Managing Social Media

I really like social media. I like staying in touch with friends and seeing what's going on. I like to have separate accounts for different things. The trouble comes when social media starts to take away time from more important pursuits--like actually writing.

Blogs
I like to follow a lot of blogs to keep up with my favorite writers and what's going on in the publishing industry. For the last few years I've done that by using Google Reader to organize all of my blogs into categories and watch for new posts. Sadly, Google Reader is shutting down on July 1st so I've switched over to Feedly. A few times a week I set aside some time to jump on and scroll through all of the new blog posts. If something catches my interest, I open the page in a new window (I prefer reading blog posts on the actual site than in a Reader so it's possible to comment).

Twitter
This is where I follow a lot of authors, agents, and other industry professionals. To keep up, I use TweetDeck organized into columns with lists.  I can scroll easily through recent Tweets, reply, and publish my own Tweets. When I'm all caught up, I clear out all of my read Tweets, so that I can keep track of what I haven't seen yet.

Facebook
I mostly keep this to stay in touch with my real life friends and family members. A couple times a day I get on and scroll through my Wall, just to see what's up.

Tumblr
I really like Tumblr. A lot. I haven't really found a way to manage this one yet, so mostly I just try to limit my scrolling to times when I need a break from working or all of my work is done for the day and I'm just relaxing for the evening. It's very addicting... 

How do you stay connected with social media without letting it cut into your work/writing time?

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