The problem we have is that we are all so busy. In fact, we’ve never been busier. Home working, mobile devices, customer pressures and business demands all take their toll on our already hectic lives.

And then in steps social networking to up the stakes and for many, dominate their very waking existence.

Tweeting, checking friends’ Facebook status, chipping in to LinkedIn message threads, trying again to create that elusive witty blog article, each of these potentially distracting activities adds up to an average 1.2 hours a day for each and every one of us. Add in the established communications tool of choice for many, email, and your total number of hours increases to 3.9 a day.

The signs are that this not going to go away and actually it’s going to increase.

So what do you do? Simply accept fate and become submerged in the technological wave, or stop, think and plot a way through the barrage of digital noise?

The answer could be more simple than you think.

Imagine a bicycle wheel. It has a hub at the centre and spokes linking it to the outer rim and tyres where contact is made with the surroundings. Well, your social networking is very similar.

You need to decide what’s at the hub of your digital communications, online marketing and social networking. Where are you trying to direct customers, suppliers and partners? Is it to your website? Is it to specific social networks? Is it to your regular blog? With one element carefully positioned as the core of your communications everything else falls into place and knows it’s role…. to feed people into the hub.

Strategically it’s vital you decide this carefully depending on what your overall objectives are. If it’s to have more conversations with potential customers then perhaps your hub is one of your social networks, Facebook or LinkedIn where you can engage with your targets on their terms and in their comfort zone. If your goal is to educate partners about your products and services you might need to drive them to particular pages on your website and in which case all of your digital marketing activity needs to point inward to there.

You need to decide what works within your own strategy. Once you have decided, use everything else you do as spokes, pointing inward to your hub. You will be amazed at the clarity that not only you will experience, but vitally so will your customers.

This guest post was written by Neil Wilkins, Managing Director of  Viper Marketing and Communications Group.

Follow Viper on Twitter: @ViperMarketing and Facebook

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