Social media is a mine of healthcare information, but it is also a time sink. Every day we are bombarded with a myriad of websites, blogs and social media streams filled with healthcare news, digital media trends, and new products and tools to try. But how do you find the time to stay up to date on everything that is current and relevant to you?
There are many tools available to help you make more efficient use of the time you spend on social media. Here are two I use and recommend.
Social media is a mine of healthcare information, but it is also a time sink. Every day we are bombarded with a myriad of websites, blogs and social media streams filled with healthcare news, digital media trends, and new products and tools to try. But how do you find the time to stay up to date on everything that is current and relevant to you?
There are many tools available to help you make more efficient use of the time you spend on social media. Here are two I use and recommend.
Feedly is an RSS feed reader application which allows you to organize your favorite blogs, news sites and Youtube channels and access them all in one place (or sync with Google Reader, Twitter and Facebook). Feedly recently announced a new collaboration with Buffer (a tool which schedules your social media updates for maximum exposure) allowing users to share their favorite articles from Feedly using their personalized Buffer schedule (click here for some good tips on how to maximise these two tools for effective content sharing).
You can also add Feedly to your phone, tablet and computer and keep up to date with your reading while on the go. The magazine style layout lets you easily browse through previews and see pictures to decide quickly what’s worthy of your attention.
I use Newsle to track news articles or blog posts featuring my Facebook and LinkedIn contacts.
This is a snapshot of part of my current Newsle feed which features articles by David Harlow, The Harlow Group LLC.
Another feature of this tool is that I can instantly send a tweet from the Newsle site.
Great article @healthblawg! newsle.com/article/0/5922… via @newsle
— Marie Ennis-O’Connor (@JBBC) February 11, 2013
There are many tools available to help you manage your time more effectively and efficiently online but rather than overwhelming you with too many options, I recommend you try one or both of these tools for a time and see how they work for you.
Do you have any favorite social media time saving tools you would like to recommend?
