It feels like every other day there is a new feature or an algorithm change to at least one social platform. When your job title includes “social media” in it, you probably feel pressured to know everything about every platform, especially if the company you work for runs multiple accounts. But how can one be expected to have so much knowledge about a world that is ever-changing?
Sometimes the changes are so substantial that you hear about them through the news or word of mouth, like when Twitter introduced Spaces, a way to have audio conversations in real-time akin to Clubhouse. Other times the changes go under the radar and you’re left clueless about them until it seems like every other social media manager is using those new features to their advantage and you’re left in the dust.
Just recently, I was scrolling through Twitter in my off time and saw something that I’d never heard of before, Twitter now has a newsletter feature! I thought I was finally learning about something new while it was still new. To my dismay, a quick Google search would actually show me that this is not a new feature, and actually started rolling out a year ago.
It can be extremely hard to keep up, especially if your organization’s social media team is comprised of only one or two individuals. You can subscribe to newsletters or blogs that update you on new social media features, but even then, it’s hard to become an expert on everything. The best thing to do is to identify which features serve the purposes of your company the best and focus on those.
For instance, I work for a company that benefits greatly from creating Instagram Guides, a feature that lets you compile a variety of posts into what is essentially a mini-blog. However, using something like Twitter Spaces wouldn’t really benefit us, and quite frankly I don’t think many people would join our spaces, so we put our efforts into other areas.
What do you do to keep up with social media changes? Do you find yourself feeling overwhelmed at times with how many new things there are to keep track of?
Facebook: Do you ever feel like you can’t keep up with the craziness of social media? I’m right there with you! Follow this link to read my thoughts about these ever-changing platforms: https://bit.ly/3s9Zse0 #socialmedia
Twitter: Do you feel like you can’t keep up with all the changes happening in the social media world? Me too! Read more on my thoughts about this: https://bit.ly/3s9Zse0 #socialmedia
Algonquin College Social Media Certificate Program 
Yes, I feel like I can’t keep up! Glad I am not the only one, and good to know that a good plan is to find the ones that fit the need of your goal and focus on them. That would be my mindset too if I was using it for work. It’s like the old saying, you can’t please everyone, only you can’t use everything to get to the goal. This is a big reason for me to take this course. Having limited exposure to social media in my career and personal life is particularly challenging, so I will take your advice and keep my efforts on those that meet my goals. Thank you for the great blog.
Very interesting post! Thank you! Seems like FOMO is everywhere these days. It’s a great idea to focus on the few features that give you the most benefit. However, to identify those few features, you still have to have a fairly decent understanding of all the features that are out there. That by itself is a lot of work.
I read your title and I thought I had to read more! Talk about not keeping up! I had no idea about the things you even mentioned like Spaces and the newsletter feature of Twitter. This is just reinforcing about why I am taking this course. To learn more about Social Media! My knowledge is quite limited and I worry about experimenting and exploring the options on social media platforms in case “I do something wrong” and post something I shouldn’t or erase something I shouldn’t or just do something inappropriate. There is so much to learn and as an older adult I find I don’t have the circle of friends who can show me how to do things on social media like younger people do. LOL…my friends are really not on social media very much (except for maybe Facebook) and only do the basics. I do find I ask my young adult son and daughter to help me with features at times and I hope to learn so much with my continuing education classes. Thanks for your interesting blog!
Thank you for this insiteful blog, totally agree and it happens all the time. Reading this blog brought to my attention that you’re right. It’s hard to keep up and I now realize I will put my social media efforts into places customers are already connecting with my workplace like Yelp and Homestars. Great easy read that flowed well and your pictures sums it up.