I realize that the best way to work with social networks is not to treat each as a separate thing — that is, posting something to a blog, then something else to Facebook, with a few Twitters in between. You’ll go crazy; every time a new site gets hot, you’ll feel the need to create and maintain a presence there.
No, the right way to deal with social networks is integration. You publish your stuff once, and it goes to all your networks. That way you use the tool(s) you prefer, and your friends can see what you’re up to using their preferred sites. So my Twitter followers will see the same thing my Facebook friends do, without my having to update each one separately.
Of course, there are tools on these sites that I’ll want to use, so it’s not like I won’t log in to Facebook or whatever. But the goal I’m working towards is a single place where A) I can post what I’m up to, and B) I can keep track of friends.
There are some WordPress plugins involved, and a few esoteric Facebook or Twitter features, but it’s coming together. (But I’m wondering what this post will look like on Twitter, seeing that it’s well more than 140 characters.)
Slowly but surely it’ll come together. Then I can be really social.
Leland says:
Andrew, when you wrote, “You’ll go crazy; every time a new site gets hot, you’ll feel the need to create and maintain a presence there” my first thought is why?