Interested in Social Media? Better get on Mashable’s list!

Social media is not “exactly” free; there is a time-cost. How do you decide where to put your social media time-budget? It’s hard to remember how I got turned on to Mashable last month, but it has improved my Social Media IQ faster than a Kaplan course. How rapidly is Twitter growing? What about Facebook? What are the important elements of an authentic website that attracts Millennials? It’s all on Mashable … if you can handle the several-daily email feeds. My heartfelt suggestion for wine marketers: learn how to handle it.

It's easy to get a swamped feeling from the FeedBlitz frequency of Mashable articles. But don't. Just let the Mashable feeds sit in your inbox until you need a break. (A midday bowl of breakfast cereal -- that healthy lunch-on-the-run-at the-desk -- goes well with Mashable, for example). At the very least, a quick scan of Mashable first-paragraphs will keep you current.

I predict that there will be a Social Media Trivia game emerging soon, and I intend to be a contestant. I know now that Twitter grew 1382% annually, and just in February-March alone, 76.8%. Check it out. That’s the kind of information that Mashable accumulates, and it’s a very useful guide to the solid facts of social networking.

The info on Mashable is good, and it’s also readable. Short articles. Disciplined sentences (we could all learn from that!). Articles like “5 Essential Traits for Community Managers” with great tips from author Stuart Foster like “The ability to be yourself in print, on Twitter, and via other types of communication is extremely important”. And the article on Tweefind and its ways to rank Twitter users. And oh ecstasy, the resources on their Facebook Week event! Be selective, and you’ll find Mashable to be a valuable resource.

p.s. Since this is all pretty new to me, I subscribe via e-mail feeds. It's easy to do.