So, I’ve been grappling with how to best manage my personal feed across social networks. It seems silly to update my status separately on several social networks when services like Ping.fm exist to enable broadcast updates across networks.
A few weeks ago I did a test and linked my Facebook and Plaxo Pulse feeds to auto-update when I post updates on Twitter. I then asked my contacts how they felt about receiving so many status updates from me. I got some honest feedback: it was too much information.
I am not a prolific tweeter–I update 0-5 times per day. Most of my tweets are observations or status updates, some are sharine interesting articles, blog posts or concepts. So, why did this seemingly perfect concept of cross-social network updating not work in practice?
There are three reasons: the audience, the origin and the action. Though all of my Facebook friends and Plaxo contacts are, by definition, participating in social media, the majority of them have not immersed themselves in it from a cultural perspective. Just as most news publications use blogging as another article format, so do many social networkers use these tools primarily as another form of interpersonal communications, just as they use e-mail or IM. In both cases, they have not made the big shift from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0: from a world of information exchange to a world of deep and meaningful collaboration. As I’ve already stood on my Web 2.0 soapbox, I’ll refrain from repeating myself here, except to say that embracing social media means adopting a single persona and believing that collaborative thinking is superior to self-promotion.
Second, Twitter (and not only Twitter, I should add) is of a different ilk than Facebook, Plaxo, LinkedIn and others. Committed members of the Twitter community have made taken the plunge and are living by the tenets for Web 2.0: trust, transparency, openness and collaboration. Furthermore, a large number of people who follow one another on Twitter met one another on Twitter. This stands in stark contrast to networks like Facebook which are founded on the principle of retrobuilding existing networks. Twitter enthusiasts want more detailed information more frequently because this interaction is the basis of their relationships.
Finally, the action: on Facebook or Plaxo, a status update is a broadcast; on Twitter the action is micro-casting, not broadcasting. Twitter followers find one another through keyword searches or threads based on topics of interest, geographic location, or social situation, e.g. being a mom. Microcasting is Chris Anderson’s Long Tail in action: people building communities around niche areas of interest.
So, for now, I will keep my tweets separate from my status updates, but I have to say that at this particular point in my social network evolution, I feel a closer sense of community and am experiencing more meaningful collaboration with my Twitter followers and followees than with my real-life–albeit retrobuilt–network.
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Maxine, you’ve hit on a conceptual idea I’ve developed over the last year during the invigoration of Web 2.0 and with which I’ve become outright frustrated. I do believe that we are in need of some central mechanism to make updates about ourselves — whether it be tweets, career changes, movies watched, etc. — only once rather than having to go to every social network site to do so. As you’ve mentioned, many of us don’t even know all the sites out there and their specific capabilities. Do I use Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Reunion, or some other site that I’m not aware of? I find the most agonizing aspect of social network sites is what you’ve touched on as information overload. Do I really need to know that one of my personal friends on Facebook woke up hungover that day? Or, do I feel compelled to broadcast or micro-cast to my friends what I’m doing right now? To each our own, but trying to balance the care required with all of these social sites with all of the other important things in my life, including actually seeing people face-to-face and reading books to my kids before they fall asleep, becomes more of a chore. No site do I find the greatest repulsion than Facebook. It seems like every keystroke is recorded and printed on your Wall. And, unless I’ve overlooked some uber-delete function, you have to delete comments one by one. Don’t get me wrong. I think social collaboration in both electronic and physical form is an absolute need for us as humans. But at some point it becomes bothersome to both the author and reader of the interactions.
Maxine – you’re right on about this. I also linked my Facebook status with my Twitter updates, and my Facebook friends hate me for it! Now, my FB status messages are things like “check out @chrisbrogan’s latest blog post on social media” when theirs are more similar to, “Man, I am soooo hungover!” My friends consistently wrote on my wall and left me messages saying how “old” I was, and they’re afraid to talk to me now about personal stuff for fear that I have work friends reading my page. My Twitter network is very different from my Facebook network – Twitter = friends from work while FB = friends I’d go to a bar with later that night. Sometimes, I’ve got people in both networks, but for the most part, that’s how mine are split up.
Brian– thanks very much for your comments. Indeed, these frustrations that we are both experiencing are indicators that we’re living amidst a “social network work in progress.” The vision for 2.0 is one in which collaboration improves our lives and simplifies our workflow — not one that complicates our relationships and creates addtional work for us. We are still on the front-end of this new era… better solutions are emerging daily. I am grateful that, despite the frustrations, speed of change is exponential.
Steve-thank you for commenting! Yes I agree that at this point work and personal contacts often reside and are managed on separate networks, but as 2.0 is all about the fluidity of a single persona, I would argue that we won’t be able to maintain these superficial divides for long. My Twitter contacts are becoming friends and my Facebook friend list is increasingly peppered with business contacts…
@mixtmedia – absolutely! Especially in our field, where we’re “out there” more so than most, I think we’re leading examples of how there’s no longer going to be a personal Steve and a professional Steve. There’s just going to be brand for Steve, and we’re all going to have to make adjustments to that. That’s why I think it’s funny when I have friends (Facebook friends) see that I have work friends on my Facebook account, and they ask me, “aren’t you scared that your boss might see you in a picture drinking?” I have to laugh because my boss, co-workers, etc. have to know that I’m a person too – I’m 21 years old, and can go out have a drink with friends. I think the challenge for me isn’t necessarily getting my head wrapped around this convergence, but in educating my friends about it!