The Problem
Most of todays newsletters are being delivered with rich content in it, and just like most online marketers, I tend to keep myself updated with the latest news, trends and buzz surrounding digital media.
During the past month, I have been struggling in maintaining the size for one of my 1GB private email accounts. In no time, I figured out what was eating up my quota and discovered that I became a newsletters-subscriptions-addict.
I was able to keep up with the few number of newsletters I used to read everyday, but recently it became a nightmare for me and literally things gone out of hand! How many newsletters do I really need to read everyday? I asked myself.
Being organized, I started to create sub folders and filtered out most of the messages each to be automatically redirected to its corresponding folder. It worked great at the beginning, but later I started to miss reading some important emails and losing control as most of the folders started piling up with unread messages!
The Solution: Social Media
I truly love newsletters because it comes personalized and more focused. But nowadays we are living in a world of information-overload and the desire to know more about almost everything in life is growing. That’s great, but we have to learn how to do it correctly.
Some people might suggest to “Burn The Feeds” and to get an RSS reader. Excellent suggestion! But what about the following:
- Diversity of the messages I want to read?
- The direct interaction with the people contributing and sharing?
- Staying in touch with your friends online & round the clock?
I won’t stop signing up to newsletters nor reading my favorite news feeds. One of the great things about newsletters is “archiving” as you can retain & perform a simple search to find the link to your favorite topic, however, I personally find it more enjoying going through my Twitter & Facebook accounts to learn and share all the day long.
That said, here’s my action plan:
- Step1: Going through each and every newsletter, giving each one a priority weight
- Step2: Visiting the originating website and see if it has an active Twitter and/or Facebook account to “follow” & “like” so I don’t miss anything
- Step3: Unsubscribing from the mailing lists of the websites that keeps me updated through social media and retaining the most important ones which:
- Offers higher-focus on certain topics
- Does not have an active social media channel
I am much relieved now, I can enjoy scanning a less cluttered inbox and feel great sharing knowledge with my friends.
What about you?
