Before you get too concerned, let me explain.

This acronym is one I created to describe your Average Social Screen Time. That is the average time a post lasts ‘above the fold’ on your news feed.

Take LinkedIn for example. My A.S.S. Time is less than 60 seconds. This means that once a post hits the top of my news feed, it takes less than 60 seconds, closer to 48 seconds today, to disappear below the fold. I never see it again.

This is one of the dilemmas of social media – and one of the reasons so many people are turning off their social screens or taking breaks from FB, Twitter, etc.

I call it “The Connection Paradox” – the more people you are connected to the less chance you have of reading their posts and the less chance they have of reading yours. It’s like being in a packed pub with everyone shouting over everyone else to be heard – it becomes a raucous din.

And the maths prove it. If all your connections post daily and I know some twits who post dozens of times a day, then your news feed is constantly scrolling as new posts enter your site. If you are not reading your feed at the time the post is made, the chances are you will never read it.

Eye camera studies prove people rarely scroll below the fold to search for ‘old’ news feeds. After all if it’s 6 hours ago, it’s like sooo last century. And as the quality of posts continues its rapid downhill plunge, people will not search to find what you are saying. Most of my ‘subscribers’ (followers sounds so religious) won’t see this post, because their news feeds are like Pitt Street in peak hour.

Apparently FB fans are fed-up too:

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/dear-facebook-friends-we-need-a-break-20130209-2e50t.html

This is why your social media strategy (had to get strategy into a sentence) must not rely simply on regular posts. The simple truth is the majority of social posts never get seen, let alone read. You have to create groups and encourage discussion within the group. You have to build pages and encourage participation on the page. You have to do lots of things – most of which have nothing to do with social media. But that’s another day.

Have to go now – need to get more connections…