Step Off the Social Media Treadmill

Is it important for you as a business leader to keep on top of the latest social media technologies?

No. Don't bother. And that advice comes from Alexandra Samuel, who runs her own social media consulting firm.

Writing on Harvard Business Publishing, Samuel says that following the latest hot thing down the boulevard, like Twitter, is wasting your time and following someone else's agenda.

"The minute you stop trying to keep up, you open a far more exciting possibility: getting ahead with what matters to you, your team and your business."

That's tremendous advice. Identify your strategy first, and then figure out which social technologies, if any, can give you tactical advantages in achieving it.

Read her post, Don't Keep Up With Social Technology.

Do you agree with Alexandra that we are spending too much chasing technology at the expense of time on getting the core business right?

Sean Silverthorne

Sean Silverthorne is the editor of HBS Working Knowledge, which provides a first look at the research and ideas of Harvard Business School faculty. Working Knowledge, which won a Webby award in 2007, currently records 4 million unique visitors a year. He has been with HBS since 2001.

Silverthorne has 28 years experience in print and online journalism. Before arriving at HBS, he was a senior editor at CNET and executive editor of ZDNET News. While at At Ziff-Davis, Silverthorne also worked on the daily technology TV show The Site, and was a senior editor at PC Week Inside, which chronicled the business of the technology industry. He has held several reporting and editing roles on a variety of newspapers, and was Investor Business Daily's first journalist based in Silicon Valley.

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