I feel that you should have a presence on as many social networks as you are capable. The scalability of the networks should be at your personal discretion. If your work, subs, or blog entries start to suffer because you have over extended yourself...obviously drop one or two and refocus. However...don't automate. I hate it when people auto-dm me or automatically ping their blog out...social media should be social. Interesting article, Dan I wonder what others will think.
Shefaly
· 11 months ago
A great exhaustive post which deserves wider reading.
Many of my otherwise super-studly-smart friends are social media noobs. I end up giving 101 tutorials all the time because they are not sure whom to ask. I shall forward this link generously now.
Dan Schawbel
· 11 months ago
@Stuart - You need to do what you can manage. There are some social networks that will help you own your Google results, which you should obviously join. The other factor is that you have a competitive disadvantage if you don't join the largest social networks because people are searching for you on there (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc).
Joining too many isn't scalable and will reflect poorly on your personal brand if you are unable to update them with accurate information. As you become more successful, this becomes a requirement.
Stuart Foster
· 11 months ago
I keep everything up to date though... Does it take vigilance? Absolutely. But I like to have a really broad solid presence in a lot of different places. I have my hands in a lot of pots...but I like it that way. This isn't for everyone though, and I totally understand if you aren't willing to spend as much time as I do...doing the due-diligence to keep those profiles up to date. I don't just set up a profile and leave...I actively participate in every community I join.
Craig
· 11 months ago
I agree, there are so many social networks out there, and more trying to become the next big hit everyday. It gets frustrating to think I need to sign up for all of these when I have no real need for them. The key is do what works for you personally and will work for your company brand. Stick to the ones you like and get involved. I have to be honest, I am not in FriendFeed and don't plan on it. Still not sure the reason to it. What people don't realize is that there are also many people not in any social network who do just fine. Keep to what you can manage and have fun.
Beth Kanter
· 11 months ago
This is a great piece! Last month I wrote a post called "Your organization's social networking doesn't have to be like mastercard, you don't have to be everywhere" http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/11/your...
Clients, recruiters prefer to google a name before they trust a person. I even do it before buying a book. It shows that I am credible. I worked on projects for personal branding as well as corporate brand management successfully and in most cases my clients knew what they want. People started realizing the importance of web2.0 in personal brand management.
Dan Schawbel
· 11 months ago
You won't see celebrities on all the social networks for this very reason. They divide their time (or their management) into proven social media marketing tools (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc) to make the most of their time. It's all about ROI/ROR (return on relationship). You can't have a strong relationship with people if you're spread too thin!
Gadget Sleuth
· 11 months ago
Yep, spreading too thin is a big mistake, and joining too many of any type of site can cause that to occur. It's best to focus on the top 2-3 in a category and make the best of those (applies to any type of site in any genre really).
Dan Schawbel
· 11 months ago
@ Bryan - I can't claim to be a social bookmarking expert, but I do know that if you enable your readers (if you have a blog) to bookmark and share your posts, then their activities will benefit you greater than your own. 3rd party endorsements are always strong than your own, unless you are Bill Clinton, etc.
If you just like using social bookmarking sites, then I'd recommend the big ones again, such as Stumbleupon, Digg, Reddit, etc.
John McElhenney
· 11 months ago
Really... I mean really? Do you need to ask this? If you don't think so you are not getting out there enough. If you don't leave spoils of the social media war spread across the interwebs with gleeful abandon, you must not be participating at a high enough, risky enough level.
andre
· 11 months ago
Very good post. But did you try this new tool www.tarpipe.com to publish and control the flow of your information ? give it a try ;) i love it
Dan Schawbel
· 11 months ago
@andre - come clean..do you work there? I'll check it out
@John - I think we do have to ask this or I wouldn't have spend hours writing it for Mashable! Not everyone here is a social media "expert." Even the experts need to rethink how they operate as they become more busy.
andre
· 11 months ago
@Dan I'm clean :) I'm not working there ... and this was not spam. I think it can be interesting in this discussion. I happen to know the project it's from portugal (my country) and i know the founders ... but also i've been using it and it serves the problem that you were talking about. Hope this didn't made you think i was just making publicity And actualy i think you should join as much services you can to promote yourself .. just have to find the best ones and find an easy way to publish information to them all
John McElhenney
· 11 months ago
@Dan I agree. I was being the sword against which you could clash. But do tell me, why is there a Gravatar based system here in the posting tools. And right up there */points towards top right of monitor/* you have the Google Friends Connect login. Can't we all play together?
I know it probably has something to do with wanting to get into the Friends Connect stream quickly, and gosh knows most of us in SM do.
Yep, my one other comment, the dang, "gravatar supported image" thing caused me, no wait, allowed me, to add another profile to my profile keychain. Jeesh.
The good thing about it is. It will never end.
Profile on is my motto. The strong will survive the weak will implode.
Happy Tuesday.
JMac
John McElhenney
· 11 months ago
Sorry for the dang spacing problems. Guess the system doesn't support line breaks but needs something more like this.
And thanks for giving me a gravatar introduction. See, that pretty pic above. Gracias amigo!
David Leonhardt
· 11 months ago
Twitter, Facebook, Digg: Can You Join Too Many Networks? Yes, and I have...many times. However, I am active in just a few. I wish I had more time, but Twitter, Sphinn and Zoomit Canada really act as my hubs, with FaceBook and a couple forums when I get a chance. From those hubs, I can find all the great content (such as Mashable posts) and participate in a myriad of blog-type communities (such as mashable).
Dan Schawbel
· 11 months ago
@ John - thanks for bringing up Friend Connect. When enough blogs start using it, I think we can revisit this post. For now, it's more futuristic and ambitious.
Afro Elite
· 11 months ago
What we tend to forget is the first word "social". People would always gravitate to the networks with their most valuable group of friends. This is a subjective decision.
Maggie Tsai
· 11 months ago
Great post!
Relating to Bryan's comment, thought you may be interested in Diigo V3 ~ "Unintentional" Social Networking http://tinyurl.com/59dmb3 and eHub's comment about "Non-Intrusive" Social Networking http://tinyurl.com/5b6nc6
Maggie Tsai
· 11 months ago
Understand. Here is a suggestion for your and many people's dilemma:
With diigo, not only you can bookmark, you can also add highlights, sticky notes and have interactions right on the webpage to enrich your browsing and organization experience. You can also simultaneously bookmark to several bookmarking sites – make it easy to have one single source without giving up other services. So it's not a competing but rather a complement service to delicious!
Diigo also really adds the "social" in social bookmarking and in a very meaningful way http://tinyurl.com/3soanp
By the way, delicious is the recipient of Blogger's choice Open Web Award in the social bookmarking category (congrats!) and Diigo just received the People's choice award. Again, quite a complement pair :-)
twitterfail
· 11 months ago
epicfail on teh web n00b lol
Ethel Powers
· 11 months ago
Big time Yahoo Buzz for this article.
Rebecca
· 11 months ago
Great post, Dan. I was thinking of this exact issue last night. Online communities are the new big thing and people are fast approaching burnout already. I wonder what the next big thing will be, and who will win and who will lose in the social networking game?
Dan Caplan
· 11 months ago
Dan I agree that too many sites can useless but you also have to take into consideration the type of sites you post a profile on. Some sites are mainly to socialize and connect with old friends and some are for executives and college grads. I don't think you should base it on size of network either, but on relevance to your field. The Lawyer site is a perfect example, if it is the premier site for lawyers and it is the must have because it is the defacto standard, then it doesn't matter how much traffic it gets. Facebook and Myspace would be a waste for a lawyer and would do more harm than good for credibility. (unless a DUI Lawyer)
mrlarrygreen
· 11 months ago
This has just made my day!
mrlarrygreen
· 11 months ago
This has made my day.
Joe | A New Band A Day.com
· 11 months ago
Yipes, this is an interesting article, from a personal and business point of view. There are so many pros and cons with Social Networking - this helps cut though the crud.
Also, I (naively) had never heard of Twitterfeed before. Thanks!
Free Advertising Tools
· 11 months ago
Very nice post. To me, it's just impossible to join so many different optionswe have out there, there's just too many of them. Even just a few is sometimes overwhelming.
They're very good to make business, but just one or two at the most i think is the most convenient.
Kyle Maxwell
· 11 months ago
This would be less of an issue if networks shared their graphs so that I can take my connections with me across various sites, assuming appropriate privacy controls.
Tschai
· 11 months ago
After having joined LinkedIn I my 'friends' went (also) towards Plaxo. And got invited there too. I just deleted my LinkedIn account and I gave up rather easy.
I felt I have to spend almost full-time on social networking, blogging, commenting...etc
Now I try to do it on my own pace and make my own blog the center of my universe.
The kids love it now that I spend more quality time with them!
Agile Cyborg
· 11 months ago
I'm in your camp. Unless one is making quantifiable returns on working these social networks the obsessive nature of the process can impede production in areas that may be far more important.
The article is still one of the best attempts I've read yet that cogently presents a clear path into the jungle of social network profiting.
Mary
· 11 months ago
Great article, Dan. In the museum field, we're getting told that we need to become involved with all these different social networks in order to market ourselves. By using several of them in my personal life, I've realized that this takes much more than merely signing up for an account. My rule of thumb before adopting a new social network is to ask myself a simple question: Do I have the time to commit to this properly? If I don't have the time, I don't sign up for an account.
Sharon Alters
· 11 months ago
The dilemma of social networks is protecting your reputation online. If you do not join a network and someone else does with your name, then there could be conflicting information showing up on Google. Jeff Turner wrote a great blog about this on Active Rain a couple of months ago. Made me think about that aspect as well. I agree that you can't spread yourself too thin, but some sites post to others - my tweets are showing up on Plaxo which a friend just invited me to this weekend.
Brian Buser
· 11 months ago
Dan, I work for Minggl and we think as long as data flows between social sites and apps exist to help automate managing relationships in a way that is meaningful to the user that we can continue to use more social sites. We've written a blog with more detail...http://blog.minggl.com/2008/12/how-many-social-networks-can-you-handle/ Thanks for starting this conversation.
John McElhenney
· 11 months ago
Here's one more group-team-account-tribe-cause looking for visionaries.
The future lies very much within niche social networks, which ultimately will have far greater appeal for people within specific jobs or professions. Such niche networks are allowing people to interact and engage with each other at a much more meaningful level. What’s more, suppliers to specific professions can use niche networks to target their communications very much more accurately.
Financial services is a good example of niche online social networks in action. IFA Life for example is a financial social network where financial planners and wealth managers can network with each other, share best practice and debate industry issues etc online. Quite handy right now given the state of the markets world wide.
Consumers also use IFA Life to find a financial planner in their area.
Philip Calvert Sales and Online Communication Skills Speaker
Mary
· 11 months ago
I would hate for social networks to get too niche-y, however. I love that social networks (the internet, in general) have me talking to authors, lawyers, business people, musicians, tech gurus, and others not in my profession. The cross-pollination between career fields gives rise to wonderful ideas.
Louisa
· 11 months ago
Great post! The huge number of social networking sites out there is extremely overwhelming. I personally use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, however agree with you that LinkedIn is the best in terms of professional use. I work as a recruiter in Boston for Hollister (www.hollisterstaff.com) and have been encouraging all of my clients to get on social networking sites asap. From a recruiting perspective they are very helpful and can provide job seekers with great tips, and even sometimes align them with potential employers. Thanks for the great post!
James from BabySpot.com
· 11 months ago
Great Post!! I think we will begin to see people using niche sites which embrace large network tools such as twitter/facebook connect etc....
my twitter ID jamesatbabyspot
Mark
· 11 months ago
The web will go towards quality, not quantity (hopefully). There is too much unfiltered chaos on the web, especially in the online dating sector.
Fabietto
· 11 months ago
Thank You very much!
Fabietto, Young Italian Artist
TxStrongProud
· 11 months ago
I am just starting to dip into the Social Networking and have about 9 sites that I use right now. I'm working on how to link each of my sites together at the moment. This wear the world has gone, espeically in the business world.
TxStrongProud
· 11 months ago
I am just starting to dip into the Social Networking and have about 9 sites that I use right now. I'm working on how to link each of my sites together at the moment. This wear the world has gone, espeically in the business world.
No, you can never join too many social networks. Why? Because it's easy.
In the same way as it's dead easy to start up your own business.
However, starting up your own business and being a credible member of a multitude of social networks requires the same thing of you; that you're able to manage what you've taken on...
Kevin Horne
· 10 months ago
Well done. This can apply to marketers also, who are wondering which ones they should "join" (and which ones they shouldnt bother with).
P.S. Does anyone at Mashable (or reading these comments) have/seen data on how many SNs the average person already belongs to? thanks!
David Hopkins
· 9 months ago
I wish I'd found this article months ago when I really started using social networks, this would have really helped me manage teh various sites I belonged to. I've now droppes a few that have not done anything for me, and am really only using Twitter and YouTube for research and networking.
Martin
· 9 months ago
Pretty interesting idea to have a spreadsheet with social networking websites :)
Moneymonk
· 7 months ago
Nice Dan
Kathy Amundson
· 7 months ago
Interesting article on managing social networks.
williamarruda
· 7 months ago
From a personal branding perspective, it's important to be a part of all relevant networks so you can be found by others while increasing the volume of your Google results. When someone googles you, they are making decisions about you based on the volume and relevance of results. So you need to manage both simultaneously. But social networking can take over your life - so have profiles on all relevant networks but use the networking functions of just one or two.
Really... I mean really? Do you need to ask this? If you don't think so you are not getting out there enough. If you don't leave spoils of the social media war spread across the interwebs with gleeful abandon, you must not be participating at a high enough, risky enough level.
livemercial 'in
· 3 months ago
What about joining networks to test them out. If we don't like them, should we stay joined in or just delete the account?
All Comments
Many of my otherwise super-studly-smart friends are social media noobs. I end up giving 101 tutorials all the time because they are not sure whom to ask. I shall forward this link generously now.
Joining too many isn't scalable and will reflect poorly on your personal brand if you are unable to update them with accurate information. As you become more successful, this becomes a requirement.
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/11/your...
Great advice about the spreadsheet.
This relates to some of the trends for 2009 -- that we're going to have social media indigestion and start getting more focused
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/12/soci...
Thanks for an excellent useful piece.
Clients, recruiters prefer to google a name before they trust a person. I even do it before buying a book. It shows that I am credible. I worked on projects for personal branding as well as corporate brand management successfully and in most cases my clients knew what they want. People started realizing the importance of web2.0 in personal brand management.
If you just like using social bookmarking sites, then I'd recommend the big ones again, such as Stumbleupon, Digg, Reddit, etc.
But did you try this new tool www.tarpipe.com to publish and control the flow of your information ? give it a try ;) i love it
@John - I think we do have to ask this or I wouldn't have spend hours writing it for Mashable! Not everyone here is a social media "expert." Even the experts need to rethink how they operate as they become more busy.
I think it can be interesting in this discussion.
I happen to know the project it's from portugal (my country) and i know the founders ... but also i've been using it and it serves the problem that you were talking about.
Hope this didn't made you think i was just making publicity
And actualy i think you should join as much services you can to promote yourself .. just have to find the best ones and find an easy way to publish information to them all
I know it probably has something to do with wanting to get into the Friends Connect stream quickly, and gosh knows most of us in SM do.
Yep, my one other comment, the dang, "gravatar supported image" thing caused me, no wait, allowed me, to add another profile to my profile keychain. Jeesh.
The good thing about it is. It will never end.
Profile on is my motto. The strong will survive the weak will implode.
Happy Tuesday.
JMac
And thanks for giving me a gravatar introduction. See, that pretty pic above. Gracias amigo!
Relating to Bryan's comment, thought you may be interested in Diigo V3 ~ "Unintentional" Social Networking http://tinyurl.com/59dmb3
and eHub's comment about "Non-Intrusive" Social Networking http://tinyurl.com/5b6nc6
With diigo, not only you can bookmark, you can also add highlights, sticky notes and have interactions right on the webpage to enrich your browsing and organization experience. You can also simultaneously bookmark to several bookmarking sites – make it easy to have one single source without giving up other services. So it's not a competing but rather a complement service to delicious!
Diigo also really adds the "social" in social bookmarking and in a very meaningful way http://tinyurl.com/3soanp
By the way, delicious is the recipient of Blogger's choice Open Web Award in the social bookmarking category (congrats!) and Diigo just received the People's choice award. Again, quite a complement pair :-)
Also, I (naively) had never heard of Twitterfeed before. Thanks!
To me, it's just impossible to join so many different optionswe have out there, there's just too many of them.
Even just a few is sometimes overwhelming.
They're very good to make business, but just one or two at the most i think is the most convenient.
I just deleted my LinkedIn account and I gave up rather easy.
I felt I have to spend almost full-time on social networking, blogging, commenting...etc
Now I try to do it on my own pace and make my own blog the center of my universe.
The kids love it now that I spend more quality time with them!
The article is still one of the best attempts I've read yet that cogently presents a clear path into the jungle of social network profiting.
VIRTUAL AGILE STANDUP: for wikisocial.org, this morning at 10am cst / 8am pst :: more details at www.wikisocial.org http://ff.im/-jSP5
The future lies very much within niche social networks, which ultimately will have far greater appeal for people within specific jobs or professions. Such niche networks are allowing people to interact and engage with each other at a much more meaningful level. What’s more, suppliers to specific professions can use niche networks to target their communications very much more accurately.
Financial services is a good example of niche online social networks in action. IFA Life for example is a financial social network where financial planners and wealth managers can network with each other, share best practice and debate industry issues etc online. Quite handy right now given the state of the markets world wide.
Consumers also use IFA Life to find a financial planner in their area.
See http://www.ifalife.com
Thanks again.
Philip Calvert
Sales and Online Communication Skills Speaker
my twitter ID jamesatbabyspot
Fabietto, Young Italian Artist
www.1800GOGUARD.COM
join too many social
networks. Why?
Because it's easy.
In the same way as
it's dead easy to
start up your own
business.
However, starting up
your own business
and being a credible
member of a
multitude of social
networks requires
the same thing of
you; that you're
able to manage what
you've taken on...
P.S. Does anyone at Mashable (or reading these comments) have/seen data on how many SNs the average person already belongs to? thanks!
Best.
William
www.williamarruda.com