December 13, 2011
Identity
Those of you with similar social-networking overkill: how do you decide what goes in each platform? Some of it is intuitive, but some of it still alludes me.
PS: I've changed my name, you'll note, to "Porter Perkins." I start a teaching job in two weeks and would like to make it slightly less simple for my future inquisitive students to find me.
Labels: social networking
by Fr. Mark Perkins at 8:23 PM |
3 Comments:
Atypical as it might sound coming from me, I'd suggest not over-thinking it too much. At the very least, you shouldn't be distressed.
I'll admit, for me it's a bit more simple. The Sad Bear is my group blog, and I operate one professional and one personal blog. Updating and managing these is pretty straightforward. Especially now that Google Reader is (for all intents and purposes) dead, those interests, which I normally would have shared there, now often siphon here.
I view Twitter as a moon to those three ventures. It simply orbits them, moves a bit faster, and draws content that could fit in all three categories (though clearly less substantive). Additionally, I respect Twitter, but I try not to approach it in any way that would suggest I'm assigning some greater meaning to it. It's a place to take in a massive amount of information -- if I wish -- as well as a spot to dump whatever idle thought I might be thinking at the moment (or cow video, as you witnessed today).
I'd like to think my Twitter is a spot for thoughtful, everyday items. Unimportant, but also a brief recess from all the other busy things around me.
The blogs are a different story. For one, I rarely feel pressured to update them. But since I'm working with three, I think it's safe to say one of them gets updated at least once a week. I try to keep longer form thoughts to my personal blog. The professional blog is purely a dumping ground to showcase my work/keep my CV. The Sad Bear is a different beast altogether...but I've learned to accept it gets busy in spurts.
Can't help you with Google+, I'm uninterested in its capabilities and grow soured by it every time I think about it long enough. As for Facebook, I probably pay least attention to it. I check it a couple of times a day, but beyond that it's more like a hurtling piece of space junk.
I think about this a fair amount. I'll start with an example from Katie's bookbinding business: We decided early on that Twitter was not the right avenue for that (despite what marketers may claim) because it's not the sort of thing she would regularly update, and because she would feel a little awkward just pushing her biz all the time. Facebook is a richer experience, I think, in terms of photos and links. So we direct everyone to that and her blog.
I agree with Chase about Facebook: I don't get a whole lot of substance out of it anymore, although I am a big fan of the lists. I almost exclusively browse via those lists: my jugglers and journalists lists, for example. I also have one titled "Day Trip Distance" that includes everyone living within 100 miles of Nashville.
I've been love/hate with Twitter for a long time, but it's moved over to mostly love lately, in large part because of TweetDeck for the iPhone (and echofon for Firefox). Those methods of browsing are really pleasing, and at this point I feel very dialed in to interesting tweeters.
I should mention that I've put a lot more time into using advanced Twitter searches to find local accounts and topic-specific accounts that are more valuable for me to follow.
The iPhone has really changed my approach to much of this. I recently got accounts with SocialCam and SoundCloud and Instagram to better share news/video/audio while on the move. It was a bit of a leap for me to connect with all those services, but at the moment, I'm comfortable. Again, iPhone is a big reason.
I think -- but not worry -- about this stuff.
I have thought about this too. I think I have resigned my Twitter account to being almost exclusively the domain where I attempt to make witty comments about sporting events I am watching. I used to use it as my "work twitter" too, but we have a general "EDN Sports" twitter that we started for live-tweeting scores and play by play and suck.
Facebook is a bit different, for me. It's unimportant yet also important. That is, I use it in a very unimportant manner (mostly posting YouTube videos and pictures of Justin Verlander) but with many college friends and acquaintances it's the sole means of communication (like random people I had classes and hung out with a bit but weren't very close). So I like using it in that way to keep tabs on people.
And as far as blogs go... well, my Jackhitts blog is not quite dead but I rarely find things good enough to post on it. I always feel like whatever I write there is somewhat trite and nobody would even care about it. That, obviously, is my own weird insecurity, but one of these days I will be able to find a more consistent way to operate and update a personal blog. Until then, I generally post everything to the SadBear (which still isn't a lot).
I guess what I'm trying to say is I spend a lot of time trying to seem witty on the Internet but none of that usually comes to fruition because I hold off posting/commenting on things out of my own stupid fears. I think it's probabaly a less important thing to think about than I, at least, make it out to be.
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