This might be a question just for us social media consultants, but I think it is more generally applicable: do we need to sign up for every new social network that comes along so that we can reserve our names thereon?
This came up because I just signed up and joined friendfeed.com (and yes, the obligatory link: You can find me on friendfeed.com as DaveTaylor) partially because I was curious about it, but also because I received email from a colleague that included the comment sign up now to get good user names.
But do we really need to do this?
What’s your opinion, fellow blog and social media consultant?
Dave,
It seems that every week there is a new social network that pops up like a rampant mushroom! While I am tuned in to all these newbies, I struggle to see the value of joining all of them. After all if you don’t work and have all the time in the world, then just maybe you could participate in all of them. Its not just the main brand sites that come calling to get you joined up, there are also all the Ning networking groups, within your particular industry niches that are probably more valuable to join.
Personally, I think I am active in 5 main networks (which LinkedIn is my primary) and active in 4 Ning networks within my industry. The trouble is when you combine those with both my blogs that I write, there is a little thing call Time that does become very scarce!!!
Andy
Comment by Andy Headworth — February 27, 2008 @ 3:51 am
Join to understand the site better — any decent SN would allow you to find members by more than a screen name (email address, real name, etc)
Comment by Brian — February 27, 2008 @ 7:54 am
Hi Dave, I’ve enjoyed your blogs. What I’ve seen is that people get really bothered by having to join multiple SN’s and yet, they also don’t necessarily religiously use any particularly one (rather a few). So, it would be hard to be on one and have that cover all your bases.
One thought is to go with the one that is the most proactive about helping you get your profile info and content OUT of their network and onto OTHER sites… so they do the work for you and protect your time. The reward? When you DO network, you do it within their walls.
This is certainly possible with a private (white label) network for your company, group, etc., that then feeds out to the popular SN’s. Ie: change in status on one updates change of status on the other. Blog on one feeds to populate content on the other, etc. That is, of course, the whole idea behind Open Social (something that got a TON of press but seems to be crawling along very slowly…)
That may be the best way to go, because the big SN’s may be less motivated to help feed your info out (since people are still clamoring to get in).
Food for thought…
Comment by EMcEC — August 20, 2008 @ 8:22 pm