Are You Using Social Media for Genealogy?

"Social Media" is defined by Wikipedia as "Social media refers to the means of interaction among people in which they create, share, and/or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks."

A neat "Conversatons in Social Media" infographic appeared on the Infographicality website back in March 2013:

[Hat tip to the In-Depth Genealogist post "Social Media and Genealogy:  It's Not Just About Chats With Friends Anymore" by Shannon Combs Bennett]

There are about 200 different social media outlets listed.

When I saw this, my reaction was "Wow, I'm way behind the times!"  I wondered how many of these social media outlets I use.  Here's my list:

*  Social bookmarks - I use none of those listed.
*  Question and Answer sites - none of those listed.   Where's WolframAlpha?
*  Live Casting and LifeStreams - I use none of those listed.  Where's Google+ Hangouts?
*  Social Shopping/Social Commerce - I use none of those listed.  
*  Crowdsourced content - I use none of those listed.  I have done FamilySearch Indexing, does that count?
*  Collaboration - I  use Google News and Google.  I looked  at Mindmeister once and was confused.
*  Blog Platforms - I haven't used the ones shown.  Where's Blogger?  That's what I use!
*  Blog Search - I use none of those listed.
*  Blog Communities - I use none of those listed.  I use Geneabloggers, Facebook Groups and Google+ Communities for genealogy.
*  Micromedia - I use Twitter!  Finally something I can relate to!
*  Twitter Ecosystem - I have used Tweetdeck a few times.
*  Location Based Services - I use none of those listed.  Where's Google Maps?  I've used that!
*  Social Networks - I use none of those listed, except for Facebook.
*  Forums - I use none of those listed.  I use Rootsweb message boards and mailing lists for genealogy.
*  SMS/Voice, Instant Messaging - none of those listed.  I do send a few messages on my iPhone, and used Microsoft Windows Live messaging for awhile for genealogy.
*  Interest and Curated Networks - none of those listed except for LinkedIn, which I don't use much.  I used Google Reader, and now Feedly for genealogy blog reading, which is an interest network of mine.
*  Reputation - I use none of those listed.
*  Location - I use none of those listed except for Google Maps.
*  Video - I watch YouTube often, LegacyFamilyTree webinars often, FamilySearch Research Courses often, and Vimeo occasionally, but don't create video content.
*  Documents/Content - I have used Scribd, SlideShare and Issuu occasionally. 
*  Gaming - I don't do this.
*  Music - I use iTunes occasionally, and used Last.fm in the past.
*  Wikis - none of those listed except for Wikipedia.  I use WikiTree, WeRelate and FamilySearch Family Tree for genealogy family trees, and the FamilySearch Research Wiki and Ancestry.com Family History Wiki for genealogy knowledge.
*  Pictures - I use Flickr occasionally, and used Picasa in the past, and 1000Memories before it was crushed by Ancestry.com.
*  Reviews/Ratings - none of those listed.

The list doesn't even include Email!  I think it should - it's computer related and social in nature.

Are genealogical societies, teaching classes and making genealogy presentations social media?  I think they are, perhaps in the Networks category.

So, out of the 25 categories above, I use about 10 on a routine basis for genealogy purposes, and have used another 8 occasionally or in the past.  Out of the approximately 200 social media outlets listed, I use maybe 20 of them.

The top 10 social media outlets I use on a regular basis for genealogy are (with approximate estimated time shares):

1.  Blogger - for blog writing on a daily basis (about 120 minutes per day)
2.  Feedly - for blog reading on a daily basis (about 60 minutes per day)
3.  Facebook - for blog promotion and family interaction on a daily basis (about 20 minutes per day)
4.  Google+ - for daily blog promotion and occasional Hangouts (average 20 minutes per day)
5.  Video - for regular but not daily genealogy porn education (about 20 minutes per day)
6.  Google - for daily research and education (15 minutes per day)
7.  Twitter - for daily blog promotion (about 5 minutes per day)
8.  Forums - for occasional research and education (about 5 minutes a day)
9.  Wikis - for occasional research and education (about 5 minutes a day)
10.  Google Maps - for occasional information and education (about 5 minutes per day)

Email adds at least another 30 minutes every day.  Genealogical society meetings, teaching classes and making presentations average out at least 20 minutes a day over a month's time.

That adds up to 325 minutes per day using social media!  Over 5 hours!  No wonder I'm not getting any research done...

My question now is "What should I give up for more research time?"  The obvious answer is blog writing and blog reading, or try to cut back on it.

The next question for me is "Do I want to cut back?"  Right now, the answer is NO, because I'm having a great time doing everything I do.

I do almost all of that on my desktop computer, and on the laptop computer when I'm away from home.  I do very little on my iPhone or tablet other than check email, Feedly and Facebook when I'm away from home.

What about you?  How many hours a day do you spend on social media?

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/10/are-you-using-social-media-for-genealogy.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver