I am a prolific social media user. As a man who engages in the space for business and for pleasure, I thought I might share how I do my internetting, aka, how I propagate and build my personal brand across multiple platforms.
Now, as some of you, especially ping.fm users, are reading this, you might ask yourselves, “why doesn’t he just use one service to populate everything?” Well, the answer is simple: each service has different needs. They all have different audiences, and they (typically) each separately require unique approaches and handling.
Those few personal brands who work in the social space who have large, entrenched followings can afford to “broadcast” to otherwise “narrowcast”outlets (by that I mean they can send one identical content item/link/status to many different services, allowing their following to engage with what’s shared in the space of their choosing). But I think this is a less effective approach, and can be overly redundant. On the other hand, it does reach users in their preferred realm(s).
Well, I’m no Pirillo or Scoble as yet… but, as I said, while I’m trying to present a uniform message, or personal brand, I realize that each venue, each niche, needs to be handled in its own unique way – personalizing the personal brand, if you will. A web juggernaut like Pirillo might not need to do that, but as I am building my brand (something I can do for any brand, hint hint), I know I need that more niche-tailored approach.
So, here’s how it goes for me..
Facebook – My Facebook status is updated by my Twitter feed whenever I tweet anything. This allows me to communicate to the public as well as to my friends at the same time. When I only want to share what I’m up to with my friends, I just update my Facebook status instead of sending a tweet. This helps me safely mix business and pleasure. I still share certain content items and links on Facebook with specific friends and/or just on my wall, but that’s mostly for fun. Plus, these kinds of items might not be things I want the greater public to see because they’re irrelevant to my business or maybe just sensitive in nature. However, I’ll pretty much add anyone who requests me as a friend on Facebook, regardless of how well I know them, using the multitude of specific privacy settings available to filter what I share as needed. Why add strangers? Not only does it extend my reach on-line, but because I allow users to decide which services they wish to engage me in – if they only use Facebook, then that’s their decision, and I’m not going to alienate.
…beyond that, Facebook aggregates almost everything I do on the Web. In addition to my Twitter status updates, I pipe my Flickr, YouTube, Digg, del.icio.us, Foursquare, and blog posts to my profile.
MySpace – Yes, I still use MySpace. If you think that’s a wash, you need to study the writings of danah boyd. Again, not only do I want to give potential associates choice, as I do with adding anyone who wants to add me on Facebook, but MySpace is still a massive marketplace and a major influencer of music and cultural trends. However, I don’t log in very often, and I now update my MySpace status with Tweetdeck (in other words, Twitter). Nevertheless, based on who is engaging me, I will as indicated in my opening paragraphs, customize the way I interface with MySpace friends. However, for simplicities sake, I will just allow my Twitter feed to update my MySpace status the same way I handle Facebook (assuming I’m updating from Tweetdeck).
YouTube - YouTube is a social video sharing network, but I primarily use it as a content hosting service. I upload my Web video creations to YouTube, add channels that I like as friends (and subscribe to them, of course), but then otherwise share my content items in other services – mainly my blog, Facebook, and Twitter. Why? Because that maximizes my audience. I automatically pipe activity to Facebook, but I manually share on Twitter, because I do not upload to YouTube on a daily basis.
Flickr – I’m not much of a photographer, but I prefer the simple design and popularity of this photo sharing service. My uploads pipe automatically to Facebook, but I share manually on Twitter – mainly because I think my friends will be more forgiving than the public! haha
My blog (nerdacumen.com) – I use WordPress as my blogging software, self-hosted with my own domain. My blog is a great place to aggregate almost everything I do on the Web, much in the same way I use Facebook. The sidebar has RSS feeds from my Twitter, Digg, del.icio.us, and YouTube accounts. Whenever Foursquare adds RSS, I’ll include it, too. I also include my Facebook Links, a little gateway in to my personal life and a slice of Facebook I’m not as protective of as the rest of it.
Foursquare – I’m new to the location-based social sharing service, but I allow it to update my Twitter status as well as post my “check-ins” as content items on Facebook.
Digg – Anything I “digg” on the this link-sharing and aggregating service updates my Twitter feed and shows up on my Facebook wall as a content item. This way, I can share with my friends and the public items that I appreciate that are gaining popularity as well as items that might be more relevant to my work.
del.icio.us – The social bookmarking service, I share whatever I bookmark by having it automatically update my Twitter feed. del.icio.us also automatically adds my bookmarks as content items on Facebook.
Fark - Fark is a news aggregator with a comical slant – you find an item, then “rewrite” the headline as a means of commenting on the item from, perhaps, a more frank, critical, topical, cynical, ironic, or comical perspective. It’s more something you just have to see to understand. A Fark account is only really used for commenting in forum threads for news items on the site, so the only way to share content you might like or that might be relevant to your work is with the social sharing buttons provided on the site. Perhaps in the future the site will create more robust means of engaging Facebook and Twitter.
LinkedIn - A jobseekers and employment social network that allows you to have your Twitter feed update your LinkedIn status, as I often tweet non-work related items, I actually haven’t implemented the automatic updating function. I can use Tweetdeck to update my LinkedIn status when it’s needful.
Twitter – I saved Twitter for last here because of its central role in affecting the flow of information across several of my social media accounts. I already mentioned that my Twitter feed is updated by my activity on Digg, my check-ins on Foursquare, and what I bookmark on del.icio.us. As I already mentioned, I haven’t implemented any service that will have my Facebook status show up in my Twitter feed – I keep that one way for privacy reasons – whereas I allow the other services (Digg, Foursquare, del.icio.us) because they are inherently public in nature. As twitter is the micro-blog of choice around the Web, it just seems most sensible to have these services pipe to my Twitter. Plus, I can still use Twitter for business and personal -related tweets.
The nice thing about having Twitter catch my Digg, del.icio.us, and Foursquare activity, is that, as you already guessed, all of my Twitter posts update my Facebook status. Yes, that creates redundancies with the way Digg, del.icio.us. and Foursquare integrate with my Facebook wall, but I think this is ok, as my 140 character status updates are not the same as the richer content items posted to Facebook by those services.
So, that’s how I Internet. Almost anything I want to share online finds it way to my blog and my Facebook profile, while I can still engage all the separate services in their own special ways. And, of course, this doesn’t even go for what I post or publish to particular forums or other kinds of websites. However, the neat thing about going out in to the Web as a singular personal brand is that, in traversing those other random forums and other spaces/blogs/etc., I can use Gravatar, which helps me utilize the same identity across many different sites. This, in turn, helps drive people to my blog or website, and then out to my other accounts across the social sphere. It’s all circular in execution.
So, I guess my overall message is that you can use umpteen services to propagate your content while still treating them uniquely, allowing you to engage all users from the perspective that best suits them instead of you. Many large corporations still don’t understand this basic of social media rules, choosing just one or two venues or redundantly abusing all of them with identical content.
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Tags: Digg, facebook, fark, flickr, Foursquare, Internet, LinkedIn, myspace, social media, social networks, social sharing, social Web, twitter, Wordpress, youtube