There is a fine line between engaging and annoying. We’ve all experienced this – and the effects of the difference are magnified with the advent of things like “liking” pages on Facebook and following feeds on Twitter. When used correctly by the business world, social media should first and foremost be informative; however it can quickly become another place for spam.

I recently began following a Twitter feed and within an hour of having done so there were 50 updates – none of which were of particular interest to me so I unfollowed the feed, and after momentarily being stricken by guilt, I moved on. The benefit of the internet is that things can be done and undone almost anonymously (with the exception of sites like http://who.unfollowed.me).

Point being, to engage the community you have to find out what the community wants. Things like Facebook, Twitter and SMS (short message service) are a perpetual litmus test. What I think is valuable information you might consider a waste of your time. The ebb and flow of people subscribing and unsubscribing, following and unfollowing, etc. is a battle that’s less meant to be won and more meant to be understood.

In a training I attended last week with some colleagues, we learned – warning: corporate lingo ahead – some best practices specifically for SMS.

A lot of people text. A LOT – and probably a lot more than you think. The average age of a person who texts is 36. I know very few people who talk on their phones more than the text. And now, more than another social device, texts are how people are getting breaking news – whether that’s local or national news, entertainment or sports updates.

As much as people don’t always like the news they’re getting, they like knowing it right away. I didn’t particularly care that Liz Taylor died, but knowing about it immediately meant something to me.

Within the next few weeks, those who follow The Record – whether it’s in print, online, on Facebook , on Twitter  or all of the above – will also have the opportunity to opt-in to receiving SMS messages for breaking news.

The opportunity with this lies in the fact that we – as distributors of information – have the power to disseminate news as it happens. Days of waiting for the 5 or 11 o’clock news or the morning paper are over. In the days of digital first – our parent company’s M.O. – we want to know everything. Now.

Just don’t give me too much now, because that will bother me. It’s a fine line we walk, and very quickly it can become a tangled web we weave.

As we here at The Record strive to engage our community in a meaningful, informative way, I hope you’ll follow along here for updates on what some of the most effective ways of accomplishing the task digital first while continually striving for high quality content.