Recent posts by Beth Harte and Scott Monty forced some hard thinking about how I manage my identity on social networks, how that impacts certain audiences. Social media conversations are crossing interaction boundaries, and what is personal or professional in nature is becoming blurred more than ever. As is true in many cases, planning is ideal, but sometimes we have to let certain identities evolve based on the audience and channel.
- Facebook remains a personal environment. After all, it was designed to link college students, so we naturally began linking with past high school and college friends, most of whom have little to do with our professional lives. For communicators, this is a double edged sword:
- Facebook conversations tend to be more personal and therefore more passionate, the sort of conversations in which we all want to participate — and get our clients’ participation.
- As a Facebook participant, we often want to keep our conversations on a personal level and we become weary of letting professional contacts see that we may have tied one on at happy hour on Friday.
I tend to connect with my friends/family, although I do have some professional contacts slowly migrating to my friend list. My gut tells me there has to be a level of trust beyond “acquaintance” in the professional field. That barrier, however, seems to be breaking down because of…
- Twitter! As Scott described it, “a free-for-all.” In my experience, Twitter is almost entirely professional, but conversations are rich and varied. People aren’t afraid to let their hair down a bit. The ideas come quickly, and if you’re in the communications biz, it’s one of the best learning environments around. It’s also a great tool for making professional contacts personal ones over time. Just don’t expect me to automatically follow you back unless you bring some value to me.I understand why there has been little crossover between Facebook and Twitter. Most of my friends — many noncommunicators — don’t yet see the value in Twitter as a business tool while they find Facebook an ideal forum for personal interaction. Communicators tend to forget how those in other lines of work plot their time, and Twitter is just a more complex version of a Facebook status update to them right now. That seems to be changing as people see the value in the true exchange of ideas Twitter brings, but it’s going to take some time.
- LinkedIn is simple: it’s a business forum. I don’t think I have a single contact on LinkedIn that I gained outside of a business capacity or aren’t communicators I know personally. We need to know each other’s work and be comfortable linking both of our professional reputations. LinkedIn is a dynamic method of exchanging professional information and reputations, but it’s not conducive to conversations and idea flow on a daily basis.
Bottom line? If you’re a LinkedIn contact, I want go to lunch with you. If you’re a Twitter contact, I want to go to happy hour after the conference with you. If you’re a Facebook contact, I want you to come over to my house to watch the hockey game. Yes, there are always exceptions, but doing a quick glance over my lists, I can apply that analogy to 95 percent each contact list.
How do you handle your social media contacts? Are they as separated as mine or do you have fewer barriers? Let me know!
Photo by DBarefoot
Tags: beth harte · facebook · linkedin · scott monty · social media · twitterNo Comments.
Some of you may know me from my former (and soon to be again) blog, Dorkologist. After much pondering, I am splitting my thoughts: here for all musings public affairs, communications, internet and community. Dorkologist will be for all of the personal stuff: music, audio, cycling, cars, DC + Detroit… you get the idea.
