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This is not a which platform is the best. More I'm interested in two things:
1. How do you use the varying types of platforms?
2. How do they respectively affect google searches for your name?
I'm thinking from the perspective of an individual, rather than a company.
I know it is easy to get social media burnout but I see FB, Twitter and Pinterest as serving different functions for me. Facebook is good for goofing off and for seeing what actual real life friends are up to. I also follow pages from interests, although I'm starting to find that a little annoying. Pinterest, I use it as a visual dream and inspiration book. Basically visual representations of whatever I'm intersted in, whatever inspires me, etc etc. My daydreams basically.
Twitter, now this is the interesting one--I'm on there to follow my academic interests (social media and also international politics) but I find it the most problematic to use coherently. Several reasons for that:
- Many accounts push out update after update of nothing but links. And I'm not talking spam, but actual organizations, just posting links, often to their own site.
- Some public personalities and authorities in some of the areas, post a lot of stream-of-consciousness style, and sometimes at a rate of 10 posts an hour.
The above two crowd out the feed. Furthermore, two added areas of conflict:
- I am also interested in sports, and other things that I wouldn't mind following on Twitter like events on my favorite series and what have you. Is Twitter necessarily only for following one area or one niche?
- I do get engaged in political stuff. Nothing childish, and no flame wars, but political nonetheless.
How are you guys getting around those problems on Twitter?
Meanwhile, with Google+ honestly I'm stumped, but I understand that in terms of "internet searches" or "googling", that it is the most effective social media platform.
Last edited by superseiyan; 04-08-2013 at 07:58 AM..
LinkedIn would be your best option for raising your profile in a professional context, but it isn't the best place to talk sports and politics, unless your work is sports or politics.
A few hardy souls are trying to use Google+ for what you describe. You might look up some top Google+ users and add them to your circles to see if that's the platform for you.
Twitter is such a mixed bag of quality content and pure dreck, that it's hard to stand out.
Pinterest skews heavily female, so you might stand out - in a bad way, discussing sports and politics there. Unless you want to discuss the sports and politics that are of interest to celebrities like Ryan Gosling.
LinkedIn would be your best option for raising your profile in a professional context, but it isn't the best place to talk sports and politics, unless your work is sports or politics.
Twitter is such a mixed bag of quality content and pure dreck, that it's hard to stand out.
Twitter is amazing for first-hand news, and for avoiding media clutter--I think the dreck comes from following celebrities, or perezhilton gossip type stuff, which admittedly is a large volume of twitter. But I've never run into any of that stuff.
Yet it's still a little challenging to use because feeds, conversations, etc seem very much issue specific. Like it seems you can't both talk about and gain a following on two separate interests on twitter effectively, you'd have to pick one.
Linkedn is even more of a mystery for me than Google+. I have no idea what it does, or what the point of it is other than a place to put up your resume (but how is that different from what careerbuilder or monster whwere?) I'll check it out though.
Bo, are you on all five platforms? If so do you use them for different purposes?
Bo, are you on all five platforms? If so do you use them for different purposes?
Almost all of them. I'm not on Pinterest, but my wife is and she keeps me informed about it. I've read quite a few articles about it and none of them have led me to believe that I need to be there.
I use Facebook to keep up with friends and family and to see what some companies are saying. I maintain a FB presence for an organization I belong to. (All of the posts on behalf of the organization are mine.)
IMO LinkedIn is for work and keeping my professional credentials in a place where employers can find them. Some people use the social capabilities there to discuss issues in their professions or fields of interest. I don't. If I wanted to do that, it would be as good a place as any.
I have a personal Twitter account and a professional one. I also manage the Twitter presences for a couple of organizations I belong to.
I have dabbled in Google+ but not extensively. I read some of the feeds of public figures and a few companies there, but find that they're generally not very social or interactive, because not many private people are bothering with Google+.
Twitter, now this is the interesting one--I'm on there to follow my academic interests (social media and also international politics) but I find it the most problematic to use coherently. Several reasons for that:
- Many accounts push out update after update of nothing but links. And I'm not talking spam, but actual organizations, just posting links, often to their own site.
- Some public personalities and authorities in some of the areas, post a lot of stream-of-consciousness style, and sometimes at a rate of 10 posts an hour.
The above two crowd out the feed. Furthermore, two added areas of conflict:
- I am also interested in sports, and other things that I wouldn't mind following on Twitter like events on my favorite series and what have you. Is Twitter necessarily only for following one area or one niche?
- I do get engaged in political stuff. Nothing childish, and no flame wars, but political nonetheless.
How are you guys getting around those problems on Twitter?
I use Twitter's Lists feature because I follow nearly everyone who follows me as a nice reciprocation - However, the problem this creates is your timeline becomes so cluttered, random, all over the map, etc that I am forced to use lists. Fortunately, they're easy to set up and use! So my lists "become" my useful timelines. My main TL? Quite useless. Edit: There's a setting to let people find your Twitter account via your email. I believe it's under Settings and it's not complicated. I chose to disable it.
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Meanwhile, with Google+ honestly I'm stumped, but I understand that in terms of "internet searches" or "googling", that it is the most effective social media platform.
Still learning it. So far so good. Anyhoo, did you know you can set a Google Alert on your own name? I did for kicks and giggles. It turns out there are other people with my name that aren't me - and I get alerts on them, LOL. No big surprise. My name isn't super unique.
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So my lists "become" my useful timelines. My main TL? Quite useless.
Edit: There's a setting to let people find your Twitter account via your email. I believe it's under Settings and it's not complicated. I chose to disable it.
