I managed to write a blog…tried really hard to submerge myself in social media and have done appallingly badly. I actually thought I have left a comment for matty a while ago but somehow it isn’t showing – which just proves how bad I am….I will be writing a new blog post next month on my feeble attempt.

Alick, it’s interesting you say that you never use your personal email…I still use mine all the time – I like to keep work stuff separate. But it is true that more and more people are using social networks to organise their personal life. I actually missed one of my really good friends leaving party last year because she organised it through facebook and I never logged in. If she’d just phoned me (call me old fashioned) then I would have put it in my diary (again, old fashioned paper one) and then I wouldn’t have missed it. But don’t get me started on how social media and texting have stopped people actually talking to each other…think that’s another blog post….

However, I’ve found my own engagement in social networks has gone up – call it online peer pressure to keep my social life going… and as that’s ramped up, more and more tumbleweed blows through my personal webmail inbox – which I hardly ever use these days and nor does anyone else. So, as a means for businesses to market to me, that seems to be on the wane.

In that respect there’s a clear enough opportunity for businesses to take advantage of social media as a means of targeting consumers with messages – but if those users are just using the tools to manage their lives on and offline, how you stop those messages being perceived as noise is obviously the challenge.

I’m wondering though that if I had an occupation that didn’t involve the web then maybe I’d use it more.

I’ll be following with interest. While at “work” obviously!