“Dizzied by the Demands of Social Media based Networking?”

My colleague, Virgina Chatham recently observed how she loves the acronym “K.I.S.S”, i.e. “keep it simple stupid”.  Web based social networking can be really hard to keep simple.  She was delighted to read and share a blog post composed by Taylor Ellwood titled “How to Manage and Automate Your Online Social Networks.”

Taylor emphasizes the importance “to establish a sense of consistency and integrity with your presence on a social networking site…” and “…it can be useful to participate on more than a few sites, provided you can automate the majority of those sites”.

The comments’ section  illuminates a few provoking aspects too.  Stephanie Breslin of Seattle, WA scribes “I admit I am (sic) struggling with the idea of “automating” social networking – just doesn’t seem very social.”

I, too have wrestled with this question and admittedly loved when I came across the tool called Ping.fm, which allows one to type a message and have it appear across multiple sites. But as Taylor points out, “such an approach ultimately hurts you more because it removes you from participating on those sites.”

Another Twitter based application such as TweetDeck conveniently allows a single Twitter based message (i.e. a “tweet”) also be posted as an update on Facebook. I cannot help but notice how my Facebook stream is becoming a steady stream of updates being a mimic of Twitter.  Yet others have commented to me that the redundant message can be commented upon and appear as a thread more readily on Facebook. While this is true,  others will maintain that using Twitter’s search engine, www.search.twitter.com will provide the same.

This is exhausting!

So, how is one to balance the two spheres of productivity and authenticity?

This is a time to recall a spiritual principle called “HALT”, which translated means “don’t get to hungry, angry, lonely or tired”. To me taking that to heart  means placing authenticity above productivity. Translating again from the “KISS” principle influences me to keep it simple and focus my time on providing content that is useful to others on a few not all platforms. I focus my time and energy on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. To be more specific, my time is focused on the professional aspect more than the personal (unless it’s during the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs and the Pittsburgh Penguins are playing!).

“It’s all good” as several peeps have commented about the challenges of life, let alone social media. Flashing back to my corporate days and the grind it presented me, brings things back into focus. Today’s social media networking tools have expanded my world, having broken me out of silos around the use of the Internet and ageism.  I love having learned a new language and means which lets me connect with people, 15-25 years younger.

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