February 22, 2009

Social Media Sites are addictive, confusing and…exhausting

Posted in social media networking, Twitter tagged dating, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Rupert Murdoch, social media networking, tweet, tweeting, Twiduction, Twitter, Xing at 5:52 pm by lcochran

I attended a workshop, hosted by the Atlanta Press Club, on February 18 at The Commerce Club in Atlanta. The topic: Navigating Social Media Sites.

The hour long presentation included a brief introduction of the top four social networking sites, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and MySpace. MySpace, the website in which Rupert Murdoch invested millions ($580 million to be exact), we learned, is dying a slow death. Facebook is at the top of the social networking sites, with LinkedIn and Twitter following behind. (Quite frankly, I never joined the MySpace craze. I finally, though reluctantly, joined Facebook. My Facebook “addiction” has gotten so out of hand that I’m taking a “hiatus”, thus prompting to deactivate my account. My initial “hiatus” will be for three weeks. We will see how that goes-especially since I can still read everyone’s status updates on my Blackberry.)

The question of the day: Which is the best way to promote yourself/business? According to the presenter, LinkedIn is the best way to promote yourself professionally. I am still learning the benefits of LinkedIn. (I must admit that LinkedIn has been the best thing for me. I reconnected with a former colleague and we are now partnering on some business.)

The more complete your profile, greater number of questions answered (scored “good” to “best” answer) and the recommendations received by others, the higher/more often your profile will show up in search results. Who knew? Not me. (After my lay-off in June, I found myself increasingly addicted to LinkedIn. Getting contacts, quality contacts, became my drug. Facebook replaced the addiction to LinkedIn.)

Facebook was not really a site that I was planning on using to promote my business (the hiatus is now throwing a wrench in things). But, I have discovered you can have your personal page and a professional page. With the personal page, you have friends and with the professional page, there are fans. The more I think about using Facebook for promoting my business, the more “narcissistic” I become. What if I create a page for Glocal and no one wants to be a fan? It’s elementary and high school all over again (which is the majority of people who are my friends on the site…I digress). Then there is Twitter…

Ah Twitter. I have to admit, this is becoming my new “drug” of choice. It is so easy but difficult at the same time. You only have 140 characters to describe your actions, “tweets”. Everyone else has so many followers that it is so easy to get lost in the shuffle and get any type of response from them (if that’s what you are looking for). So, you have to add these applications to be able to keep “tweeting” when you are busy with other things (maybe work), much like programming a DVR (I think). There’s TweetDeck, TweetLater, newsletters to keep up with the newest applications and the upgrades to the old ones and notification application of those who stop following you (and which comment you made to lose them), among many others. My goodness, there is now an e-book on how to date on Twitter! Seriously! And as if I have enough time to figure out Twitter, I was just told about another social media network…Xing (crossing).

I registered on Xing today because it’s more international in scope. Within 10 minutes of registering and doing the bare minimum of posting my profile, I received 10 – 15 requests to connect from people that I have no idea who they are. I think I only have one contact who is on Xing that I know (the one who told me about the site in the first place).

With only 24 hours in a day, who can keep up with this stuff? Between my work for clients, playing with a puppy and socializing, how do people with spouses and kids do it?

Just in case, follow me on Twitter…

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