Star Trek Trailer has a great moment where the bad guy, who seems to be getting pummeled screams "Fire Everything."
So how does this play in your Social Media engagement world? Some questions for reflecting on how you engage with "community" and what type of conversationalist you are.
1. Do you run into a party and yell, "HEY EVERYBODY, I'VE ARRIVED!"
2. How often do you update your Facebook status?
3. Do you use IM/Chat on Facebook? What services are you connected to? And when do you open them?
4. Do you have different social networks/sites for different purposes?
5. What is your most relevant profile on the web? So if I Googled your name (which I'm doing right now as you read this) what is the most important piece of information YOU want me to have about you?
6. What is good Twitter etiquette? And do you have different habits for your Facebook page or LinkedIN page?
7. Age old social media bait question: Do you keep your personal and professional social media information separated? Do you think it is helpful to imagine a separation even if Googling will not filter them for anyone else?
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Now I will try and answer the questions in my opinion. (IMO = in my opinion OR IMHO = in my humble opinion, which it is rarely humble, but I'm working on that)
1. I don't enter a room and try and dominate the presence. So you might consider how you enter conversations. Even asynchronous conversations. (asynchronous example: commenting and posting on social media sites) An senior citizen once told me, "Take a while to get to know us before you speak." That is the best social media advice you will get all year.
2. Facebook or LinkedIN status updates. The question came out of a philosophical question I posed to a friend this morning as we were talking about online stuff. "So if I started using Tweetdeck to update my FB status (now possible) every time I tweeted, would that be cool or not cool?"
The answer was, "Definitely not cool."
The reasoning was about how Facebook or LinkedIN have been used in the past. Neither of us use FB or L-In for "chat" or conversation. At least not at the "status" level. But… Everything is changing. The sites and tools are changing. Twitter is changing FB and LinkedIN. (Maybe not for the better, but that is for you to decide.)
So would it be gaming the FB world to update my status 15 times a day. (that's my average tweet output) At the moment I would have to say yes. But the newest Tweetdeck has added a check box to do just that. Contemplating.
3. I don't like chat on FB. Not sure why, but the FB "friends" are not necessarily the "close" contacts that I want to be available to via IM/chat. So for the most part, when I am on FB proper (as in browsing the FB site) I keep my "chat" feature off, by showing my status as "offline." But I'm might be online, I'm just not that into you. Or some other FB "friend."
But Adium, my multi-service IM client (now I can even add my skype to it) allows me to connect to FB and LinkedIN chat using the one interface. But… I don't like it. I think I will disconnect my FB IM info from Adium. I had to do so with Skype cause I was getting too much noise. And I will admit that I am opening Adium or IM less and less. Currently less than once a day. So if you wanna ping me you'd be best of sending an email. (yep, remember that old thang?) Twitter maybe, but I don't really stay on Twitter either.
4. Different Sites for Different Functions (NOT in order of priority)
- LinkedIN (business and contact info)
- Twitter (social interaction, networking, research, quick feedback)
- Facebook (for fun, apps and groups are mostly play)
- inSocialMedia.com (I was invited to be an editor of this professional SM network and it seems to be thriving)
- Uber.la (my blog and voice to the world)
- TwitterJoker Network (just having fun at Twitter's expense)
- MeterThis! (a blog I started a little over a week ago to groundswell against Time Warner's bandwidth capping plans)
- iGoogle (my own RSS dashboard and search engine)
- Posterous (an alternative blog platform where I am experimenting with poetry, music and more "best of" type posting)
- Tweetdeck (not really a site, I know, but tell that to Seesmic or Peoplebrowsr, so it feels like a site that's wrapped in AIR)
5. My consolidated profile page on uber.la, but I am building that one to serve this function. If I had to pick one, I'd have to go with LinkedIN. Cause in the end, social media is fun but it's about business to me.
6. Twitter Ettiquette. I'm actively working on this question at Getting Real with Twitter. On FB and LinkedIN, I'd say between 1 – 3 status updates a day would be a max.
7. Good luck if you are trying to keep them separate. But the best piece of advice I've seen on this topic is this. Don't post it, tweet it, IM it, email it to ANYONE unless you are comfortable with it being on the front page of YOU.COM. Cause ultimately those drunk date pics are going to find their way back to haunt you, like they did the stars of High School Musical and Pamela Anderson. Just don't do it.
@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/fire-everything
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And the mother of it all: The F-Bomb and F-Book: The F-Book Manifesto! [Facebook = F-Book]
