If you sign up and use social media tools, here’s what might happen to you: the image accompanying this post is my inbox. I recently visited my parents, and I only answered pressing emails … but didn’t really clear stuff out like normal.
Check out the pic – everyone wants to follow! Twitter follow requests … Facebook friend requests … blip.fm new listeners … Friendfeed subscribers … Flickr contacts … even a request to do something from church (they’re using a cool 2.0-ish tool for worship team scheduling). Probably a couple of blog comments in there, too. There were 2 pages of this.
And some of you play with this stuff more than me … I can only imagine what YOUR inbox looks like!
Who to friend? Who to ignore? Who to respond to? And when? Here’s what I do:
- Twitter: I get more of these than the others, so I’m a bit pickier here. I friend you if you sound interesting and don’t look like a spammer. I read your bio and a couple of tweets. Sometimes, I look at your follow-to-follower ratio. I usually don’t follow other libraries or people that sound too much like snakeoil salesmen (i.e, that mention SEO/make money online/I’ll make your life better stuff).
- Also picky with Flickr – I’ll follow you if I know you, if I’ve met you, or if I might meet you professionally (i.e., if you’re a librarian or a social media type).
- Facebook: I follow most people who follow me. I recently had a run of high school chums discover Facebook.
- blip.fm: If you follow me as a listener, I’ll follow you back.
- Friendfeed: Same – I follow back almost everyone who follows me.
- In any of these, if you send me a message/tweet me/write on my wall, I’ll read it and usually respond if it makes sense to do so. Sometimes I read it, think “huh” and move on – no response needed.
- Also – if I come across your blog, your book, or an interesting tweet/post, I might friend/follow you – so I can receive more interesting content from you!
When do I do this? Personally, I usually when I read it and/or when it’s convenient to do so (for MPOW, it’s slightly different – I might cover that in another post). I think of follow requests and comments/tweets/wall posts as introductions and conversation, so it makes sense to me to do it sooner rather than later. But then, I don’t have a ton of them, and find it’s simply easier to quickly deal with a follow request quickly and move on, rather than letting them pile up (unless I’m out of town or away from the web for a bit).
What do you do? Who do you friend? And when do you find the time? Stuff to think about…
Brad Czerniak says
David,
I don’t know if your gmail is your ‘primary’ personal email or not, but nevertheless I’d recommend using filters. If you visit all of those social tools often enough, you’re wasting a lot of time archiving emails.
You could set up a filter that skips the inbox and applies a label. Then, if you’re particularly inclined to look at the redundant communications they’re there, and organized by the service that sent them.
There are also follower management tools for Twitter that you might consider. Since you have a large proportion of followers to number of people you really want to read about, it makes sense to follow everyone who follows you, but filter your homepage stream to your personal friends.
Brad Czerniak says
David,
I don’t know if your gmail is your ‘primary’ personal email or not, but nevertheless I’d recommend using filters. If you visit all of those social tools often enough, you’re wasting a lot of time archiving emails.
You could set up a filter that skips the inbox and applies a label. Then, if you’re particularly inclined to look at the redundant communications they’re there, and organized by the service that sent them.
There are also follower management tools for Twitter that you might consider. Since you have a large proportion of followers to number of people you really want to read about, it makes sense to follow everyone who follows you, but filter your homepage stream to your personal friends.
Brad Czerniak says
David,
I don’t know if your gmail is your ‘primary’ personal email or not, but nevertheless I’d recommend using filters. If you visit all of those social tools often enough, you’re wasting a lot of time archiving emails.
You could set up a filter that skips the inbox and applies a label. Then, if you’re particularly inclined to look at the redundant communications they’re there, and organized by the service that sent them.
There are also follower management tools for Twitter that you might consider. Since you have a large proportion of followers to number of people you really want to read about, it makes sense to follow everyone who follows you, but filter your homepage stream to your personal friends.
davidleeking says
Brad – good suggestions. You’re right, I really do need to at least filter twitter and facebook stuff. That would clean up my inbox a bit. Thanks!
davidleeking says
Brad – good suggestions. You’re right, I really do need to at least filter twitter and facebook stuff. That would clean up my inbox a bit. Thanks!
davidleeking says
Brad – good suggestions. You’re right, I really do need to at least filter twitter and facebook stuff. That would clean up my inbox a bit. Thanks!
Or-Tal Kiriati says
Hi David
I usually use different email accounts for social networks than I use for business or private connections.
I also developed a filtering method, much needed since I am working through so many social networks.
Personally I prefer to connect on LinkedIn or Facebook only with people who I know personally or have done business with. Exceptions are introductions by mutual and trusted connections.
On Twitter I rarely screen my followers. I choose to follow those of offer interesting content, mainly relevant reading material.
Still haven’t figured out FriendFeed. It almost feels like Plaxo – another layer on existing networks.
But there are many more like the meetup groups and various ning networks – each with its relevant set of rules.
Still looking for a tool to help me go through all the relevant reading already screened by others, though… 😉
Or-Tal Kiriati says
Hi David
I usually use different email accounts for social networks than I use for business or private connections.
I also developed a filtering method, much needed since I am working through so many social networks.
Personally I prefer to connect on LinkedIn or Facebook only with people who I know personally or have done business with. Exceptions are introductions by mutual and trusted connections.
On Twitter I rarely screen my followers. I choose to follow those of offer interesting content, mainly relevant reading material.
Still haven’t figured out FriendFeed. It almost feels like Plaxo – another layer on existing networks.
But there are many more like the meetup groups and various ning networks – each with its relevant set of rules.
Still looking for a tool to help me go through all the relevant reading already screened by others, though… 😉
Or-Tal Kiriati says
Hi David
I usually use different email accounts for social networks than I use for business or private connections.
I also developed a filtering method, much needed since I am working through so many social networks.
Personally I prefer to connect on LinkedIn or Facebook only with people who I know personally or have done business with. Exceptions are introductions by mutual and trusted connections.
On Twitter I rarely screen my followers. I choose to follow those of offer interesting content, mainly relevant reading material.
Still haven’t figured out FriendFeed. It almost feels like Plaxo – another layer on existing networks.
But there are many more like the meetup groups and various ning networks – each with its relevant set of rules.
Still looking for a tool to help me go through all the relevant reading already screened by others, though… 😉
phil shapiro says
I also like using YouTube as a social network. I subscribe to any individual whose videos show a modicum of creativity. If I adore a person’s video, I’ll browse thru the videos of the people who have subscribed to that person’s videos. Creativity attracts creativity.
Some folks have links in their YouTube profiles that will tell you more about their work and interests, too.
phil shapiro says
I also like using YouTube as a social network. I subscribe to any individual whose videos show a modicum of creativity. If I adore a person’s video, I’ll browse thru the videos of the people who have subscribed to that person’s videos. Creativity attracts creativity.
Some folks have links in their YouTube profiles that will tell you more about their work and interests, too.
phil shapiro says
I also like using YouTube as a social network. I subscribe to any individual whose videos show a modicum of creativity. If I adore a person’s video, I’ll browse thru the videos of the people who have subscribed to that person’s videos. Creativity attracts creativity.
Some folks have links in their YouTube profiles that will tell you more about their work and interests, too.
Kate says
So, what’s the “2.0-ish tool for worship team scheduling” you referred to? Maybe my worship team should be using it, too.
Kate says
So, what’s the “2.0-ish tool for worship team scheduling” you referred to? Maybe my worship team should be using it, too.
Kate says
So, what’s the “2.0-ish tool for worship team scheduling” you referred to? Maybe my worship team should be using it, too.
davidleeking says
Kate – it’s called http://www.planningcenteronline.com/ and seems pretty cool. It does musician scheduling, sends “accept/decline” emails to musicians, lets you upload PDFs and MP3s attached to a service order of events, etc. Pretty nifty for a church!
davidleeking says
Kate – it’s called http://www.planningcenteronline.com/ and seems pretty cool. It does musician scheduling, sends “accept/decline” emails to musicians, lets you upload PDFs and MP3s attached to a service order of events, etc. Pretty nifty for a church!
Kate says
I should say! I’ll look into it, too. Thanks.
Kate says
I should say! I’ll look into it, too. Thanks.
Kate says
I should say! I’ll look into it, too. Thanks.
Jenny Reiswig says
It’s interesting which social networking services catch on in which fields. Last night I was at a workshop on social media for scientists put on by our regional biotech network and for them, LinkedIn is the one with critical mass. 370,000 LinkedIn members in biotech alone. I don’t really find a lot of my library peers on LinkedIn – more senior management and consultants. Not sure why.
Jenny Reiswig says
It’s interesting which social networking services catch on in which fields. Last night I was at a workshop on social media for scientists put on by our regional biotech network and for them, LinkedIn is the one with critical mass. 370,000 LinkedIn members in biotech alone. I don’t really find a lot of my library peers on LinkedIn – more senior management and consultants. Not sure why.
Jenny Reiswig says
It’s interesting which social networking services catch on in which fields. Last night I was at a workshop on social media for scientists put on by our regional biotech network and for them, LinkedIn is the one with critical mass. 370,000 LinkedIn members in biotech alone. I don’t really find a lot of my library peers on LinkedIn – more senior management and consultants. Not sure why.