How Bloggers Can Use FriendFeed Effectively
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FriendFeed is becoming more and more than popular, and if you lot're not on it yet, you're in the minority. While some people stop what they're doing to complain about the ever-changing mural of social networking – don't get me wrong, a totally valid peeve – go a headstart on them by becoming an effective FriendFeed user.
First Stop: Managing the Bespeak-to-Noise Ratio
Services like FriendFeed are known for generating a lot of noise. It's not FriendFeed'due south fault, though. It's function and parcel of the service they offering, since it's designed to collect all known sources of your content in one place.
Think about it this way: the average blogger will post an article on their site, then go add it to Digg, StumbleUpon, and all the other bookmarking sites, declare its being on Facebook, Twitter, Plurk and Tumblr, and then sit back and hope for some comments.
What I've merely outlined is really a pretty light promotional routine, and we're nevertheless up to seven notifications for the 1 postal service. That'southward a terrible point-to-noise ratio!
To become a respected member of the customs the onus is on yous to keep your signal high and dissonance depression. Not on your friends, non on FriendFeed – just you. Information technology's a procedure of pruning, in some cases. When I commencement signed upwards for my own account, I plugged in all the services that it offered compatibility with. Then, over the adjacent few days, I found myself tweeting at an abnormally high volume – effectively creating a agglomeration of noise and blocking out all the content on my FriendFeed page that I wanted people to see.
In the end, the best thing for me to do was cut Twitter loose from FriendFeed to prune back the noise. Besides, I use Tumblr to denote my work around the web in one identify, because it can be so easily displayed in the sidebar of my own website. That makes my Tumblr account totally redundant as far equally FriendFeed is concerned.
Managing your own signal-to-noise is essential, merely what about everyone else? The key is in being discriminatory and not subscribing to those who flood you with rubbish. On services like Twitter, you're likely to follow others for the good conversation. With FriendFeed, it's best to subscribe to people y'all really know, are involved with in some kind of online venture, or are providing existent, practical value to you through their feed.
After you've followed a few high-signal friends, rooms are the best option for staying in touch with a community of people.
Make the Signal Count: Offer Value to the Customs
It'south one matter to let FriendFeed collect your data from around the web and not pay much attention to how your feed looks. You might have trimmed information technology back by excluding Twitter and any other repetitive feeds, but your job is non yet done. If yous desire to make it worthwhile for others to subscribe to your feed, you have to provide them with value. They have to proceeds information they find either insanely useful or incredibly interesting from your feed.
The best fashion to do this is with the bookmarklet which allows you to post a link to any page y'all're visiting with a clarification quickly and easily. Once more, be discriminating. People practice desire gatekeepers, and despite the fact y'all're not creating that content, simply linking to it, that's a valuable service to provide – so long equally your subscribers similar the style you lot filter information.
Also remember to send resources to the rooms you're involved with, using the bookmarklet. Always choose to submit content relevant to that room'southward topic. This is a smashing fashion to find subscribers who wouldn't have found your feed any other way.
On a somewhat related aside, understanding and using the principles of gatekeeping theory can help you become a relevant content provider on the spider web.
FriendFeed Rooms: Edifice Your Community
A number of loftier-profile sites accept started FriendFeed rooms that are encouraging the growth of agile communities, such as our own Lifehack room and the ProBlogger room.
You demand to have either the time and free energy to build a customs from scratch or the brand recognition to create a room that is cocky-sustaining off the bat, just FriendFeed rooms are non only a great style to gain more than subscribers for your own FriendFeed. You tin start your own rooms to build a community for your site, or for a topic of involvement.
If you don't have a successful website or blog that enables you to open the room, denote it and leave information technology to grow on its ain, you demand to put in fifty-fifty more work getting it off the ground. Scour the spider web for great resources and link to them, use pictures to make it attractive and middle-catching, and make insightful and thought-provoking comments that get people thinking and replying with their own ideas. Reply to them. Partake in the community feel, and with some difficult work you'll have a room that's worth subscribing to.
Bloggers, and businesses, will recognize the value of having an active community.
Microblogging Productively – Oxymoron or What?
While this article is virtually FriendFeed, this adjacent section can apply to Twitter, Pownce, Plurk, and all the rest of 'em also.
Asking how to use these services while having a productive work solar day is similar asking your goldfish to bark. And if it tin bark, it may be a candidate for a speedy flushing, or submission to a freakshow. It'due south impossible to apply these services and be productive, when information technology comes down to it. Nevertheless, at that place are some measures y'all can take to regain some of your productivity and at to the lowest degree arrive look similar yous take a work ethic.
i. Turn off notifications in whatever app – such as Growl – that accept the ability to alert y'all to new feed items and tweets.
2. Don't utilise the web while working – if you've been reading this blog for a while you know that already! Exceptions apply to bloggers and other 'web-workers' who can't get their task washed without having a browser open up.
three. Utilise self-discipline. Cocky-discipline is similar a musculus, and what ameliorate mode to practice information technology and brand information technology stronger than past keeping the heck away from distractions like Twitter or FriendFeed when y'all're doing piece of work that involves high levels of concentration? I bet even the founders of those services bide by this rule.
Seriously, using cocky-subject area is the only way to remain productive at annihilation, anytime. All other productivity tips and systems depend on it; none of them can replace it. But with the motherly part of the article out of the way…
Get over to FriendFeed and start making it work for you!
Source: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/how-bloggers-can-use-friendfeed-effectively.html
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