Advice on using social media

Posted by Robert Merrill on October 8, 2009 under Tech Tips | Be the First to Comment

Yesterday (6 October 2009), Penelope Trunk, the Brazen Careerist, spoke at the Promega Biotechnology Center.

She’s an engaging and thought-provoking speaker. Though some of her factoids seemed to be just plain made up, she did say some things that ring true about how to use the various social media that I thought might be useful to others. So here’s Penelope’s advice, enhanced (I hope) with my own experiences.

Facebook is for keeping track of friends and family as they scatter. It’s OK, even expected, to talk about your dog dying. It’s not really for business, because of the nature of the conversation and because it’s basically a closed network. Facebook is fun. I’m there every day.

LinkedIn is a tool for organizing and showcasing your connections—“It’s prom night for networking,” says Penelope. I didn’t go to prom, but I was a relatively early adopter of LinkedIn. LI is definitely about business. It’s the place to present where you’ve worked, who you know and who knows you, and who you respect and who respects you. You can also put a page for your company on LinkedIn. Here’s uFunctional LLC, for example. It also has a Q&A section, but the quality of the discourse is only so-so.

If you really want to get answers to questions, use Experts Exchange. I carry a basic subscription (currently $12/month) and even though I don’t do very much hard-core tech consulting, when I do get a question from a client (or a family member—like some of you, I’m my extended family’s IT help desk), I quickly wind up on EE. It saves my bacon once every couple of months.

Twitter. I’m new to it, having resisted it, and only got on so I could follow a client’s tweets. I’m really starting to like it. For general research and awareness, I used to rely on blogs, RSS feeds, and subscriptions to online newsletters. I struggled to keep up, because the signal-to-noise ratio was so poor. And I still felt like I was missing out because of all the blogs, RSS feeds, and newsletters I wasn’t reading. The magic of Twitter is that it’s people-centered. You follow people. And at 140 characters per tweet, even if the signal-to-noise is poor, you can scan it really fast. So, get on Twitter and start following a couple of industry notables you respect. Follow up on what they tweet. If it’s not useful, un-follow them. If it’s useful, look at who they follow. Currently, most of my “I’m glad I read that” experiences started on Twitter, and it’s causing me to reshape the blogs I read and subscriptions I hang onto. Twitter’s more worthwhile than I imagined. And if somebody constantly tweets about what their dog ate for breakfast, you can either skim over it (they only get 140 characters, after all) or un-follow them. Sometimes it’s fun to read the random stuff that people tweet. And they only get 140 characters, after all.

StumbleUpon and Del.icio.us are information organizers, says Penelope Trunk. I’ve never tried SU and never used del.icio.us regularly. I need to give them a(nother) chance.

Penelope says that 20-somethings don’t suffer from information overload because they’ve grown up with it, and because they know how to use these tools to keep track of friends and family, business connections, and sources of information efficiently and effectively.

She also heartily encourages everyone to start a blog, and talk about what they’re knowledgeable and passionate about, that’s relevant to the audience they hope to attract. You don’t need a huge following—most blogs don’t have one—you just need a steady following of people who find your thoughts useful.

Thanks for reading mine. Please register and comment if you find it useful. I promise not to divulge your email address.

Not only is it rude, it’s stupid. It’s not like I’m going to be able to retire because I sold the 14 email addresses of the people who actually read my blog.