-mail alert from Twitter stating that “Jane Doe” was now following me on Twitter. Now Jane is one of my oldest and dearest friends, and until just now was avidly anti social media and networking. She barely drummed the slightest bit of interest when I shared news of finding mutual classmates from our elementary school days or of my being privy to news of her relatives from across the country.

So why Twitter, I asked myself, seeing as, in my opinion, its one of the least useful and entertaining forums out there? My conclusion was — the saturation — its everywhere, she just had to give in. Everyone is jumping on the bandwagon, from news stations to politicians tweeting from the Senate floor, even poor misguided Brittney was briefly dead the other day thanks to hackers.

I guess I can’t blame her, but when I asked, “Why Twitter?” she promptly replied, “It’s the least time-consuming.” Now there’s an interesting theory, but certainly not the wisest.

If you’re going to jump into the social media flu at least do it wholeheartedly, do some research and try to make it beneficial. My boss happened to pass a handy list around the office the other day of the 50 social sites every business needs a presence in.

Now 50 is overkill, even for the most media savvy-geek, but she should have done a little research, it might surprise her to know its not as time-consuming as she thinks. Having a Facebook, Myspace, Twitter or Linkedin will not consume your day, I repeat will not consume your day, or week or month for that matter. It can, however, prove to be a useful means of communicating and keeping up-to-date with friends and colleagues spread far and wide, it can even become a problem solving tool.

For example, recently a friend posted a request on Facebook asking for the name of a seamstress in town. I happen to know one, and replied with the information, another friend of hers saw my reply and he also called the seamstress, within a matter of hours three people found their problem resolved and I was feeling pretty good about being able to help them from the comfort of my desk — social media at work, you get and receive as much out of it as you put into it.

In a nutshell, the verdict is do your research, figure out what do you want to do — keep up with friends and family, build your business network, possibly learn a thing or two, pick up a hobby — there’s a networking site for just about everything now. Pick one and move from there with an open mind, cut it some slack and you might learn a thing or two. If after a couple months, you still feel it’s a time-consuming over-hyped sensation, then so be it, but at least rather than whine about not joining based on preconceived notions, you’ll have an educated answer.