Twitter. Facebook. Google+. Foursquare. LinkedIn.
It’s a pain in the you-kn0w-what to get these right. Different audiences on each service, different methods of posting makes it challenging to get them right.
Here’s how I use and manage them.
Twitter, just like Google+, has a very geeky crowd. That’s where I have my geekiest followers and friends. Twitter is also where I get the majority of my breaking news stories. If you see me staring at my phone in an elevator, I’m most likely checking Twitter to stay on top of security news, world events and geeky stuff. (Like these awesome Marty McFly sneakers Jeremy posted about today!). I post to Twitter if there’s something interesting in those three areas that I haven’t seen yet. I also follow co-workers, friends and people who tweet about things that are of interest to me. Posts from Twitter gets automatically cross-posted to LinkedIn, to keep my feed alive over there. (This also means I stay light on cursing on Twitter, due to LinkedIn being the professional network). Not that I curse that much. Dammit.
Facebook, is a completely different audience. Family. Friends from high school. Friends from California. Friends from Sweden. Etc. I use the friend list feature heavily. Some people wouldn’t be interested in knowing that I’m having an amazing day, so I try to spare them the two seconds it would take for them to read my posts there. Also, this is where I share the majority of embarrassing good pictures of my family and friends and those are also posted to select friend & family lists there. I guess I’m still old-school for not using Facebook for business connections as much as I should, and see other people doing, but Facebook to me is for close family and friends. This will likely change over the next couple of years as I’ll be forced to use Facebook more for business purposes. New blog posts from this site gets automatically pulled into my Facebook wall to a select audience.
Google+, is where all good geek conversations happen right now. The geek/techncial engagement without a 140-character limit is very exciting to see, and I’m looking forward to see if it will continue. Some people have even gone as far as pointing their blog domain (Hey Alex, how are you?) over to their Google+ profile. I’m not there yet. I like WordPress here on Stjernstrom.com for blog posts. I like having my own design. Still. There’s a great article by Chris Brogan here on how to get started with Google+ that you all should go read right now. (Ironically, I found that article via Twitter). I use Google+ Picasa as picture archive/backup service, but very, very few people get access to the pictures there. Think grandparents.
Foursquare. If you’re a friend of mine on Foursquare, you know me pretty darn well. Knowing where I’m at when I’m there is not information to be shared lightly. Sure, I’ll cross-post to Facebook or Twitter when going to the movies, but I won’t make that information public most of the time.
LinkedIn. LinkedIn is my professional network. If you’re connected to me on LinkedIn, we have, in some capacity, had a business relationship/meeting. That’s it. I use it frequently to find contact information for people I want to get in touch with for current projects, and just to stay in touch with people and see what’s going on in their professional lives.
So how to post and keep up with all these services? There are a few tools I keep coming back to, depending on where I’m at. TweetDeck is excellent if I’m by my laptop. Hootsuite is great for cross-posting to multiple services and also allows you to schedule posts. Works from both laptop and they have a great iPhone app. The first thing to do, before posting though, is to consider the audience. Is it geeky/technical? Twitter/Google+. Is it information you only want to share with a select few people? Google+/Facebook. Is it an accomplishment you want to share with the world? All of them. Your bank account number? Don’t. (Don’t laugh, I’ve seen it happen).
Hope y’all are having a great day! See you on Twitter / Facebook / Google+ / Foursquare / LinkedIn!
